American Vae Journal 



Bee-Keeping <^ For Women 



Conducted bv Miss Emma M. Wilson. Marengo, 111. 



Locating Bees on Farms 



"I want to place a few colonies of bees out 

 in the country the coming season, and would 

 like to know what are the customary terms 

 for placing them with farmers, or what you 

 have to pay farmers for leaving the bees on 

 their farms."— A Correspondent. 



There is perhaps no regular custom 

 about it. Some farmers, or their wives, 

 are so afraid of bees that a very high 

 rent would not induce them to allow 

 bees on the place. Others again have 

 such a lively appreciation of the good 

 bees do in the way of fertilizing blos- 

 soms that they would pay for the pres- 

 ence of the bees. 



First and last, we have had bees on 5 

 different farms, and in neither case was 

 there ever any agreement that any- 

 thing should be paid by way of rent. 

 We always, however, were somewhat 

 liberal in leaving the messes of honey 

 with the farmers, so that probably they 

 thought they did not have the worst of 

 the bargain. Aside from honey in reg- 

 ular shape, we sometimes had what we 

 called " crooked honey," that is, a nice 

 piece of white comb honey, but built in 

 some place where we did not want it, 

 and when it was cut out it would be 

 rather dauby to carry home, and so the 

 easiest thing was to carry it into the 

 farm kitchen. If you are on good terms 

 with your farmer acquaintances, you 

 will probably have little trouble in 

 locating your bees. Of course, if you 

 should want them to do anything with 

 the bees, as watching for swarms, or 

 hiving them, some definite arrangement 

 should be agreed upon, such as giving 

 them a certain proportion of the 

 swarms hived. 



Combs Disinfected With Carbon-Disulfide 



How long after disinfecting witli carbon- 

 disulfide will it be wise to use for the bees ? 

 I have a goodly number of combs, and some I 

 shall want right away, and others alonguntil 

 the fall. (Mrs.) M. E. Pruitt. 



Eola. Tex. 



No positive information on this point 

 is available. But it is safe to guess that 

 it will be all right to give such combs 

 to the bees as soon as they will accept 

 them ; in other words, just as soon as 

 the odor has left the combs so the bees 

 will be willing to cluster on them. 

 When carbon disulfide was used here, 

 the combs were opened up not sooner 

 than in 24 hours, and likely in another 

 24 hours they would be aired sufficiently 

 to give to the bees. 



The Manufactured-Comb-Honey Lie 



A neighbor of mine— a gentleman who has 

 cared for bees for years— attended the On- 

 tario. Canada. Fair this year, and when he 

 came home he had wonderful stories to tell 

 about what he saw. One was that there was 

 an immense exhibit of comb honey (acres of 

 it), and as he gasped, open-mouthed, in won- 

 der, the man who was caring for the exhibit 

 took down a section of comb honey and said. 

 ■■ Look at that." which my neighbor did very 

 carefully. The man said. "We manufacture 



that; no bee ever saw that honey." It was 

 a section of No. i white honey. Now. it 

 lookt-dWVe a section of honey gathered by the 

 bees, and not made by man. /should have 

 said to the man. " If I do look green, and 

 have hayseed in my hair. I do not think man 

 can make a perfect section of honey." But 

 you know a man believes anythin^i told him. 

 as women have learned so well, so I write to 

 the editor to learn if she thinks a section of 

 honey can be manufactured. Ima. 



Geauga Co., Ohio. 



Did you never hear of "the Wiley 

 lie ?" Quite a number of years ago. 

 Dr. H. W. Wiley, the United States 

 Government chemist — the man who has 

 been so active in pushing the federal 

 pure-food law, and who was lately mar- 

 ried — said that there was adulteration 

 in almost everything, even in comb 

 honey; that artificial comb was made 



and filled with glucose and sealed over 

 with a hot iron so as to look just like 

 the genuine article. That raised a 

 storm of protest from bee-keepers, but 

 for a long time Dr. Wiley was dumb as 

 an oyster. Finally he broke silence, 

 and said it was " a scientific pleasantry." 

 However much of a pleasantry it was 

 on his part, it was not a pleasant thing 

 for bee-keepers, and no doubt injured 

 the sale of honey to the amount of 

 thousands of dollars. Several times the 

 story has gone the rounds of the papers, 

 dying out after a time, and then after 

 resting a while starting up again as 

 fresh as ever. 



To help squelch the lie, a standing 

 offer of $1000 was made for a single 

 pound of comb honey produced with- 

 out the intervention of the bees, and 

 this offer was afterward duplicated by 

 the National Bee-Keepers' Association. 

 No one has ever secured the reward. 



It has been a very common thing to 

 have it repeated that comb honey was 

 thus counterfeited, but this is perhaps 

 the first instance where any one claimed 

 to be the counterfeiter. 



^Mi Western <^ Bee-Keeping 



Conducted by Wesley Foster, Boulder. Colo. 



Co-operation and Progress Among Bee- 

 Keepers 



Why is it that Russia is more conserva- 

 tive than France or England? why is it 

 that England is more tied to the past than 

 New England ? and why is that New En- 

 gland is slower to move forward tihan Illi- 

 n.oiis? and, last, why is it that the Rocky 

 Mountain States, from Colorado to the 

 Pacitic, are so much quicker in adopting 

 new ideas and novel methods than any of 

 the more conservative sections of the 

 country? It is simply that the most ener- 

 getic and progressive individuals will not 

 be bou-nd d.own by the slower ways of the 

 older communities ; and so they move 

 West. There are many exceptions to this 

 idea I have expressed, but in the main 

 it is correct. We have mossbacks here as 

 well as elsewhere, but they do not domi- 

 nate the thought of the community the 

 way they dio in older and more staid com- 

 munities. There are progressive folks who 

 put us to shame, scattered all through 

 the East, and in the Old Country, but 1 

 think the main proposition will hold. 



Perhaps I should .say that I think there 

 are some merits in oonsei^'atism ; it keeps 

 things running more steadily, and there is 

 not likely to be so much ferment. I sup- 

 pose the conser\'atives live just as happily 

 as the progressives. 



N'ow, we have some exceptions to this 

 rule, for in England the co-operative as- 

 sooiations of workers own stores W'Orth 

 millions of dollars. The Co-operative 

 stores of England are organized on a much 

 larger scale than anything in America, 

 though the co-operative associations of 

 farmers and fruit-growers in the West are 

 doing million of dollars worth of busi- 

 ness every year. Co-operation comes about 

 through necessity. The growers here in 

 the WIest are so far from market that 

 the freig'ht on their fruit in many cases 

 amounts to more than the Eastern fniit- 

 growers, but a few miles from market, get 



for their product. I have bought a 3-bush- 

 el barrel of New York Baldwin apples for 

 $1.75, when the freight on 3 bushel boxes 

 of Pacific Coast apples would amount to 

 more than that to New York City. How 

 is the Western fruit-grower going to com- 

 pete lin these markets ? He can do it by 

 putting out an apple that is absolutely per- 

 fect, and having apples all of one size in 

 a box. 



The same condition exists with the 

 Western bee-keeper. If he is going to 

 make a success he has to put out a bet- 

 ter-produced and better-graded article 

 than is generally found on the Eastern 

 and Middle Western market. Where 

 enough bee-men can get together and form 

 an 'association, and hare the services of 

 a manag-er who will devote all his time 

 to studying the requirements of every 

 honey-<market in the country, so that he 

 will know just the places where the honey 

 will bring the best price, success will fol- 

 low. 



Most of the fruit-growers associations 

 handle honey in the same way they do 

 fruit, and it is but natural that the same 

 business m'ethods governing their selling 

 of fruit will be applied to honey. There 

 iis not so much care taken with the grad- 

 ing of honey in these instances, for honey 

 is a sotrt of side-issue with them, and 

 unless they have a man who is thoroughly 

 versed in the methods of grading honey, 

 the product may be put on the market 

 in poor shape. What the coming asso- 

 ciation of bee-keepers will need is a man 

 who will go around and inspect the meth- 

 ods of production while the honey is on 

 the hives or being put there by the bees. 

 In g.radiing it will be almost necessary to 

 have all the honey graded and packed by 

 men who have passed a strict examina- 

 tion before the directors of the associa- 

 tion ; and then every grader's number will 

 have to be stamped on the box. so that 

 any errors can be easily traced back. 



The State of Washington has a law 



