41st YEAR. 



CHICAGO, ILL,, APRIL 18, 1901, 



No, 16, 



^ Editorial Comments. ^ ^ 



Are AVe Businesslike ? is a question askt by Arthur C. Miller 

 in the American Bee-Keeper. He thinks bee-keepers do not equip 

 themselves in a way to do their work in the most economical manner. 

 Too many try to make their own hives, or get along with a cheap 

 bee-smoker. He says. " If the business is worthy of your attention at 

 all, it is worthy the best tools and implements to do it with. Perhaps 

 you can not spare the cash for many things needed ; if not, then get 

 the most important thing first, and the others as you can." 



Freight Rate on Comb Honey. — On page 211 we called 

 attention to the fact that the Western Classification Committee had 

 before it a proposition to raise the freight rate on comb honey. We 

 also urged that everybody interested should address a letter to Mr. J. 

 T. Ripley, chairman of the Western Classification Committee, Room 

 604, Great Northern Building, Chicago, 111., protesting against the 

 proposed injustice. Among the responses to our editorial we have 

 received the following from an Eastern commission firm; 



Boston, April 6, 1901. 

 George W. York, & Co., Chicago, 111. 



iJendemeu : — \Ve have noted with considerable interest your edi- 

 torial on " Freight Rate on Comb Honey." in your issue of the 4th 

 inst.. and we heartily approve of the sentiment that you have exprest. 



It seem.s to us that this matter should be gone into very thoroly, 

 and everything possible done to "head off" any such move on the 

 part of the railroads. 



It has always seemed to us a most unfair thing that there should 

 be such a wide difference in the rate between honey in the comb and 

 extracted honey. An example of this occurred in our own experience 

 last fall. We found the rate on extracted to be -SI. 10 per hundred 

 pounds, from Calfornia to Boston, while on comb honey it was S3.30 

 per hundred ; and at the same time, in response to our question as to 

 why a discrimination was made against the comb, the I'eply was, 

 "owing to the extreme risk taken." Directly opposed to this was 

 the fact that the railroad insisted that the goods he shipt at owner's 

 risk. 



Now, we quite fail to see why there should be- any such great dif- 

 ference between the two classes as exists, when the comb is taken at 

 owner's risk, thereby absolving the railroad from any responeibilities ; 

 and yet at the same time they seek to charge for it. It seems like the 

 old case of trying to " eat the pudding and have it, too." 



Would it not be a good plan for you to draw up and insert in your 

 next issue a form of petition asking that all of your subscribers sign 

 the same and send it to you, and your good self in return send it 

 directly to the railroad committee ? 



We suggest this as we have found invariably that united effort 

 accomplishes more than spasmodic or divided. Whatever is every 

 one's business surely ends up by being no one's, and we believe that 

 with your wide and influential position much could be accomplisht by 

 you. Yours for the cause, 



Blake, Scott & Lee. 



In reply to the foregoing most excellent letter, we would say that 

 we had already sent in our protest, as strong as could make it. What 

 is necessary now is, that all the honey commission firms and comb 

 honey shippers everywhere shall simply pour in their letters vigorously 

 protesting against the proposition tu increase the present too-high 

 freight-rate on comb honey. They slumld be mailed to Mr. Ripley as 

 above directed. 



What you should ask for is a rating of 1st Class — the present rat- 

 ing is 1}4 times 1st Class. It should be lowered instead of raised. 



The reasons we gave why lower rating should be made were these: 



'■ The business will not stand such rates. In bulk and value honey 

 compares favorably with 2d Class articles. Under the provision of 



Rule 4, the carrier assumes no risk whatever for loss or damage. 

 Covering the glass fronts, or packing in plain wooden boxes, would be 

 no advantage, as the fact that the goods can be seen insures careful 

 handling. Honey in plain wooden boxes will be thrown around 

 roughly, the same as any other freight." 



Other reasons will suggest themselves to our readers. Let us urge 

 immediate action. Write at once — before you do another thing— if 

 you wish to help prevent the enactment of an unjust ruling on the 

 part of the railroads. Many protests coming from all sections of the 

 country will have great weight with the Committee. Mr. Ripley will 

 see that all are properly presented. Send them direct to him, and 

 make them strong, but courteous. 



Spraying During Bloom. — Greeen's Fruit-Grower is one of 

 the leading authorities on the subject to which it is devoted. In the 

 March issue it gives some excellent suggestions on spraying fruits 

 trees, and urges that it be not done while in bloom. Here is what it 

 says, and every bee-keeper should not only read it carefully, but see to 

 it that his neighbors read it — better get your local newspapers to 

 copy it : 



SHALL WE SPRAT TREES WHEN IN BLOSSOM '. 



In the coming time, to insure success in fruit-growing the fruit- 

 grower will be obliged to manage his orchard in accord with scientific 

 principles. Perhaps farmers with little scientific knowledge will be 

 able to manage an acre or two so as to produce all the fruit required 

 for home consumption ; but to grow fruit for market so as to be able 

 to compete with those who grow fine, flrst-class fruit, he will be obliged 

 to know enough of entomology to know what poisons to use to destroy 

 the different species of insects, and also when to apply those poisons 

 to effect greatest results, and at the same time do the least harm to the 

 trees or fruits. He will also need to know enough of fungology to be 

 able to combat the different kinds with remedies, when those remedies 

 will be most effectual. As it happens, most of the insect enemies come 

 into active life with the first warm days of spring. A few warm days 

 will hatch the eggs in which the insects have past the winter, or cause 

 the larvse, which have spent the winter in pupas, to leave their winter 

 abodes and commence crawling over the tree or plant on which they 

 have wintered, in search of the tender leaves which form their most 

 appropriate food. The instinct of the maternal parent guides her to 

 deposit her eggs close to suitable food for the young larvse. Hence we 

 learn that some of the most formidable insect enemies of the fruit cul- 

 turist — the bud-worm, the case-bearer, the apple-leaf folder, the leaf- 

 erumpler. and several others a little less destructive, are ready to enter 

 the opening bud and commence eating before it is fully expanded, and 

 those very formidable enemies, the tent-caterpillar and the canker- 

 worm, soon follow. There is no period in the life of thosi' insects 

 when they can be so easily destroyed by arsenical poi-.m- :i~ wImh 

 they first begin to feed. A weak mixture of arsenic will ilini iIi-mdv 

 them while a much stronger mixture may fail to do s. i»|hii llu-y 

 have attained to larger growth. It is evident, then, that apple-frees 

 should be sprayed with Paris green, or other forms of arsenic, when 

 the buds first begin to swell, certainly when the leaves begin to tinfold. 

 As many kinds of fungi commence to grow with the first warm days of 

 spring, Bordeaux mixture can be profitably mixt with the arsenical 

 poison. 



A few years ago, from a mistaken idea of the time when the cod- 

 liiig-moth first lays her eggs, orchardists, fearfu Jthat it they waited 

 until the apple-blossoms fell it would be loo late to destroy the larva', 

 sprayed their trees while in blossom, and bee-keepers complained that 

 their Ijces were pdisoned, and prevailed ui")n our Legislature to pass a 

 law forhiiMiii- spi:iving while trees are in blossom. Many orchanlists 

 felt gn-ally aL'L,'rii-vf.i by tlii> law. asserting that they wen- forbiil.h-ri 

 to spray just when sjn-aying would do the most good, and that they 

 nnist sacrifice their apple-crop upon their own land, for the benefit of 

 tlie bee-keeper who had no claim upon their orchard as a bee-pasture. 

 Mcire recently, a careful observation of the habits of the codling-moth 

 le.l to the discovery that she does not deposit her eggs immediately 

 afier thi- hUi^Miiii' falls, but several days later, and that instead of 

 pLieiii^.' theiii in the calyx, or blossom enil of the fruit, as had always 

 l>eeu supp<j.seil, she lays them upon the side of the young apple, gluing 

 them to the rind, and that when the egg hatches the larva- crawl over 

 i!ie fruit in search of a place of concealment, which they gcuerally 

 liiid in the partially closed calyx. This seems to show that there is no 

 I asion for haste in spraying immediatel.\ after the blossoms fall, but 



