682 



GLEAXIX08 IN BEE CULTURE 



Nov. 1 



Bee-keeping Among The 

 Rockies 



By WKSI.EY Foster. Boulder, Colo. 



COMB-HONEY PRICES GOOD. 



Now, $3.25 is a good price for us Western 

 bee-keepers; but those of us who had any 

 surplus honey this year, and had it put up 

 proijerly, have reached this figure. How- 

 ever, each comb in the case of 24 must weigh 

 at least Voyi ounces, and no unsealed cells 

 dare occur except in the outside row. 



FOUL-BROOD LAWS THAT CONDEMN BOX 

 HIVES. 



That New Zealand law certainly takes 

 hold of the matter of bees in box hives, 

 cracker-boxes, etc., in the proper way. Any 

 place where bees are kept in these make- 

 shifts is a poor place for an up-to-date bee- 

 keeper, for it is impossible to keep such 

 bees from infection. While bees in boxes 

 are very rare in the West, they are found, 

 and it would be a great advantage to have a 

 law such as the New Zealand law. ^^'e 

 should have our inspector also getting after 

 the bees in the rocks and trees in the moun- 

 tains; and any man who knew of the pres- 

 ence of bees in the sides of houses, out- 

 buildings, or chimneys would be liable if he 

 did not report it to the inspector or remove 

 the bees to frame hives. I do not think 

 this would be a hard thing to enforce in this 

 State, for the law would affect but few, and 

 would certainly be an added protection to 

 those who are having a hard fight against 

 foul brood. 



WINTER VENTILATION. 



We have contracted our entrances to one 

 or two inches, and have used both sealed 

 covers and various types of absorbent cush- 

 ions. Our experience in this dry country 

 with comparatively mild winters is that ab- 

 sorbent cushions are not a great advantage. 

 Double- walled chaff hives are not used in 

 ( "olorado, so my observations have all been 

 with the single-walled hives. The winters 

 are mild, almost without exception, till 

 April, having but a few storms that keep 

 the bees confined in the hives more than a 

 week without a cleansing flight. But in 

 April we have a continuous succession of 

 damp slushy snows with much cloudy 

 weather which will prevent the evaporation 

 from the hives that usually lakes place dur- 

 ing our regular cold dry tlays of December 

 and .January. W^hen I speak of a cold 

 day here in Colorado I mean only a crisp 

 day. Our days are cool in winter, but the 

 cold does not pierce to the marrow of one's 

 bones the way it does in damper States. 

 The moisture does collect on the tops of the 



frames of a sealed-cover hive during the 

 damp snowy days of early spring, and so a 

 cover with just a small opening at the top 

 has been found to be sufficient here. A 

 honey-board with an escape-hole in the cen- 

 ter and an outer cover over this is the best for 

 our country. The winters are not so severe 

 that we need fear from the cold, and a larger 

 number of bee-men each year are finding 

 out that the bees can use a full entrance 

 with some upward ventilation such as a 

 hole in the inner cover. Hives that have 

 been uncovered entirely for several weeks, 

 and had snow drift in on the combs and 

 bees seem to suffer little damage. The 

 snow is comparatively dry; and the air be- 

 ing dry, the bees do not become damp. 

 Wintering is not much thought of in this 

 country; but we shall find in the near fu- 

 ture that a little more care and adoption of 

 Eastern methods of wintering will be a good 

 thing. The double-walled hive and the 

 winter cover are now attracting some atten- 

 tion. We think perfection in wintering has 

 not been reached here, and so a few of the 

 heretofore thought useless practices will no 

 doubt be tried. 



MODERN SYSTEMS OF SELLING. 



Now that the time of year has come when 

 we are spending some time in selling honey 

 it will do no harm to study the methods 

 of some of the food manufacturers. The 

 large canning and preserving companies 

 send out hundreds of salesmen, and every 

 salesman endeavors to sell all the goods pos- 

 sible. The zeal of the salesman outruns his 

 judgment many times, and he sells the re- 

 tailer more goods than he can handle. 

 Many salesmen take the attitude that they 

 will sell every man just as heavy a stock as 

 he will buy; and if he has bought too heav- 

 ily, let him get rid of the stock as best he 

 can. This makes large sales for a while, 

 but a house that pursues this policy soon » 

 finds that it is losing trade. Five years of 

 such a procedure will wind up the average 

 firni's business in a given territory. The 

 old and reliable houses go directly to the 

 consumer with house-to-house demonstra- 

 tions, and Saturday demonstrations in the 

 stores. A district manager for the "Heinz 

 57 ^"arieties" told me that he got his best 

 territory by going from house to house one 

 week out of each month, and working the 

 grocers the rest of the time. The grocers 

 will handle any thing the customer calls 

 for, and the real work is to get hold of the 

 customer. The grocer will not believe what 

 a salesman says nearly so quickly as he will 

 act on the request of a customer for a cer- 

 tain brand or kind of goods. 



The only kind of salesman who will suc- 

 ceed is the one who can show the housewife 

 the value of the goods, and can also take 

 the same proposition up to the manager for 

 a wholesale grocery, and get him to put in 

 a stock of goods and push it. 



