JNIay, igrr. 



American Tiee Journal 



honey-flow. On this tour we will find some 

 <jueens the services of which we are not 

 pleased with, and the colonies with such 

 Queens should be marked and replaced as 

 soon as possible with young queens of your 

 own rearing, of the best stock obtainable, if 

 you are in a position to rear them. If not. 

 they should be bought of some queen- 

 breeder. 



Will it pay to requeen these uncertain 

 colonies even if we have to buy the queens ? 

 It will, and there is nodoubt about it. These 

 colonies can be put right to the front in the 

 honey harvest, and the tirst step is to re- 

 queen. The money invested in good queens 

 at this point or time of the season will give 

 greater and quicker returns than any other 

 time of the year. All losses are sure to oc- 

 cur among the doubtful colonies at this sea- 

 son of the year; besides, the approaching 

 honey stock is at stake. By all means re- 

 queen these colonies in some way. 



"Where Can I Sell My Honey?" 



By the time this edition of the American 

 Bee Journal reaches its readers the bee- 

 keepers in Dixie will have the bulk of their 

 spring honey crop harvested and ready for 

 market, and the question will be. " Where 

 can I market my honev to the best advan- 

 tage ?" 



There are some bee-keepers who are fortu- 

 nate enough to have their entire crops of 

 honey sold even before they are harvested, 

 and the market or customers waiting for 

 them. There is a much larger class of bee- 

 keepers who have a list of customers, and 

 an idea where they can at least dispose of a 

 portion of their honey crop at reasonable 

 prices, but for the remainder of the crop no 

 ready market. I have been at this point in 

 disposing of my honey crop more than once, 

 and I have drummed from station to station, 

 and from town to town, and have had mam- 

 moth exhibitions at fairs, and I have adver- 

 tised extensively in the leading newspapers 

 of my county, etc. Of course, these earnest 

 efforts have greatly helped me in marketing 

 my honey, but of late years I have fallen 

 upon a more effective, sure, and satisfactory 

 way of disposing of my crop of honey, 

 and that is through the wholesale grocery 

 houses. Such houses or establishments are 

 found in every city, and in every town of any 

 consequence or size. These wholesale pro- 

 vision houses have men employed, better 

 known as drummers, who traverse the coun- 

 try for miles around, visiting weekly every 

 retail grocery store whose sole business it is 

 to sell eatables, or other things which are 

 commonly found in grocery stores. And 

 they usually sell along their tripseverything 

 that can be sold in their line. These drum- 

 mers are experts when it comes to talking 

 up a business and making sales, and right 

 here is where we bee-keepers can be best 

 represented. 



Now. how shall we get them to take hold 

 of the marketing of our honey ? Go to the 

 general manager of the wholesale grocery. 

 take along a few sample jars or cans of your 

 honey, such as you commonly put up or a 

 few sections of honey, if you produce it in 

 this way), and show him what you have, the 

 manner of packing, about how much you 

 will have, and name the prices you will ex- 

 pect delivered to him. He will tell you that 

 he will let his men take out the samples next 

 week, along with his samples of candy, pre- 

 serves, jellies, syrups, etc., and see what 

 can be done. He makes a price, of course, 

 allowing him a certain amount of profit, and 

 sends the samples out with his men; they 

 bring back a bunch of orders, and you will 

 be notified at once tobring in so much honey, 

 in such and such packages. The next week 

 the same thing occurs, and so on until you 

 have disposed of all the honey you have to 

 offer, if you are not swamped with orders. 



Very often these wholesale grocers will 

 buy the entire crop of honey, and, as a rule, 

 you can sell to them for better prices. An- 

 other good feature about this way of dis- 

 posing of honey is, the returns are ready, 

 and sure. 



The Gu8 Dittmer Co., of Augusta, 

 Wis., have completed a solid, concrete 

 re-inforced beeswax melting house, 

 with roof and floor of the same mate- 

 rial. It will be a great addition to their 

 comb-foundation plant, and, of course, 

 entirely fire-proof. Like other manu- 

 facturers of comb foundation, they re- 

 port a good season thus far this year. 



Conducted by J. L. Byer, Mt. Joy. Ontario. 



Backward Season 



The season is very backward here in 

 Ontario — about three weeks later than 

 last year, so far as the gathering of 

 pollen by the bees is concerned, if I re- 

 member correctly. Today (April 20) 

 one colony was carrying in a little pol- 

 len for the first, and strange to say not 

 another colony in the yard was getting 

 any, so far as I could observe, and I 

 spent nearly an hour watching the bees 

 at work. 



Although a late season, after all it 

 may turn out more favorable than last 

 year, for although the weather in March 

 and April of a year ago was very warm 

 and springlike all the time, we paid for 

 that favor later on when we had one of 

 the coldest Mays on record. 



From reports received so far, I judge 



that the bees have wintered fairly well 



all over the Province, both inside and 



outdoors. 



♦-•-♦^ 



Moving Bees on Hand-Sleds 



On page 103, mention is made that 

 the writer last fall successfully moved 

 an apiary on hand-sleds. After the 

 moving of those bees was accomplished, 

 we certainly thought it was done suc- 

 cessfully, and so reported in one of 

 the bee-papers, but I am sorry to have 

 to report at this later date that, on the 

 basis of the old saying, "All's well that 

 ends well," the moving was not a great 

 success. On the day of moving the 

 weather was cold — nearly down to zero 

 — and the following night it was below 

 that figure. The next .3 weeks was the 

 coldest spell of the winter, and these 

 unusual conditions doubtless were ad- 

 verse to the best interests of the bees 

 that happened to be moved in such 

 very cold weather. At the time of mov- 

 ing the colonies seemed to be disturbed 

 but very little, but conditions, as re- 

 vealed later on, showed that they had 

 broken cluster more than I had im- 

 agined. About the end of February a 

 few colonies showed signs of dysentery, 

 and up to the present some 8 or 9 colo- 

 nies have died, and about that many 

 more are reduced in bees. 



On examination of the hives in which 

 the bees perished, conditions seemed 

 to point to the fact that the clusters 

 were broken up by the excitement of 

 being moved, and that owing to the 

 very cold weather prevailing at the 

 time many bees failed to get to the 

 clusters again, and perished in small 

 bunches among the combs. At least 3 

 colonies of the number that perished 

 had division-boards in the hives for 

 the purpose of crowding the bees into 

 closer quarters, as considerable feed- 

 ing was necessary to put them into 

 shape for winter. Well, behind these 

 division-boards the dead bees were 

 piled on the bottom-boards about 2 

 inches deep, a circumstance that seems 

 to point to the theory of the bees fail- 

 ing to regain the clusters. 



As the loss in wintering is prac- 

 tically «// among all the other bees in 

 the 3 apiaries away from home, I am at 

 a loss to place the cause of the poor 

 wintering at the yard that was moved, 

 unless we attribute it to the moving 

 done in cold weater. Yes, I know that 

 many bees have been moved in cold 

 weather with no bad results, and I 

 have moved bees in that way myself in 

 times gone by. But this last fall and 

 winter was a very exceptional season, 

 in that the bees had no flight after Oct. 

 26, and then not in the spring until 

 March 18. 



Temperature of Cellared Bees 



The writer declines being drawn into 

 a further discussion of the question of 

 temperature for cellar-wintering of 

 bees, even if Dr. Miller has so carefully 

 and enticingly baited the trap — see 

 page 110. As I have repeatedly said, 

 my experience is so limited in cellar- 

 wintering that I deem it unwise to 

 make any personal recommendations 

 in the matter, and prefer to be rather a 

 "free lance " when speaking of the sub- 

 ject, and simply give the views of the 

 " other fellow," 



Mr. Davison is well qualified to speak 

 for himself, but, unfortunately, like 

 many more good bee-keepers, he de- 

 clines to write anything for the bee- 

 papers. His bees have wintered per- 

 fectly again this year, as is about 

 always the case with his system of 

 management, be it good or bad. 



As to his thermometer being faulty, 

 I can not give anything positive on 

 that line, but as he keeps a general 

 store and has thermometers for sale, it 

 seems reasonable to assume that he 

 would have a correct one for himself. 



The writer would not think of advis- 

 ing all to keep their cellars at that 

 figure (3.') degrees), even if it would be 

 only beginners likely to be affected ad- 

 versely by such advice — certainly the 

 " old birds " rarely take anybody's ad- 

 vice very seriously until they have 

 found by experimenting on a small 

 scale as to whether said advice is 

 sound or not. But Mr. Davison's con- 

 tinued success with a cellar much 

 cooler than ordinarily recommended, 

 does at least prove that for /;/.■; manage- 

 ment and for /iis bees and cellar, the 

 lower temperature is decidedly to be 

 preferred, as after many years' winter- 

 ing he has proved that his bees are the 

 quietest at the figure named, and come 

 through the winter in grand shape 

 every year. To my mind there is no 

 question but that the open window is 

 one of the prime factors that insures 

 good results in a cellar that is for some 

 reason much warmer than those of the 

 ordinary run, and I am quite ready to 

 agree with the Doctor, that in a cellar 

 with a temperature so low as men- 

 tioned, with no open window, quite 

 different results would be apt to occur. 



