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(il.KANlNOS IX BKK (ll/rrilK 



May 1 



Bee-keeping Among The 

 Rockies 



By Wesley Foster, Boulder, Colo. 



CORRUGATED DRIP-BOARDS. 



The corrugated drip-boards are away 

 ahead of the wooden drip-sticks. They are 

 more quickly put in a case, an(t they also 

 make a good cushion when the case is jarred. 

 The drip is absorbed if not too much, and 

 there should not be much in a good case of 

 honey. After unpacking several hundred 

 cases where the corrugated boards were iised 

 I can say they look good to last. 



SWARMING IN THE WEST. 



Swarming is not as serious a problem in 

 the West as in the East, for two reasons. 

 There may be other reasons, but I will give 

 only these two now: The honey-flow is never 

 so rapid in the alfalfa regions as in the white- 

 clover, basswood, or buckwheat localities of 

 the Eastern States. The bees do not become 

 worked up to such a high tension as where 

 the flow comes on in a very torrent. If 

 there is not a sixty-day flow from alfalfa the 

 surplus is not likely to be very large. The 

 bees take things more calmly, and proceed 

 to enter the supers, many times, without 

 thinking of swarming. 



The second factor is the cold nights we 

 have which act as a sort of damper to the 

 warmth of the swarming fever. We often 

 have a few days of cool weather which will 

 frost the notion of swarming. But seasons 

 do come when our bees are as bad as any, 

 but I think they are more rare in the high 

 cool altitudes. 



BEE-KEEPEK,S AND THE PARCELS POST. 



Even the most observing of citizens are 

 slow to see the dam]ier placed on our na- 

 tional ])rogress by the withholding of that 

 great human betterment, the ])arcels ])ost. 

 'I'hat which we do not see as a definite loss 

 does not strike us as real; but even if we do 

 not see what we are missing in pros])erity 

 by the lack of this reform, the loss is none 

 the less real. The cost of ex])ressing a gal- 

 lon of honey from Denver to Kansas City is 

 now about 75 cents. The cost need not be 

 over 25 cents, and that would be three times 

 the fourth-class freight rate. 



The i)arcels i)ost will make the selling of 

 honey by mail order the most ])rofitable way 

 for the "wide-awake bee-keeper to sell his 

 honey. The consumers who are now anxious 

 to connect themselves directly with the pro- 

 ducer will be able to do so economically un- 

 der the pareel-jwst method. Honey and oth- 

 er farm i)roducts will pass more directly 

 from the producer to the consumer. This 

 will effect a great national saving that will 

 make us all richer. With the adoption of 

 the parcels post I expect to see honey eaten 



much more, and this will tend to give us a 

 better price for a choice article. 



These instances show that bee-keei)ers can 

 not be too well i)osted on freight rates, class- 

 ifications, and the i)roper way to ship honey. 

 If the freight agent in the first case spoken 

 of had been looking out for the best interests 

 of his com])any's customers he would have 

 told the bee-keeper how to secure the lowest 

 possible rate. 



THE POPULAR CONCEPTION OF HONEY. 



One who works with hone>', and is think- 

 ing of it a great deal, can hardly realize what 

 people in general think of it when they see 

 it in the stores or have it brought to their 

 attention. There is one thing that has very 

 agreeably surprised me, and that is the high 

 regard as a food at which honey is rated. 

 There is that flavor in the thought the w^ord 

 carries which suggests par f xceUence of 

 sweetness. The word is the oldest one in 

 our language for a sweet, and. being in use 

 every day, is well advertised. This idea of 

 quality that adheres to the word "honey" 

 can not be maintained without a correspond- 

 ingly higher price being asked than for oth- 

 er sweets. One of the very things that make 

 people susi)icious of the purity of lioney is 

 its cheapness. If honey in the comb or ex- 

 tracted honey in glass and tin could not be 

 bought for less than twenty cents a pound 

 there would be many more i)eople who would 

 have confidence in its purity. What we bee- 

 keepers need to know is that pure maple 

 syrup will bring $2.50 a gallon: and is not a 

 fine quality of honey worth as much? Ma- 

 ple sugar sells for 30 cents a pound in many 

 stores in Denver now. Honey shoidd come 

 much closer to it in price than it does at 

 present, though it is also true that a very 

 fine quality of comb honey will sell readily 

 at 20 cents i)er section. 



Some of the readers of (iLEANiNGS no 

 doubt read the article in February Hamp- 

 ion's Magazine, "What has. Become of our 

 Pure-food Law?" by Samuel Hopkins Ad- 

 ams. Mr. Adams stated in the article that 

 the markets of the country teem with honey 

 that is mainly glucose. I wrote to Mr. Ad- 

 ams that I thought the facts must be over- 

 drawn, as I had never seen any honey that I 

 thought contained any glucose, out here in 

 Colorado at least. He replied that he got 

 his information from the reports of the State 

 Food and Dairy Commissioners of Illinois 

 and Minnesota. 



Mr. Adams asked if it were not a fact that 

 the low ])rice at which certain low grades of 

 honey are sold did not bear out his contention 

 of adulteration. Now you see when a man 

 like Mr. Adams sees honey advertised for 

 five and six cents a i)ound, he, not being 

 familiar with the methods of production, 

 thinks pure honey could not be sold for so 

 little, so it must be adulterated. If the low 

 price we bee-keejiers are getting for our hon- 

 ey casts the susi)icion of adulteration upon 

 it we should have the courage to raise the 

 price enough to instill confidence at least. 



