64 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1"). 



ci's' Union. 1 tliiuk a cliang-e, fioin time to time, is 

 best for all siifli institutions. 



Let all sentimrnt be laid aside, and let each mem- 

 ber vote for some intellifrent "bee-raan " (our sister 

 bee-keepers liave a liijilier missit)n tlian is found in 

 court decisions); properly distributing- the number 

 to be elected throughout the country as justly as is 

 practically possible. 



As to any change pertaining- to " General Man- 

 ager," that can be siifely left to the ,1udgment of 

 the members. 1 can see no reason for any change 

 in that respect, as the office of " General Manager " 

 is hedged about by a board of directors— the presi- 

 dent and A'ice-presidents. As one of the "old 

 board," 1 shall positively decline to actin the future. 

 I want to see a change. 



Another thing I want to suggest. Too much mon- 

 ey in the " treasury " is a temptati)n to ?((iasui7s. I 

 regard the Bee-keepers' Union a temporary concern. 

 When we have obtained from courts of repute a 

 sullicient number of ilrcixionK to put bee-keeping on 

 even grounds with <.)ther pursuits, each bee-keeper 

 must then do his own " lawing." I have practiced 

 the profession of law, and know whereof I affirm. 

 There is a specific stage of civilization that leads 

 men to resort to the law as a mode of warfare 

 against their enemies. No " union " should encour- 

 age that sort of civiliziition. This world— not this 

 country alone— is becoming full of "unions," and 

 "trusts." and "comljines," and "societies," of 

 every earthlj' description, and there is a cataclysm 

 ahead, or the " watchers" of the "signs of our 

 times" are mightily mistaken. 



There is a good deal of truth In what he says, 

 and we commend the article to our readers. It 

 has seemed to me several times that the work 

 of establishing precedents In law, so nobly and 

 well done by the Union in the past, is nearly at 

 an end; and as the extract from the General 

 Manager says, there is less trouble now from 

 jealous neighbors than formerly. It seems to 

 me that the Union should do more in the way 

 of hunting out suspected cases of adulteration — 

 in fact, assume the aggressive — that is, employ 

 detectives to follow up a few of the unscrupulous 

 city dealers, for instance. Surely there are 

 funds enough in the treasury to do this work. 



THE EXPEKIMENT AT THE MICHIGAN EXI'EKI- 

 MENT STATION, OF FEEDING BACK. 



In the Bee-licepers'' Review of Dec. 10, Ex- 

 perimenter Taylor reports having fed two colo- 

 nies to fill out unfinished sections, for the pur- 

 pose of determining the amount of loss or gain. 

 The following is the table as it appeared: 



^.: 



!2;'.s 



41 



28K 



112 



a a 



<1.2 



110 ?4 



91 i^ 





65.3 

 58.4 



fX o 



l.T)!^ 

 1.70 



m% 2\^% 205 %Vih)i 61.8 1.61 



In summarizing on the result, Mr. Taylor 



says: 



By a simple process of calculation, taking the 

 value of the material used and the market value of 

 the product, it will be seen that the jtroflt is more 

 than 5U per cent and this would have been consid- 



erjibly increased had all the sections been partially 

 tilled at ihe beginning of the e.xperiment. 



I understand how he arrived at his conclu- 

 sion, but it seems to me the figure, 50 per cent, 

 gives a wiong impression. Let us glance for a 

 moment at the table. By running across the 

 figures at the top. and stopping at the last item, 

 it is shown that, for every pound of unfinished 

 honey, it was necessary to feed about l^i lbs. of 

 honey. The same item just below for the other 

 hive, shows the proportion of 1 to 1%. Mr. 

 Taylor says, " The profit is more than 50 per 

 cent."' Now, I do not see it in that way. In 

 the first place, there was the labor; and in the 

 second place, the bees were probably stimulated 

 to the rearing of brood — such brood as would 

 probably be of no use to the colony later on. 

 It seems to me the question is, which would 

 bring more in dollars and cents — the extracted 

 honey fed in the liquid form, plus the unfinish- 

 ed sections, both as separate items, or the total 

 amount of finished product in one item, as the 

 result of feeding? According to the Honey 

 Column in this issue, extracted honey of good 

 quality brings at wholesale 7 cts., and comb 12. 

 Taking the figures for one hive which Mr. Tay- 

 lor fed, there are 41 lbs. of unfinished sections,, 

 which we will say ought to bring on the mar- 

 ket at least 8 cts. There was lOiV*^ of extract- 

 ed, which was fed back, which ought to bring 

 7 cts. The total for the two items thus would 

 be *10.7o. The amount of unfinished product for- 

 the same hive, in feeding back, was \\{)% lbs., 

 which would bring, according to the same price 

 current, 13 cts. per lb., or $13.29. Subtracting 

 .«10.75 from $13.29 would leave ?2..54, which, 

 would represent the gain in dollars and cents; 

 or, when reduced to percentage, 23)o per cent, 

 int-tead of over .50 per cent, as Mr. Taylor makes 

 it. But this $2.54, it seems to me, is largely 

 ofl^^set by the labor of feeding. May be I am mis- 

 taken; but I really can not see any great gain 

 from a dollars-and-cents point of view. But 

 Mr. Taylors feeding back was. I am of the opin- 

 ion, more favorable than it ordinarily is. Take- 

 the case of Mr. A. F. Unterkircher. for in- 

 stance, of Manchester, Mich., about 70 miles 

 southwest of Mr. Taylor's residence. It will be 

 found in full in our issue for Feb. 1, 188ti, page 

 101. He fed back 175 lbs. per colony to 20 colo- 

 nies for 35 days, and got back only 62>^ lbs. of 

 finished comb honey per colony: in other words, 

 he fed nearly three pounds of extracted for 

 every pound of comb honey secured; or, to carry 

 out the dollar-atid-cents comparison — for every 

 20 cts. worth of extracted honey fed, he got back 

 12 cts. worth of cemih honey. He says further: 

 "Thus the consumption for the 20 colonies, in 

 the secretion and forming of wax scales, and 

 for brood - rearing, evaporation, etc., is the 

 enormous total of 1650 lbs., or 82f.< lbs. per colo- 

 ny. . . All this [stings, etc.] is certainly 

 enough to disgust one in feeding, to say nothing: 

 regarding the loss in the operation." 



