594 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Sept. 15 



There are bee-men who have the natural 

 abiUty to convince a grocer of tlie vakie of 

 honey as a profit-maker for him. Sincerity, 

 directness, and a determined, i)ositive atti- 

 tude will get a respectful hearing in most 

 cases. Besides these features, good tact in 

 leading grocers up to a decision to buy is 

 the other main essential. Prices should be 

 at the tongue's end, and circulars with 

 prices and illustrations of the different 

 grades and sizes of honey-packages should 

 always be left. One of the objections always 

 met is that the grocer is not quite ready to 

 order. What he means by that is that the 

 salesman has not yet thoroughly convinced 

 him of the value of honey, and he is simply 

 trying to put off this salesman in order to 

 get rid of him. 



Selling by means of salesmen costs mon- 

 ey, but it is the plan most likely to secure 

 results that are tangible. The plan is ad- 

 vertising, just as a notice in magazines and 

 papers is advertising. The form of adver- 

 tising that is the most effective of all is a 

 house-to-house canvass, at which time sam- 

 jjles are given for the people to taste while 

 the salesman is present. An order in most 

 instances can be secured at once, which will 

 generally run under one dollar each, accord- 

 ing to my experience. When selling to re- 

 tailers the sales average about four dollars 

 in cities and ten to fifteen dollars in country 

 towns where the ground is not covered so 

 often. Sales to the wholesalers, of course, 

 run higher — all the way from several dollars 

 a month up to five hundred, according to 

 the way the wholesaler's salesmen push the 

 honey among their retailing customers. 



I am not much impressed with the idea 

 of each individual selling his own product, 

 unless he can get a very good price. A large 

 bee-keeper can not afford to spend the time. 

 Neither do I think that much can be accom- 

 l)lished by an organization like the Nation- 

 al Bee-keepers' Association spending sever- 

 al thousand dollars in advertising unless it 

 can have a regular business organization 

 with a capital of $100,000 at least to do busi- 

 ness with. A start might be gotten with 

 less capital; but the benefits to the bee-keep- 

 ing industry of the whole country would 

 not be appreciable until every large market 

 was supplied with the product put up by 

 the Association. Perhaps the Colorado 

 Honey-i)roducers' Association might be cit- 

 ed as a model for a national association. 

 The Colorado bee-keepers (that is, the larg- 

 est of them), organized about eleven years 

 ago with but a very small capital to operate 

 on, and now they have a sale for more hon- 

 ey than their members produce, and, con- 

 sequently, they have to buy outside. Most 

 of the wholesale houses of Colorado carry 

 their line of honey exclusively, and it 

 would be difficult to find a town in the State 

 where their honey is not sold. This busi- 

 ness was practically all built up through 

 the salesmen of the wholesale houses carry- 

 ing samples and price lists along with their 

 other samples and literature. 



Boulder, Colo. 



TWELVE-FRAME HIVES PREFERRED BY 



ONE WHO HAS ALWAYS USED 



THE EIGHT-FRAME. 



The Eight-frame Hive for Honey-production a 

 Step in the Wrong Direction. 



BY GEO. SHIBER. 



There seems to be a strong tendency on the 

 part of bee-keepers toward a larger hive than 

 the eight-frame. Perhaps the majority are 

 using ten-frame and some the twelve-frame. 

 What I shall say on this question is from 

 the standpoint of the extracted-honey pro- 

 ducer. It might not apply to comb-honey 

 production, and yet it might. 



I have tried a few twelve-frame hives this 

 season, and I find that they "deliver the 

 goods;" and I am not sure but that, if I 

 were to start anew, the twelve-frame would 

 be my choice. Mr. Holtermann has said 

 that, if there was one thing in bee-keeping 

 that he knew, it was that the queen would 

 more readily spread the brood-nest sidewise 

 than she would extend it into a second 

 story. He is just right, I believe; but there 

 is another point to be taken into considera- 

 tion. Let us take an eight-frame hive for 

 illustration. The colony in it has wintered 

 well; and as fruit and dandelion bloom 

 come on, the bees soon need much more 

 room, so another story of combs is added. 

 If the colony is very strong the bees will 

 soon occupy it, and later on the queen will 

 lay in the bottom part of these upper combs. 

 During all this time a colony in a twelve- 

 frame hive would be getting ahead of this 

 one in the two eight-frame bodies. One 

 reason is, there is always a crack at the 

 joints between the two bodies. This may 

 be seen, even in a new hive; and an old hive, 

 no matter how well it has been scraped, 

 will show it a little more. The crack lets in 

 the cool night air — a condition which does 

 not exist in the twelve-frame brood-cham- 

 ber, where no air can get in except at the 

 small entrance, thus permitting the queen 

 to extend the brood-nest with the smallest 

 number of nurse bees. 



I have several hundred eight-frame bodies 

 that I have had for some years. They are 

 in good condition, and I can not afford to 

 throw them away. I started to use them in 

 the latter part of the 80's, when that size 

 seemed to take best in the bee-keeping 

 world. .Judging from events since that 

 time, the manufacturers were forced to make 

 and give prominence to the eight-frame 

 hive; but I believe this was a step in the 

 wrong direction. 



This is the way I am using the eight- 

 frame hives in extracted-honey production, 

 and I find that they work all right: Suppose 

 we have finished extracting about the last 

 of .July. Each colony is given another story 

 of empty combs from the extractor. We 

 now have two-story hives, each of which 

 contains 16 frames, with no queen-excluder. 

 When buckwheat blossoms, the bees will 

 usually gather sufficient for winter; and the 



