j^Am^rican Hee Jonrnal 



September, 1908. 



prising how few dealers there are who 

 advertise to buy honey. 



Have you ever noticed that some of 

 those who are wise enough, and enter- 

 prising enough, to advertise their honey 

 for sale, are getting a higher price for 

 it? They are getting 10 cents or more a 

 pound for extracted. That extra 2 or 

 3 cents will not only pay for the adver- 

 tising, but will amount to a whole lot 

 more money as a profit on the honey 

 sold, over and above the ordinary way 

 of selling, or waiting for some one to 

 come along and buy the honey. 



Now, there are a lot of bee-keepers 

 who ought to get in line this fall with 

 the up-to-date methods of doing busi- 

 ness. The bee-papers are here to help 

 put the producers in touch with the con- 

 sumers or dealers? They do not ask for 

 the patronage of their advertising col- 

 umns as a matter of charity. It is be- 

 cause the publishers believe that it will 

 prove to be profitable to those who in- 

 vest in such advertising. 



We want to urge the readers of the 

 American Bee Journal to patronize its 

 advertisers more. We try to be careful 

 not to admit any questionable advertise- 

 m.nts in our columns. We want only 

 clean, honest people represented — those 

 with whom it is a pleasure to do busi- 

 ness — not only once, but a continuous 

 dealing. 



Look over the honey advertisements 

 in this number. Among them are Mr. 

 Hutchinson and Mr. North, of Michi- 

 gan. Of course they have fine honey to 

 sell or they would be foolish to adver- 

 tise it in such mouth-watering terms. 

 Others may have equally superb honey, 

 but lack the push and enterprise to offer 

 it thus publicly to the world. Some 

 folks need to wake up, and do business 

 in a business-getting way. 



"Wax Craft," by Thos. Wm. Cowan . 



This is an entirely new book, written 

 by Mr. Thos. Wm. Cowan, of England, 

 editor of the British Bee Journal. It is 

 "The history of beeswax and its com- 

 mercial uses." It contains over 170 

 pages, with 37 illustrations on art paper. 

 The cloth-bound copies are the most ar- 

 tistic of any gotten up in all beedom so 

 far as we have seen. The following are 

 the chapters and topics : 



Chapter i. — Historical. 



Chapter II. — Production of Beeswax. 



Chapter III. — Wax Rendering. 



Chanter IV. — Beeswax in Commerce. 



Chapter V.— Refining and Bleaching Wax. 



Chapter V I.— Adulteration of Wax. 



Chapter VII. — Manufacture of comb Founda- 

 tion. 



Chapter VIII.— Coloring Wax. 



Chapter IX. — Wax Candles and Tapers. 



Chapter VII. — Manufacture of Comb Founda- 

 Fruits and Figures. 



Chapter XI.— Technical Uses of Wax. 



The whole work is written in Mr. 

 Cowan's simple yet eloquent style, and 

 is of unusual interest to a bee-keeper or 

 any one who has to do with beeswax 

 production or its commercial handling. 

 Mr. Cowan has rendered a distinct serv- 

 ice to mankind in the preparation and 

 publication of this book. 



"Wax Craft," cloth-bound, is mailed 

 for $1.00; or wilh the American Bee 

 Journal one year— both for $1.50. Send 

 all orders to the American Bee Journal 

 office, but be sure to allow plenty of 

 time for your copy of .lie book to come 

 from England — from 2 to 3 weeks. 



Old Queens and Requeening 



John Silver was present at the Franco- 

 British Congress of Bee-Keepers arid 

 among other things says this in the 

 Irish Bee Journal: 



"An Australian took the Congress by storm, 

 the Herrods, Lambs and other at^is metlifica 

 tried to sting him out of his combs, but he 

 stuck to his hives, and the onslaught retired 

 discomfited. His theory consisted in this — 

 that no animosity exists between a 3-yearK)ld 

 queen and a young one, and his practise is to 

 keep his best queens till 3 years old and to re- 

 queen by inserting a queen-cell alongside of the 

 3-year-old queen, which results in 2 queens be- 

 ing in the hive for a time, the old one always 

 disappearing before the next season. By this 

 method of saving his best queens till their 

 third year he has considerabl" lengthened the 

 age of his bees. He marks his queens with 

 paint — white one year, blue 2 years, and red 

 for 3 years." 



This evidently refers to that bright 

 Australian, Mr. Beuhne, who lately visit- 

 ed this country. He holds that the ani- 

 mosity to a strange queen is on the part 

 of the workers rather than on the part 

 of the queen, especially if the reigning 

 queen be as old as 3 years. Not only 

 does he get a young queen introduced 

 in the way mentioned, but sometimes he 

 has 2 or more young queens reared in 

 succession in the same hive wlicre the 

 3-year-old, or still better a vigorous 4- 

 year-old queen, presides, removing each 

 young queen as soon as she lays, and 

 introducing another coll. 



WTio WUl be at the National? 



We have the following from Secretary 

 Hutchinson : 



Editor York: — Often, after a National con- 

 vention is over, more tlian one man has said, 

 "If 1 only had known that Mr. Brown was go- 

 ing to be there, I would have gone." Now, 

 before the coming of the convention I wish 

 to publish in the bee-papers a list of all those 

 who are going to be present. I sunpose I will 

 not be able to learn one-fourth of those who 

 will go, but so far as I can learn, I'll give the 



Now, will you have the kindness, at once, 

 to take a postal and tell me if you are going? 

 Or, if you should decide later that you are go- 

 n-g, let me know, and it may be the means of 

 your being able to meet some friend that you 

 otherwise would not have seen. 



W. Z. Hutchinson, Sec. 



This is a good idea. We offered to do 

 it several years ago in the American Bee 

 Journal. The great difficulty is that 

 many will likely not be able to say defi- 

 nitely that they can go, until perhaps a 

 week or less before the actual dates of 

 the meeting. 



We hope that when the time (Oct. 

 i; 14, and 15) comes, Detroit will have 

 the largest bee-keepers' convention this 

 country ever saw. 



Marketing Honey and Other Crops 



We have found the following in Suc- 

 cessful Farming. It is so good, and so 

 splendidly applicable to honey-producers 

 as well, that we decided to reprint it. 

 Here it is : 



"The farmer will never get what is coming 

 to him until he knows how to market his 

 produce, or hires someone who does know how. 

 The first proposition is practically out of the 

 question. Production is a life study. Market- 

 ing is a life study. Therefore liie is too short 

 to learn both. The farmer can get a fair 

 knowledge of the science of marketing, but he 

 hasn't time to put it to use. He can better 

 afford to hire one who does nothing else, so he 

 can devote his entire time to production. 



"Mind you, we have said hire someone else. 

 That does not mean that he is to pay commis. 

 sion to the commission men already in the 

 field. It is advisable to find who are strictly 



honest and patronize honest commission men. 

 They have devoted their time and risked their 

 all in the business of marketing and are wor- 

 thy of support. But dishonest men should be 

 starved out. If there is no commission house 

 that is practicing the square deal, then the 

 farmers should establish one of their own, just 

 as they have established co-operative grain ele- 

 vators and creameries. A movement is on foot 

 for the stockmen to establish stock commission 

 houses in the market places. This will insure 

 cheaper and better service. In other words, 

 they hire men to look after their stock inter- 

 ests. 



"The farmers surrounding any common mar- 

 ket place (tovvn) could organize so as to pro- 

 tect their interests. They could arrange with 

 some experienced merchant to ship their eggs. 

 potatoes, or what not. He will have to be 

 honest with an organization watching him. 

 The trouble with co-oi-eration is that farmers 

 are often unwilling to pay a good price for an 

 experienced busines.^ manager, and because they 

 take some inexperienced or dishonest man 

 their scheme soon goes tf the wall. The prin- 

 ciple of co-operation and organization is cor- 

 rect. It is profitable when governed by busi- 

 ness principles. Slipshod methods will not 

 bring success. 



"Towns have their commercial clubs to 

 build up trade. The farmers should have 

 their commercial clubs to work for their in- 

 terests. 



"Growing is one thing, marketing is quite 

 another. It is costing the tarmers millions 

 of dollars because they do not realize this." 



Bee-keepers in some parts of the coun- 

 try, particularly the far West, have al- 

 ready begun the co-operative marketing 

 of their honey. It ought to be the best 

 way, and doubtless is, when properly 

 managed. 



Advertising Lesson for Bee-Keepers 



The millers of the Northwest at their recent 

 convention decided to spend $100,000 in an 

 active campaign in behalf of white flour. "They 

 say they were forced to do this by the oft- 

 repeated assertion of the breakfast-food manu- 

 facturers and others that fine bolted wheat 

 flour, when made into bread, produces stomach 

 troubles, whereas there is no truth in such a 

 statement. For years Americans have had it 

 dinned into their ears that fine white flour is 

 injurious, with the result that the sale of it 

 has been been seriously curtailed — at least the 

 millers entertain that opinion. Bee-keepers can 

 learn a valuable lesson from the millers as to 

 the value of printers' ink. Thev can learn an. 

 other — not to allow derogatory statements about 

 honey to appear in the public prints. After 

 a while people get to believe such statements 

 to be true, and act accordingly. The net result 

 is that the whole industry is hurt. — Gleanings 

 in Bee Culture. 



Several years ago The Honey-Pro- 

 ducers' League was organized among 

 bee-keepers for the very purpose of 

 counteracting the misrepresentations 

 about honey in the general newspaper 

 press, and also to increase the demand 

 for honey. But it didn't get the sup- 

 port it deserved, and so was discon- 

 tinued. 



American Bee-Keeper Suspended 



With the August number the Ameri- 

 can Bee-Keeper was discontinued. Its 

 publishers. The W. T. Falconer Mfg. 

 Co., of Jamestown, N. Y., desired to 

 be relieved of at least that much extra 

 responsibility, so they decided not to go 

 on with it. It was in its l8th volume. 

 Editor Hill was improving it right 

 along, and it seems too bad that it 

 should drop out of the field. Those who 

 best know Harry ¥. Hill, who has so 

 ably edited the paper, will not be sur- 

 prised that one of his artistic ability — 

 he's 'way up in matters photographic — 

 should want freer scope at that for 

 which he is so eminently fitted. Mr. 

 "Harry" is a born bee-keeper, and it is 

 hardly possible that he can let his bees 

 entirely alone. 



There are still three bee-papers left 



