1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



807 



ty has one or more local buyers. These buyers 

 pay cash to the producer, and the honey is 

 loaded upon the car at the nearest station, and 

 shipped directly east. The scores of carloads 

 of honey that will be shipped from this (San 

 Bernardino) and Riverside Counties, will go di- 

 rectly east, virtually from the producer, and 

 will not even pass through our large trade cen- 

 ters. All of the honey in Ventura and north- 

 ern Los Angeles Counties is served the same. 



Mr. Dayton's remark, "very few," narrows 

 the charge down to certain wholesale firms in 

 Los Angeles. There have been various charges 

 well sustained against certain of these firms 

 and their practice of adulteration; but the 

 reader will readily see that the idea that these 

 few firms adulterate half the honey in Califor- 

 nia is not only fallacious but ridiculous; and 

 the writer of such a statement must have been 

 laboring under a violent nightmare over the 

 anxiety to get a better price for his honey. 



If it were really desired, I could show by rail- 

 road statistics that but a small portion of our 

 honey finds its way into the warehouses of the 

 wholesale firms of Los Angeles or even San 

 Francisco. 



That our local dealers send out the pure 

 article can be attested to by the A. I. Root Co.; 

 for I know (if they do not) that their carload 

 of California honey was shipped by a local 

 dealer of Riverside. 



That there is plenty of work for the Bee- 

 keepers' Union to do along this line is not dis- 

 puted. I believe the present stagnation of our 

 honey markets is. in a certain measure, due to 

 this evil. The hushup policy will only aggra- 

 vate the evil by giving the criminal the idea 

 that he can pursue his calling without fear of 

 prosecution. 



We have an example before us in the manu- 

 facture of oleomargarine butter. Suppose the 

 farmer had adopted the hush-up plan as a rem- 

 edy for the evil, how much pure butter do you 

 suppose we should find in the markets? Any 

 one can easily answer the question. But the 

 farmers are a strong factor in this country; 

 and when they acted as a unit against the 

 adulteration of their product, legislators were 

 obsequious to their will, and strong laws pro- 

 tect the dairy interests. The bee-keeping in- 

 terests are weak beside the dairy interests, but 

 need the strong arm of the law quite as much; 

 and that it may be applied with thoroughness 

 and wisdom in behalf of our beloved pursuit is 

 the desire of the Rambler. 



Bloomington, Cal., Oct. 13. 



[We can testify to the fact, as Rambler says 

 (and he ought to know, for he has traveled all 

 over the State), that a very large portion of the 

 California honey is sent from the producer in 

 that State direct to the buyer in the East. We 

 have several times bought from producers in 

 that way ourselves. Much of the honey is 

 marketed by the bee-keepers' associations. Of 



course, the honey may be adulterated after it 

 gets here; but we "wise men of the East" 

 surely ought to be able to keep it pure while it 

 is here. 



Rambler's fourth paragraph is somewhat of a 

 clincher, and I regret that it shows that Mr. 

 Dayton, who usually writes very carefully and 

 cautiously, was in this case very indifferent or 

 else careless.— Ed.] 



A VALUABLE POINT ON THE HIVE QUESTION. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF A LARGE HIVE DURING 

 THE BREEDING - SEASON, AND A CON- 

 TRACTED BROOD-NEST FOR THE 

 HONEY-FLOW. 



By O. O. Poppleton. 



I have watched with some interest whatever 

 has been written on the hive question; and 

 will you allow me to call special attention to 

 what is one of the most valuable points brought 

 out as yet? I refer to the last part of your 

 footnote on p. 731. As you know, I use mainly, 

 for extracting purposes, a large single-story 

 hive in which I can add to or take from the 

 bees one or any number of frames at any time. 

 The few thousands of pounds of comb honey I 

 have taken has been mostly done by giving 

 the bees all the combs they could use in the 

 breeding-season ; and then when giving sec- 

 tions I take away all combs except the 8 which 

 contain the most brood? In my mind there is 

 no question whatever that this method gives a 

 larger yield of honey than if only an eight- 

 comb hive is used, or even a ten-comb, if the ten 

 are kept in use all the season. My experience 

 leads me to think that more than ten frames 

 during the breeding-season is preferable with- 

 most colonies to using only ten. If .1 were to rig 

 up for comb-honey raising I would use either a 

 sixteen-frame single-story hive or double eight- 

 frame hives, cutting down in either case to the 

 best eight combs when putting on sections. 

 The possible drawback to this method is that it 

 may tend to increase swarming ; but such did 

 not seem to be the case in my experience. It 

 would take a careful comparison of the two 

 methods in the same apiary to determine that 

 point. 



I think that the reason why Mr. Earl's small 

 hives (p. 7.31) gave him the largest yields was 

 due to other unnoted reasons than because of a 

 difference in size of hives. I believe it is almost 

 universally admitted that small hives are not 

 so good as large ones for producing extracted 

 honey — the interest in this question of small vs. 

 large hives being confined mostly to producers 

 of comb honey. 



There are many times in this Southland when 

 extra-large colonies in very early spring are of 

 less value than are medium-sized ones; but Dr. 

 Miller has no cause whatever to worry about 

 that in his locality. The trouble there is the 

 other way. 



If Dr. Miller wishes to induce his queens to 



