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American Hee Jiournal 



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flowers, and if it were not so used, it 

 would be lost." 



The Minnesota report may be had 

 free by addressing Chas. D. Blaker, In- 

 spector, 4420 Grimes Ave., Minneapo- 

 lis, Minn. 



The Airline Advertisiugf Cam- 

 paign 



By far the biggest thing ever at- 

 tempted in the way of National pub- 

 licity for honey, is the general adver- 

 tisting campaign of the A. I. Root 

 Company, for the Airline honey. Ad- 

 vertisements of this brand of honey 

 have appeared in the better class of 

 magazines of national circulation for 

 the past two years as well as in most 

 of the daily papers of the large cities. 

 There can be no question but that this 

 campaign has been of great value in 

 steadying the market at a time when it 

 was very much unsettled. A notable 

 result of this general advertising has 

 been the appearance of honey in many 

 cafes, dining cars and other places 

 where it had not previously been of- 

 fered. While, of course, a special 

 demand has been created for " Airline 

 Honey," many new customers have 

 appeared for honey in general, your 

 honey and ours. No concern is big 

 enough to absorb all the benefit from 

 its own advertising, and only a large 

 corporation is able to conduct a na- 

 tionwide advertising campaign. 



The Root Company has spent $50,000 

 in three years for advertising purposes, 

 and this year has handled nearly a 

 quarter of a million dollars worth of 

 honey. While it is to be presumed 

 that they have made a profit in the sale 

 of such a large amount, they have made 

 a market for many carloads of honey 

 from sections where it was not moving 

 freely previously. 



Mistakes 



During the winter months the daily 

 mail is very heavy and mistakes are 

 sometimes made in crediting subscrib- 

 ers for remittances. We are anxious 

 to correct any error and trust our 

 readers will notify us when mistakes 

 occur. 



Premiums at Fairs 



One reason why better premiums are 

 not offered for hive products at agri- 

 cultural fairs is that beekeepers do not 

 make their showing at the proper time. 

 If the matter is brought before the fair 

 officials at the time when they are pre- 

 paring their premium lists it is often 

 possible to get much better premiums. 

 Two years ago the Iowa Beekeepers' 

 Association addressed a letter to the 

 secretary of every county fair in the 



Strife and enclosed a suitable premium 

 list. As a result, in several counties 

 where little attention had been paid to 

 hive products, there is now offered a 

 very creditably amount for premiums 

 on honey and wax. Now is the time 

 to get in touch with the officials of 

 State and county fairs if anything is to 

 be accomplished for the coming sea- 

 son. Even now m.iny of the fairs will 

 have their premium lists fully made up 

 for this year. Wake up and call upon 

 the fair officials if you want to help 

 make the apiary displays worth while. 



Overcome b.y Gas 



We learn from the Ames, Iowa, 

 Times, that Prof. Bartholomew, the 

 well-known instructor in beekeeping 

 and president of the Iowa Beekeepers' 

 Association, and his family were acci- 

 dentally overcome by gas produced 

 by their heating furnace, to such an 

 extent that Mrs. Bartholomew, the 

 three children and a nurse were ren- 

 dered unconscious. Had not Prof. 

 Bartholomew himself been able to 

 summon a physician, it is doubtful if 

 the family would have survived. 



How Long Have You Bead this 

 Paper ? 



We have a very interesting letter 

 from Mr. George Hodges, of Belmont, 

 N. Y. He writes that he has been a 

 subscriber to the American Bee Jour- 

 nal for 30 years. This leads us to en- 

 quire how many on our list have read 

 the Journal for a longer period. We 

 w )uld be glad to know how many have 

 been subscribers for 30 years or more. 



Sight in Bees 



It has been written that " experi- 

 ments indicate that insects are very 

 short-sighted, none being able to see 

 distinctly for more than 60 centime- 

 ters (24 inches) and bees much less 

 than that." 



Bees, at their first exit from the hive, 

 fly around in circles to get fully ac- 

 quainted with the spot where their 

 home is. Whether it is a hollow tree 

 in the woods or a movable-frame hive, 

 they come back to it with the greatest 

 precision, after having traveled great 

 distances, through woods, fields or 

 brush. No sense except vision directs 

 them in this. It is true that at certain 

 short distances they seem unable to 

 readily distinguish objects. Perhaps, 

 having two different sets of eyes, the 

 compound eyes and the ocelli, they are 

 somewhat in the position of a man 

 who needs spectacles for short distance 

 sight; there is a point at which his 

 sight is inefficient, with or without 



spectacles 



If we disturb a hive of bees on a 

 cool day, when the bees are not active, 

 but still able to fly at us, they will no- 

 tice the intruder, after he runs away, 

 at several rods. But if they have had 

 no cause for anger he may think him- 

 self unseen by them because they pay 

 no attention to him. 



The editor of Gleanings in Bee Cul- 

 ture, in his December number, holds 

 that bees fly longer distances in some 

 localities, because they may be able to 

 see fields of blossoms across a valley 

 two or three miles away. Although 

 this may be a little excessive, it seems 

 to me much more plausible than a short 

 vision. Both, however, may be true if 

 we accept the possibility of long vision 

 from the compound eyes and short 

 vision from the ocelli. 



It isaccepted by many entomologists 

 that bees have short vision. But to ex- 

 plain their return home from a distance 

 there is no other way than a very good 

 distant vision. Some men, Gaston 

 Bonnier of the Paris Institute among 

 them, claim the existence of an addi- 

 tional organ which they call " organ of 

 direction." This is a mere surmise. 

 Bees find their way home only from 

 places where they have gone before. If 

 we carry a hive of bees outside of the 

 range of their harvest, none find their 

 way back to the old spot. This we have 

 tested hundreds of times. 



I have seen a bee come to a very 

 short single blossom of white clover, 

 at my feet, when there was not another 

 blossom within 40 feet. That flower 

 was in a lawn, among the blades of 

 blue grass, and the bee either saw it or 

 smelt it. I believe it did both. 



The Sense Organs of the 3Iouth 

 Parts of the Honeybee 



We are again called upon to notice a 

 very scientific and thorough study of 

 bee anatomy, by Dr. Mclndoo, the same 

 man who has already given us a study 

 of the olfactory organs. This work, 

 as minute in its details and as scientific 

 in its descriptions and its terms as the 

 former work, is not intended for the 

 average reader. 



Dr. Mclndoo says that from the defi- 

 nitions given " it is evident that the 

 senses of smell and taste in vertebrates 

 cannot be sharply separated, and the 

 present paper will show that these two 

 senses in the honeybee cannot be sep- 

 arated at all. In the honeybee it will 

 be shown that the sense of taste is only 

 one phase of the olfactory sense." 



Experiments were made in feeding 

 foods containing repellents, such as 

 carbolic acid, oil of peppermint, whis- 



