March, igii. 



American Hae Journal 



There are two lines of discussion 

 that come up at every convention. They 

 are, How to get a better price for the 

 product, or a larger share of the con- 

 sumer's dollar; and the methods of 

 handling bees to get a larger return 

 from each colony in pounds of honey. 



Getting Better Honey-Prices. 



How to get more for the product was 

 the first thing that came up in the ques- 

 tion-box, and the subject elicited lively 

 discussion. The facts brought out 

 were, that the producer was getting 

 about 35 cents of the consumer's dollar 

 in extracted honey and 40 to 50 cents 

 in comb honey. The railroads came in 

 for an undue amount for freight, and 

 the cost of bee-supplies keeps steadily 

 advancing so that the profits are not 

 what they should be. The freight-rate 

 on honey by the car-load is about 4 

 times what it is on potatoes a like dis- 

 tance. The .-Association has outlined 

 work for the coming year that will, if 

 carried through, bring about a more 

 equitable rate on honey shipments. The 

 fault lies quite largely with the bee- 

 keepers themselves, in not calling these 

 unfair rates to the attention of the 

 railroads. 



Queen-Re.\ring .\t Ho.me. 



Mr. Herman Rauchfuss gave a val- 

 uable, practical talk on good queens 

 and proper hive manipulations; he ad- 

 vocated wintering bees in 2-story hives, 

 even if doubling up the colonies had to 

 be done. In this way old queens could 

 begotten rid of, and the strength of 

 each colony would be such that it could 

 well withstand the severe conditions 

 of winter. 



Mr. Rauchfuss made a strong point 

 in advocating rearing one's own queens 

 in his own yards, and keeping each 

 queen among the bees where she was 

 reared. The introduction of queens 

 into strange hives is the cause of many 

 a fine queen soon deteriorating. While 

 the bees do not kill her, they see that 

 in some way she is not at home, and 

 keep fussing and pulling away at her 

 until many of them become bald and 

 devoid of hair. A queen that is being 

 continually worried will never do much 

 good work. When each bee-keeper 

 rears his own queens, it is easy to keep 

 each queen among her own " home 

 folks," and under these conditions she 

 is contented, and does her best work. 



Shipping-Cases for Comb Honey. 



For a long time the Western bee- 

 keepers have been "put out" by the 

 dozens of different sizes of shipping- 

 cases for comb honey that have been 

 sold. The trouble does not become 

 apparent until a half-dozen or so of 

 bee-keepers go to load a car of 

 honey. The cases simply will not load 

 compactly at all ; some are '4 inch 

 wider than others ; some are longer, 

 and no two are the same depth, al- 

 though they may all be double tier and 

 hold 24 sections. We are now going 

 to have a uniform case if the efforts of 

 Mr. Frank Rauchfuss, manager of the 

 Colorado Honey-Producers' Associa- 

 tion materialize. The uniform size for 

 cases, as suggested by Mr. Rauchfuss, 

 was unanimouslyendorsed by the State 

 Association. 



Shipping Comb Honey. 



Mr. Rauchfuss also gave some point- 

 ed remarks on local shipments of comb 

 honey. Every shipment of comb honey 

 going locally should be crated in car- 

 rier crates holding 4 or 8 cases, and 

 packed with straw. It will not be long 

 until comb honey so crated will take a 

 lower rate, and then no intelligent bee- 

 keeper will fail to crate his honey prop- 

 erly for shipping. Mr. Rauchfuss said 

 that he had not received a shipment of 

 comb honey that came through safely 

 uncrated. 



Old-Ti.me Bee-Keeping. 



The most entertaining feature of the 

 convention was the evening of reminis- 

 cence in bee-culture led by Mr. A. F. 

 Foster and others of the gray-whis- 

 kered veterans who had 50 years and 

 more of bee-keeping to their credit. 

 They told of the old-fashioned ways of 

 bee-keeping, and how good the honey 

 tasted in those days ; how they robbed 

 the hives, and plugged the hives to see 

 if they were ripe, like we do now with 

 watermelons. 



An.\tomy of the Bee. 



Pres. Collins and Prof. Gillette each 

 exhibited stereopticon views of the 

 bee's anatomy, work and methods, and 

 made us much better acquainted with 

 bees, the way they are built, and the 

 ready-made tools they are born with. 



FoLL Brood Law. and Bef-Investigatiox 



The .\ssociation is making an effort 

 to get a more effective foul brood law, 

 and also to have a division of bee-in- 

 vestigation established at the .Agricul- 

 tural College. This subject was thor- 

 oughly gone over, and the legislative 

 committee has a bill introduced in the 

 legislature to establish a division of 

 bee-inspection and investigation vinder 

 the State Entomologist. This will cen- 

 tralize the work of the State bee-work 

 under a very competent man, and every 

 bee-man is urged to write his senator 



and represenative to support the "Bee- 

 Keepers' Bill." 



The State Entomologist will hire 

 deputies to carry on the work of in- 

 spection and investigation, and the 

 work will be prosecuted with vigor. 

 The work that will be carried on in 

 bringing in new and better honey- 

 plants, and better bees, and tlie investi- 

 gation of methods for the advancement 

 of the industry, will be invaluable to 

 the State. 



Bees and Flowers. 



Prof. Cockerell, of the University of 

 Colorado, gave a delightful talk on 

 "The Evolution of the Bee," and 

 brought out the relationship of all in- 

 sect life and their influence on flowers 

 and vegetation. The bee is older than 

 man by several million years, and 

 reaches up into the almost perfect de- 

 velopment of the honey-bee in only 

 about a dozen species, while the cruder 

 and more primitive wild bee is found 

 in thousands of species. The honey- 

 bee is the last word in all bee-life, and 

 has become so firmly established in her 

 position that little change has taken 

 place in her characteristics in three or 

 four million years. 



W'ORK OF THE ASSOCIATION. 



The work of the State Bee-Keepers' 

 Association for the coming year will be 

 to secure the reduction of freight-rates 

 on bees and honey, and the securing 

 of a new foul brood law. Right now is 

 the time for every bee-keeper in the 

 State to join, so that the dollar from 

 each member will be available for im- 

 mediate work. If we secure but a part 

 of the results we are going after it will 

 be worth many times one dollar to 

 every bee-keeper in the State. So send 

 your dollar for membership to the sec- 

 retary, Wesley C. Foster, Boulder, 

 Colo., at once, and urge all your fellow 

 bee-keepers to do the same. We are 

 making the fight for you, and we can 

 not do it without some help from you. 

 Wesley Foster, Sec. 



Boulder, Colo. 



Conducted by J. I,. ByER. Mt. Joy. Ontario. 



Co-operation Among Ontario Bee-Keepers 



The Canadian l!ee Journal has the 

 following to say for the co-operative 

 movement among bee-keepers here in 

 Ontario : 



"Mr. W. A. Chrysler, chairman of the 

 committee having in cliartretlie plans for the 

 organi/ation of a co-operative association, 

 writes us that the committee expects to be 

 successful in arrangiriK matters so as to han- 

 dle the crop of ion. We feel sure that the 

 affair will be brought to a successful issue 

 when in the hands of Mr. Chrysler and 

 .Arthur I.ang— they are hustlers." 



Doubtless this was written before the 

 recent tariff arrangements were made 

 public. I fear, if the suggested changes 

 on the duty on honey become law, 

 complications will arise that we have 

 not thought of. In like manner the 

 work of the Honey Crop Committee of 



the Ontario Association will also be 

 greatly increased, for instead of having 

 to take into consideration the crop of 

 Ontario and the eastern Provinces, the 

 whole of the United States will have to 

 be taken into calculation. 



Owing to illness, I was not able to 

 attend the recent convention held in 

 Brantford, so I do not know as to what 

 was the attitude of the bee-keepers as- 

 sembled there regarding the change in 

 tariff on honey, but judging from the 

 letters reaching me continually, prac- 

 tically all of the producers on this side 

 of the line are not at all pleased with 

 the suggested changes. Personally, I 

 feel that Canadian bee-keepers have 

 much to lose, and nothing to gain, by 

 honey being being put on the free list; 

 but if the powers that be, decide to put 



