Uctoljcr, iyo8. 



I American Bqc Journal 



WlictlK-r it is profitable or not, I don't 

 know. 



Tliis invert sugar, however, could be 

 used only in extracted honey, and no 

 one need fear to purchase comb honey 

 lest it will be adulterated in that way. 

 I don't know of any "adulteration of 

 honey with invert sugar at present. As 

 long ago as 1887, Dr. Wiley, of the 

 United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture, got out a bulletin on honey, and 

 mentioned several samples of honey 

 wdiich he said he thought were adulter- 

 ated with invert sugar, and put them in 

 a suspicious class. Mr. A. I. Root was 

 well acquainted with one of the samples, 

 and was certain that it was not adulter- 

 ated with invert sugar. The invert 



sugar can be made in two ways, hirst, 

 by inverting the sugar with acid; and 

 also by inverting the sugar by mixing 

 with a ferment, or invertose. A very 

 small amount of invertose will work very 

 rapidly. Perhaps it will he used to adul- 

 terate extracted honey. 



Crop Report for 1907. 



"What is your crop report for 1907?" 

 Dr. Bohrer — Had no crop. 



Pres. York — How many didn't get 

 any crop this year? 6. 



Dr. Bohrer — While we used the ex- 

 tractor and got some honey, we will have 

 to feed it back. 



(Continued ne.xt month.) 



selling, while lie will turn all of his en 

 ergies towards the production of another 

 crop. — Bee-Keepers' Review. 



'Beedotiv_r 

 ^Boiled DownJ 



Three Methods of Selling Honey. 



Mr. Townsend made a remark in last 

 month's Review, the truth of which 

 some of us have failed to realize, viz., 

 "that It costs money to sell honey." li 

 we ship our honey off in a lump to some 

 wholesaler or jobber, it might be said 

 in one sense, that it cost nothing to 

 sell it ; but look at the lower price that 

 is received. H a man sells his ex- 

 tracted honey at wholesale for 8 cents 

 a pound, when some retailer could pay 

 him 9 or 10 cents, then this i or 2 cents 

 less on a pound, for which he has sold 

 his honey, is really what it cost him to 

 sell his honey. Or it might be carried 

 5till further, by saying that, as the 

 consumer pays 12 or 15, or 20 cents 

 a pound, then the difference between 

 what the producer actually gets, and 

 what the consumer pays, is what it costs 

 to sell the honey. 



There are really three methods of 

 -elling honey, viz., wholesaling, jobbing 

 and retailing. Most of the large deal- 

 ers in honey are what might be called 

 ■jobbers." They buy at wholesale, in 

 large quantities, at the lowest prices, 

 and then sell it in job lots, at a slight 

 advance, to bottlers and retailers. It 

 has always been something of a wonder 

 to me why more producers have not 

 -ought out and secured this jobbing 

 trade, and thus saved the wholesalers' 

 profit ; and, still further, I have won- 

 lered why bottlers and retailers do not 

 -;o direct to the producer, of whom they 

 could often buy at lower figures than 

 of the jobber. To be sure, it would 

 cost the producer something, at first, 

 to find out the bottlers and secure their 

 trade, and the same might be said of an 

 attemnt on the part of the bottlers to 

 buy direct of the producers, but in the 

 end it would be advantageous to both 

 classes. 



I e.xpect it is something like this : A 

 liroducer does not know who are bot- 

 tlers or retailers; he does not know 

 o( the wholesale dealers, that they are 

 reliable, and. as a rule, when honey is 



sold to them, there is no more trouble 

 or anxiety. The retailer trusts the 

 jobber and know's that he can get what 

 he wants from him. Of John Jones, 

 living at Oshkosh, he is not so sure. 



For these reasons there will always 

 be wholesale dealers in honey, and, for 

 a large class of producers, it is well 

 that they exist ; but men who are adapt- 

 ed to the work can certainly make a 

 good prolit by reaching out and secur- 

 ing a portion of the jobbing trade — 

 bottlers, retailers and those consumers 

 who buy large quantities. It costs some- 

 thing to advertise, send out samples, 

 WTite letters, etc., but once such a 

 trade is built up, it is easily held at a 

 slight expense. 



There is still another step that many 

 bee-keepers can take — that of putting 

 up their honey in retail packages ; and 

 selling direct to consumers or to grocers. 

 Not all bee-keepers are adapted to this, 

 or live near the right kind of locality, 

 but where the conditions are favorable, 

 the retailing of one's crop of honey 

 makes very profitable work for fall and 

 winter months. 



My plan is that of selling to bottlers, 

 retailers, and large consumers. It fits 

 my conditions the best of any plan, but. 

 if I had the spare time in fall and 

 winter that most bee-keepers possess, 

 I should go one step further, putting 

 it up in retail packages and selling di- 

 lect to consumers. The field here is 

 an excellent one, and I just ache at 

 times to go at it and show what can 

 be done in that line, but my hands are 

 too full of other work to allow of such 

 a thing. 



Each man should study the matter 

 thoroughly, and then adopt that method 

 best suited to his conditions. Not every 

 man can retail his own honey ; neither 

 can we all he our own jobbers. For 

 instance, Mr. M. A. Gill, of Colorado, 

 who produces about a car-load of comb 

 honey each year, says it is more profit- 

 able for him to turn the honey over 

 to some one whose business is that of 



Hottoni Starters Built First. 



Last season we used on half of our 

 colonies a J^-inch bottom stanc; , and 

 over half of them were built at the 

 bottom first, some not at the top at 

 all. Of course, we had no honey-flow 

 But I find it the case always in the 

 fall at the close of the honey-flow. — 

 R. L. H-\i.F., in Gleanings. 



Signs of Queeulessness. . 



I wonder if one of the siRns of quet-nlcss- 

 ness has ever appeared in print. Suppose you 

 have a colony thought to be quecniess to which 

 you wish to introduce a c|ueen. There is often 

 a danger that, by some hook or crook, a vir- 

 gin queen may be present, perhaps reared 

 from a cell that has been missed, perhaps an 

 interloper from elsewhere. If you find lioney 

 in pretty much alJ cells in the brood-nest not 

 already tilled with brood, you may feel fairly 

 safe to introduce your queen. If, on the 

 other hand, you find these c-lls empty, and 

 I>olished so they shine, ten to one there's some- 

 thing in the nive that the bees respect as a 

 queen. If you find honey in worker-cells, and 

 drone-cells empty and shining, the bees are 

 likely to have been queenless for some time, 

 and perhaps laying workers are in contempla- 

 tion. 



[You are orthodox in all you say. We use 

 these signs in connection with other evidences 

 that may or may not be iresent in determin- 

 ing the condition of the colony; but strangely 

 enough, very little, comparatively, has been 

 made in print of the fact whether the worker- 

 cells have been filled with honey or are emoty 

 and polished up clean. If polished, and no 

 eggs are in them, it indicates that a virgin is 

 present and will probably lay soon. Or the 

 condition may show that a laying queen has 

 just been let loose from a cage and wmII soon 

 deposit eggs. — Ed.] — Stray Straws in Glean- 

 ings. ^__^^_^_^ 



Does Buckwheat Yield in Clover? 



This question was raised in The 

 .\merican Bee Journal by J. L. Byer, 

 on page 236. Referring to the same, 

 R. F. Holtermann says in Gleanings : 



'*I have had some experience in a buck- 

 wheat and clover section, and I have had the 

 experience of other bee-keepers similarly situ-' 

 ated. \<e have often found that the bees 

 worked on buckwheat during the clover season. 

 In my estimation an ideal buckwheat morning 

 would be an ideal clover morning. It seems 

 to me that, when clover does not yield well, 

 buckwheat may; or if clover is not very abun- 

 dant the bees will work on buckwheat. I 

 have also found Italian and Carniolan bees 

 less likely to work on buckwheat when they 

 can obtain white honey. This latter has been 

 my experience again and again." 



Uncapping Honey. 



Speaking of the Bayless uncapping 

 machine. The Bee-Keepers' Review says : 



'*It is always risky, not to say unwise, to 

 criticise a machine like this that one has never 

 tried, much i^ss seen, and I shall not attempt 

 anything of the kind, either of the machine 

 or of its work, but, nevertheless. I can't help 

 wondering if those who have given so much 

 thought to uncapping macliines heve ever seen 

 combs uncappe<l under the most favorable con- 

 ditions. Let the combs be those that have 

 been in use a few years, until they have be- 

 come quite tough and hard. Space them wide 

 apart so that the bees will add wax to them 

 as they fill them. This new wax will be soft 

 and easy to cut, while the old comb beneath 

 will furnish the firmness. 



There will also be a sort of mixture of the 

 two kinds of comb at the juncture where the 

 knife passes through, thus the old comb will 

 furnish enough of the hard material so that the 

 part that is to be cut will lack the soft, sticki- 

 ness 1\y: characterizes very new comh. Ha\ie 

 tr- (rimes only H of an inch in thickness, 

 ir.u ^laee them wide enough so that there will 

 be about 'A or f^ of an inch to shave off 



