174 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Mar. 15 



BEE-KEEPING IN THE 

 SOUTHWEST 



By Louis Scholl, New Braunfels, Tex. 



Dr. Milhr, that old comb with the >^-inch 

 midrib produced dwarf worker bees, and 

 this means that that particular ci mb htd be- 

 come unprofitable on account of age. This 

 is my point. You are changing points by 

 trying to get me to space the combs further 

 apart — something which the bees can not do. 



Plenty of good rains and lots of cold weath- 

 er, with the grouno covered wnh snow for a 

 few days this winter, have made the pros- 

 pects in most parts of Texas the bt st w e have 

 had for man} years. It is reported thar the 

 pn spects are not so favorable in Southwest 

 Texas, where the bulk of the honey is pro- 

 duced. 



OLD TEXAS VETERAN. 



It was my good pleasure last summer to 

 meet one of the oldest, if not the oldest, bee- 

 keepers in Texas — Mr. M. S Klum, of Jacks- 

 boro. He came to Texas in 1869, soon after 

 becoming the possessor of bees, and since 

 that time he has kept from 25 to 90 colonies. 

 It has been interesting to hear Mr. Klum re- 

 late some of his early bee-keeping experi- 

 ences. He told in detail about tlie begin- 

 ning of Gleanings; how he obtained the 

 first four numbers through a special sub- 

 scription privilege given by Mr. A. I. Root; 

 and how certain changes were made, first to 

 a monthly and then to a semi-monthly. 

 Through all the years he has been a sub- 

 scaiber to Gleanings, and he recently sent 

 all the volumes to me except some of the 

 very earliest, which had been destroyed 

 during a fire, and I have added them to my 

 library. Mr. Klum is one of the charter 

 members of the first Texas bee keepers' as- 

 sociation, which was oiganized in 1877 at 

 McKinney, in Northern Texas, and is the 

 only survivor. While he still has bees and 

 takes a great interest in them, he is not ai>le 

 to give them the care that he formerly did. 

 I honor these aged men to whom we owe so 

 much. They went over the rough trails be- 

 fore us and made our paths smooth. 



corrugated-paper shipping-cases. 

 We regret to say that these paper cases 

 did not prove very successful in a trial ship- 

 ment which we made a short time ago. 

 Eighteen cases of section honey were sent 

 by express from a point in Western Texas to 

 W. H. Laws, at Dallas Of the eighteen 

 cases, two were of corrugated paper, while 

 sixteen were regular glass-front wooden 

 cases. The paper cases we e properly 

 marked, but the wooden cases were not, for 

 the glass fronts showed the contents. At 

 first thought, one would suppose, alter ex- 

 amining the two different kinds, that the 

 corrugated-paper cases would be far ahead 



of the old style; but the reverse proved to 

 be the case in this shipment. Of the sixteen 

 old style cases of sections there were hardly 

 enough broken ones to fill one cuse; but in 

 the paper cases the sections were not only 

 all broken, but they were smashed and even 

 the ca es themselves were badly crushed. 

 They were in such bad shape that we did 

 not even open them to remove the contents, 

 as all was a total loss. The paper was soak- 

 ed with honey. An examination of the few 

 broken sections in the other cases showed 

 that most of the combs that did not stand the 

 shipmei t were not well attached to the 

 wood of the sections. 



It is not our intention here to denounce 

 paper shipping-cases; but from the result of 

 this experience we should like to warn oth- 

 ers to try only a few of them before invest- 

 ing too deet'ly. W e know ti at we would re- 

 gret it if we K.st a fine crop of comb honey 

 on account of improper carriers. It is possi- 

 ble that the above is an exceptional case; 

 but it is well to err on the safe side We 

 also give this experience for the benefit of 

 the advocates of this case so they may be 

 enabled to make further improvements if 

 necessary. [See editorial. — Ed.] 



that chunk- honey editorial. 

 That abstract from Mr. Cady's article and 

 the comments made by the editor, p. 33, 

 would make it appear that we Southerners 

 did not understand the situati-^n legarding 

 bulk comb honey in the North as compared 

 with that in the South. It might be well to 

 explain, however, that we are well awaie 

 that the North is not at all ready to take to 

 such honey in any great amount; that the 

 people will have to be educated to it first, 

 and that even the bee-keepers will have to 

 educate themselves in the matter as to the 

 best methods to adopt in its production, its 

 care, and putting up for the market, and, 

 finally, the best ways of marketing. We 

 understand all this, perhaps better than the 

 bee-keepers, and the consumers of the North 

 understand our position. We know that it 

 will take time to introduce such an article in 

 the North — that it can not be put off on the 

 public in a wholesale manner right at the 

 very start, without playing sad havoc in 

 the future sales of the article. This was 

 the entire trouble with Mr. Cady s experi- 

 ment. Instead of letting a "silver-tongued 

 hustler" put off on the inexperienced 

 public in glorifying terms an article that 

 was new, and that was not unde stood, it 

 would have been much better to introdi;ce 

 it in a sm 11 way at first, leitirg it find a 

 market of its own slowly, which would final- 

 ly have reached great proportions, perhaps. 

 If not, then the bee keeper is not out much 

 for the small investment in giving it a fair 

 trial Thf case referrt d to is only one of 

 hundreds that have fa led because a new 

 thing was lauden beyond the exp' ctations of 

 the buyer. It teaches us a valuable lesson, 

 however, \.\ at we sh»>uld go slow at first 

 when trying new things. 



