February, i 



American l^Qe Journal 



Poor Season — Effect of Low Grade 

 Honey. 



Acting on your suggestion for these long 

 evenings, I thought I would write something 

 of the way I see things in the bee-world. 

 We have just closed a season in which many 

 of us producers had to ti-^ ten up our purse- 

 strings early in order to make sure of having 

 a winter's supply and take us to the season 

 when we can again hear the happy buzz of 

 the loaded home-coming bee. 



Our past season has been a severe one all 

 over the country with the exception of a very 

 few favored localities, but I am sure that no 

 bee-keeper was troubled with an over-surplus 

 of funds after having divided up with the 

 supply-dealers and other leakaces which, in the 

 nature of things, can not be avoided. But 

 some say that we have the consolation that 

 honey is selling at a high price. However, 

 that at the present, is of no value except to 

 stimulate one's ambition for the future. Yet 

 how quickly will the price come down if we 

 should have a fair crop next season with our 

 greater number of producers who rea<l no bee- 

 papers, and rush their honey o the market in 

 every possible form — good, bad, pell-mell, 4 

 grades in one honey-box, swelled and lean sec- 

 tions, sometimes stacked in the wagon-beds and 

 soap-boxes, and sections that have been on the 

 hives for 2 or 3 years, loaded with propolis, 

 dark and unsightly of ocurse. One will natu- 

 rally say that honey brought to the market in 

 that condition can never get the first-class 

 price. Well, of course not. But what effect 

 has that kind of honey on the market both in 

 price and in the increase of the demand. It 

 IS true that I have had only 12 years' experi- 

 ence in selling honey, but I made it a busi- 

 ness to learn the market and its tendency, with 

 effect of quality and neatness of appearance. 

 And I say that I could now sell 30,000 pounds 

 of comb honey in our two cities, Argenta and 

 Little Rock, with less trouble and labor than 

 when I produccQ only 1,200 pounds. But one 

 may think that I am the only producer tribu- 

 tary to this place. No, there are many, and 

 just because of the many I have gained my 

 experience in the effects on th« market of a 

 product that is not up to a certain standard. 



The quantity of honey consumed is the real 

 stimulant of the market; the greater the con- 

 suinption the more demand there is for the 

 article, and consequently better prices are paid. 

 Well, there is nothing new in that, but how 

 about increasing the consumption? We simply 

 must place it before the people in an attractive 

 way, and within reach of the consumers. When 

 I first went on the market there were 5 houses 

 that sold comb honey in our city. Now there 

 are hundreds selling comb honey, and our 

 whole community is now in reach of comb 

 honey. I had to convince every grocer that 

 he could sell comb honey as well as he could 

 a bar of soap, and I often left a box of honey 

 in his store against his protests, and promising 

 that I would come after it in one or 2 weeks, 

 assuring him that it would cost him nothing 

 if he could not sell it, and I never had to 

 take back a single box, and invariably took up 

 the empty box and replaced it with a full one, 

 and the cash would come without asking for 

 it. Now, every grocer keeps comb honey. It 

 IS placed in reach of all, and as a rule the 

 temptation to take a bite of the sweet morsel 

 is hard to resist, and the result is an increased 

 demand and a splendid market. 

 _ The small grocer on the outskirts of the city 

 is the best customer for lower grades of honey. 

 I have my customers, and my three grades of 

 honey. The grocer that buys the isJ/J-cent 

 grade flatters himself that he can undersell his 

 bigger'competitor. I have customers that say 

 they want the i6-cent grade, others want the 

 iS-cent grade, and others will have nothing 

 but the i2i^-cent. 



I mentioned something of the effects of a 

 low grade of honey on the market, or on the 

 consumers. I have always noticed that the 

 grocers who bought a low-grade honey had 

 trouble to dispose of it. His customers com- 

 plained, and in many cases he lost them. This 

 makes it very unpleasant, and what raKing the 

 producer gets when he conies back to his 

 grocer. His honey may he dark, may be hitter, 

 may be what is called "honev-dew," and the 

 producer may know all about the defects of his 

 honey, yet will offer to sell it as a prime arti- 

 cle, write the name on the box, "Fancy," put 

 a few sections of fair honey on the glass end 

 of the box. with no other desire than to get it 

 off his hands, which is deception and dishon- 

 esty. 



No later than last spring several thousand 

 pounds of so-called '* Fancy " honey were 

 shipped to our market iust before our honey 

 was ready for market. This honev in appear- 

 ance was splendid, but it was the rankest kind 

 of white outside, black inside, well-filled sec- 

 tions of honey-dew I ever saw. A number 



of my customers had a supply of it and have 

 it yet. Some of them put some in a wagon 

 to get rid of it. One of my customers who 

 bought 800 pounds of me the season before, 

 bought 100 pounds of this white outside, black 

 inside honey a few days before I went to him 

 June 12th. He said, "I had given you up 

 and thought you were not on the market this 

 season, and I bought some honey of a commis- 

 sion man, and they nearly all bring it back," 

 and he reached behind the counter and brought 

 out a section of this white outside and black 

 inside honey. I told him to put in some of my 

 clear honey or he would lose all his customers, 

 and sell his black honey only to customers who 

 call for it, and the result was the last 

 week of November he had 3 boxes of his 

 black honey left. He sold only 200 pousds 

 of my honey, and 24 pounds of black honey, 

 whereas last year be sold 800 pounds of ray 

 honey. The case of this merchant was the 

 rule with all who bought this dark honey, 

 and for a while it was hard 10 sell honey, 

 and only late this fall had the effects disap- 

 peared. Honey of a low grade should never be 

 put on the market, and should be used for no 

 other purpose than to make bees. It is valua- 

 ble for that purpose only, and ought never to 

 go on the market, because of its demoralizing 

 effect and its deceptions. 



I would like to ask a question, which is 

 this: Is there any bee-man anywhere that will 

 eat a section of white on the outside and 

 black inside honey in preference to one of a 

 clear and fine flavored one? Let all those that 

 are in favor of white outside, black inside 

 honey, make it manifest by saying, "Aye." I 

 am sure that there will be a light vote on this 

 side of the subject. And I do hope that the 

 disposition to feed others on something that 

 one won't eat himself will also rapidly lessen; 

 and do unto others as you wish others to do 

 unto you. A Bee-Keeper from Arkansas. 



Comb and Extracted Honey from 

 Same Super — Maple Honey. 



I am, as you might say, only a beginner in 

 the apicultural field, having had bees 3 years. 

 But they are my sole study, and have been 

 ever since I had them. And I studied "A B C 

 of Bee Culture" before I had a bee. 



I will speak principally of the sectional hive 

 and the production of comb honey, or the 

 production of comb and extracted honey from 

 the same super. 



Last spring E. D. Townsend wrote an arti- 

 cle for one of the bee-papers, about comb 

 and extracted honey from the same super. 

 And I agree with him. I worked on his prin- 

 ciple. Only I used it mostly with the S-frame 

 Wisconsin hive. However, I think I will adopt 

 the sectional hive another year altogether. It is 

 so much easier and handier to manipulate. 



If you have any light or medium light colo- 

 nies before the honey-flow, how easy it is to 

 take a section from some strong colony that is 

 boiling over with bees and place on the light 

 one. For a strong colony that came out of the 

 cellar in good condition will have 3 sections 

 of a sectional hive full, or nearly full, of 

 brood before clover blossoms, and a very good 

 queen will have some in the fourth section if 

 there hasn't been much honey coming in so 

 that the top section of the hive is pretty well 

 filled. 



In my locality I get a good flow from soft 

 and hard maple, willow, dandelion, and wild 

 cherry, just in time to make brood-rearing go 

 on a-booming, and last spring I got quite a lot 

 of surplus from that same source. And part 

 of the people that I sold to liked the maple 

 honey better than clover. But I am running 

 away from my comb and extracted honey from 

 the same super. 



Now, this spring flow I have is a fine thing 

 to get nice, little combs drawn out in the 

 supers by which to work this plan of comb and 

 extracted from the same super. And if you 

 have some of those little frames filled with 

 honey from maple, it can be extracted if a 

 person wants nice white clover when the clover 

 flow comes, and the empty combs can be put 

 one on each side of the super and the center 

 filled with sections for comb honey, and you 

 will get nice, well-filled white sections. Thev 

 will start to store in the combs that are all 

 ready for them in the little frames on the 

 outside of the super where usually is the last 

 place that work will be done if the super is 

 filled with sections. But with this plan you 

 can extract the honey out of these frames, 

 and you have a lot of nice sections, too, and 

 scarcely anv that are not finished, unless it is 

 a few the last of the flow. In this way I 

 think it better even for extracted honey with 

 the shallow frames, as you can give the bees 

 room as they need it without giving them a 

 great, deep super that is a great many times 

 more room than they need, especially with 



light-colored colonies; and it will pive more 

 honey, extracted or comb, to the apiarist than 

 any other super, even on a deep brood-nest. 



But I think the sectional hive far outstrips 

 anything in the bee-hive line in regard to 

 swarming, too, as it can be manipulated so 

 easily. If you want to look for queen-cells 

 blow in a little smoke at the entrance and 

 raise up the second section, and if there are 

 any cells you are pretty sure to see them on 

 the lower part of the frame. If the bees are 

 getting their hive pretty full of brood, give 

 them another empty section between the 2 

 brood-sections, with foundation, if you need 

 any more combs, and it will soon be drawn 

 out into nice white combs and filled with eggs 

 by the queen. V. A. Goodnow. 



Irma, Wis., Dec. 21. 



A large stock farmer of the middle west, 

 recently told the writer that he valued his 

 evergreen break at $1,000.00, and that it had 

 paid him dividends of from 20 percent to 30 

 percent per annum, lor the past ten years, on 

 this valuation. It did so by protecting his 

 buildings and stock from the cold winter winds 

 and saved him an immense amount of feed 

 and fuel. 



That the above facts are true is just be- 

 ginning to be realized by many people and it 

 is our prediction that there will be thousands 

 of evergreen windbreaks planted all over the 

 country, during the next few years. 



Lvergreens are as easily grown as any of 

 our common forest trees if a few simple rules 

 are followed in planting and caring for them. 

 If you will write at once to The Gardner Nur- 

 sery Company, Drawer 4S, Osage, Iowa, they 

 will send you 6 sample EVERGREENS two 

 years old, entirely free of charge, and with 

 them will send the plain rules for planting 

 anJ aftercare as referred to above. Mailing 

 expense of the evergreens is 5 cents, which 

 you can send or not as you choose. A postal 

 will bring the trees and also their fine cata- 

 logue, containing colored plates and a mine 

 of valuable information for fruit-growers. 

 Write today, above address. 



A Home and a Living. 



There are thousands and thousands of 

 families in the big cities of America, as well 

 as in rural districts, who would be only too 

 glad, for the sake of health and comfort, to 

 have homes of their own in the country, and 

 earn their living from the soil — if they could 

 only see their way clear to make the move. 

 The chief drawback of most of them is lack 

 of sufficient capital to buy land. IVIost men 

 of families who work for wages have to live 

 right up to the limit of their incomes. 



The problem has been solved somewhat by 

 the Daniel Frazier Company, a firm that oper- 

 ates in farm property on a large scale in 

 Southern New Jersey, where 5-acre farm plots 

 are sold for $100, on installments of only $5 

 down, and $5 monthly. These farms are only 

 17 miles from Atlantic City, the celebrated all- 

 year-round seaside resort, and that means a 

 steady market for every kind of produce. 



The soil and climate of this section are 

 particularly adapted to the cultivation of early 

 fruits, berries, vegetables and the raising of 

 poultry, bees and pigeons. 



These farm plots are close to two large 

 manufacturing towns, with city conveniences, 

 and the community is traversed by three trunk 

 line railroads, affording unsurpassed shipping 

 facilities. 



If you want more details about this, write 

 to the Daniel Frazier Company, 750 Bailey 

 Building, Philadelphia, Pa., and ask them to 

 send you their free illustrated book. Be sure 

 to mention the American Bee Journal when 

 writing. 





Ha 





factory prices on 30 d 

 \V/e pay all freight. :<; li'lt'lu^ 01 lurm 

 land poultry fni<-<-. Catalog Free. 

 COILED SPRING FENCE CO. 

 ■Box 89 WIncheetor, Indian* 



Mention Be« Journal when tnitlnar- 



