1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKK 



651 



in the past ten years, and which now are to 

 be found regularly on most tables. 



This should not be. The honey industry 

 is big enough and rich enough to invest a 

 few thousand dollars a year in a publicity 

 campaiga, which, if properly conducted, 

 would produce results beyond the imagin- 

 ings of any one who has never advertised 

 in the present-day sense of the word. 



It might be argued that the profits in the 

 honey business would not stand for an ex- 

 pensive advertising campaign. The man 

 who raises this objection, however, is simply 

 mistaking cause for effect. It would be a 

 very short time, under a scientifically con- 

 ducted system of publicity, until the demand 

 for honey — real honey, bearing the brand of 

 purity advertised, whatever that might be 

 — would be such as to advance the price to 

 a figure which would pay the cost of the 

 advertising a dozen times over. 



Local advertising by individual bee-keep- 

 ers is as sadly neglected as is general adver- 

 tising by the fraternity at large, as repre- 

 sented by the national and local associations. 

 My own experience has been, however, that 

 it can be made productive of just as great 

 results locally as the other scheme would 

 produce nationally; but, like the larger cam- 

 paign, it must be properly and intelligently 

 conducted. A "standing" advertisement, 

 as suggested in the article referred to at the 

 beginning of this one, is perhaps better than 

 none; but little more can be said in its favor. 

 It will catch the person who is out looking 

 for honey — the person who would most like- 

 ly eventually find his way to the advertiser 

 any way — but in the person who is not in 

 the habit of using honey it excites no inter- 

 est (unless, possibly, to make him wonder 

 what sort of flower a " bonney " is. The fact 

 that the advertisement is cheap is little rec- 

 ommendation from a business point of view. 

 It is not cost, but results, that count in ad- 

 vertising. 



A few years ago, through the judicious 

 use of a small space in a local weekly paper 

 I disposed of more honey in my home town 

 than it had ever used before, a great deal of 

 it first hand, right from myself to the cus- 

 tomer (without any peddling), and the rest 

 through the local grocery store»:, while 

 "farmers' " honey was beingoflfered for sale 

 in the same stores at a price 20 per cent low- 

 er than I received. Of course, a previous 

 reputation for producing a first-class article 

 helped the campaign, but tlie advertising 

 rounded it off nicely. 



The first requisite in an advertisement, 

 whether it be of honey or anything else, is 

 that it shall be news, and that it shall con- 

 tmue to be news, and to make people read 

 it, and look for it, every time it appears, and 

 to miss it when it fails to appear, which lat- 

 ter event, in a really properly conducted 

 campaign, should never occur. The stand- 

 ing advertisement is news tne first time it 

 appears, or the first time a reader sees it, 

 afier which it is about as interesting as a 

 story of an accident published in the same 

 type time after time. 



It will pay any bee-keeper who has any 

 considerable amount of honey to sell, and 

 who wants to get all there is in it, without 

 the intervention of too many middlemen, 

 to take a space, even though it be a very 

 small one, in his local paper, and tell a story 

 no matter how short, so that it is interest- 

 mg, about his honey or his bees, and a dif- 

 fereiit one each issue, be it daily or weekly. 

 Don't let the story become old, or the pub- 

 lic will begin to lose interest in it, even after 

 it has been rejuvenated, even as they will 

 lose interest in your good honey should they 

 by any chance ever get a can of inferior hon- 

 ey bearing your label. 



Cobalt, Ont. 



S0Z4E EXPERIMENTS ON STIMULATIVE 

 FEEDING. 



Undue Stimulation Out of Season Wears Out 

 Queen so that She is Likely to Fail During 

 the Height of the Honey-flow. 



By AliBIN PLATZ. 



I have a small apiary within one mile of 

 the heart of Cincinnati; and during the lat- 

 ter part of last summer and early this spring 

 I conducted some experiments 'on stimula- 

 tive feeding, selecting for the purpose two 

 colonies which were practically equal in 

 strength— i. e., the number of bees, and the 

 amount of brood and stores. Both had 

 queens of the same age, having been hatch- 

 ed during the fore part of July, 1909. Decid- 

 ing to use hives No. 1 and No. 3 I commenc- 

 ed operations by placing an Alexander feed- 

 er under hive No. 3; and every night, just 

 before dusk I fed this colony one pint of 

 warm syrup (equal parts of sugar and wa- 

 ter). I continued feeding until our first 

 frost. I started feeding the latter part of 

 August. The other colony. No. 1, I did 

 nothing to. On Oct. 19, while packing my 

 colonies for winter I carefully examined both 

 colonies and noted that the stimulated one 

 was far superior in every way to the other, 

 and weighed fully 20 lbs. more. I may add 

 that I prepare my colonies for winter by 

 placing a half-depth super filled with rags 

 and dry leaves on top of the brood-chambers, 

 and have never lost a colony packed this 

 way. Having replaced the frames and noted 

 that the queens were all right, I left them 

 on their summer stands, not to touch them 

 again until the following spring. 



On March 4 the bees commenced to carry 

 in loads of pollen, so I at once put the feed- * 

 er under hive No. 3 again, and fed it one 

 pint of warm syrup every evening. The 

 first week in May I opened both hives, and 

 was surprised to find hive No. 3 literally 

 boiling over with bees, and eight frames out 

 of the ten almost solid with brood in all 

 stages, but very little honey. I at once put 

 on a second story of extracting-combs to 

 give the queen plenty of room. Locust- 

 trees being in bloom now, I stopped feeding. 

 On opening hive No. 1 I was disappointed 



