September, 1916. 



-N5^^=<( 



307 



American Hee Journal 



himself, the growers in a given com- 

 munity were competitors. A buyer 

 would come into contract for fruit and 

 the growers would bid against each 

 other, cutting each others' prices. The 

 lowest bidders got the orders and more 

 or less set the market price — away down 

 below where it should have been. This 

 same thing happens in every market 

 where the producers are unorganized, 

 though it may not be obvious on the 

 surface. Maybe it was more obvious 

 to the citrus growers than to most 

 farmers, because they saw way back in 

 1893, how foolish it was for them not 

 to combine against the buyers. 



It is perfectly true that local associa- 

 tions of honey producers would not be 

 very powerful in the markets. Still 

 they would eliminate neighborhood 

 competition. If the buyer wouldn't 

 meet the fair price agreed on he would 

 at least have to travel to the next com- 

 munity. And there, if another associa- 

 tion was met with, he might still be 

 unable to buy. Local associations 

 would help a little in the crusade for 

 fair prices. District or State associa- 

 tion would help more, as has been 

 proved in Colorado. 



Saving in Packing —Before the citrus 

 locals were formed the buyers bought 

 the fruit on the tree, ps a rule, and did 

 the packing themselves, charging the 

 growers so much per box for this ser- 

 vice. They usually charged 60 to 70 

 cents a box for oranges, and $1 00 a 

 box for lemons. The local association 

 built a packing house and the growers 

 began doing thrir own packing cooper- 

 aiivcly. Supplies were bought on a 

 fairly large scale, paper, shook, nails, 

 etc. Savings were made at once, though 

 the present cost is probably lower than 

 a local alone could have ever carried it. 

 The present cost is about33cents a box 

 for oranges and 60 cents for lemons. 

 Supplies are now furnished by the Ex- 

 change's own supply company which 

 secures greater economies than whole- 

 sale buying by the locals could accom- 

 plish. 



Saving in Picking — The picking of 

 citrus truits is a science. If the fruit is 

 handled carelessly it is pretty apt to 

 decay in transit, Deing sensitive. Even 

 careful picking by any but experts 

 causes some decay. 



The growers formerly picked their 

 own fruit, and in a single year, about 

 1910, loss from decay in transit to the 

 industry was a million and a half dol- 

 lars. Local associations have taken 

 over the picking now; it is all done 

 by trained pickers under watchful fore- 

 men, and most of the decay in transit 

 has been eliminated. Individual grow- 

 ers could not afford to have their fruit 

 picked as it is today, cooperatively. 



The local associations quite early 

 adopted brands for which they grad- 

 ually earned good will in certain mar- 

 kets, by always insuring that only 

 quality fruit was packed under the 

 brand. This fortified their position in 

 the markets and led to better prices. 

 A general Exchange brand was not 

 adopted until 1907. 



And, also, the pack became more 

 uniform. A small grower, attempting 

 to operate alone, would find it difficult 

 to insure only fruit of a certain size 

 and quality being packed in a given 

 box. Pooling the crops of many grow- 

 ers and reducing grading to a system 



resulted in much better packs, and this, 

 too, strengthened their position with 

 the trade. A reputation for uniform, 

 quality goods is of infinite value in 

 marketing anything. The localslearned 

 this early and logically aimed at such 

 reputations for their brands. 



benefits to beekeepers. 



Now, it is for the beekeepers them- 

 selves to study out the various ways in 

 which local organizations would be of 

 benefit to Ihem. Only a few would 

 occur to an outsider unfamiliar with 

 beekeeping. 



Beekeepers prepare their honey for 

 market. I have no doubt that a system 

 for doing this cooperatively, where a 

 number of beekeepers are in the same 

 community would not only result in a 

 money saving right on the ground, but 

 would result in a better pack. There 

 are today few packs of agricul- 

 tural products that could not be much 

 improved, and improved pack means 

 higher price and market prestige. 



Then, in the selling there should cer- 

 tainly be a profit from cooperation. If 

 a farmer has honey as an insignificant 

 side line why should he devote any 

 time to selling it, when one man in the 

 community could sell the honey of a 

 dozen farmers in the same time he 

 could sell only his own, and coopera- 

 tively it would probably get a better 

 price? Where the buyer comes to the 

 producer the price paid is notoriously 

 the lowest. Where the producer goes 

 to market and knows how, he gets the 

 best price. A farmer can't travel to a 

 distant market with a few cases of 

 honey. But when a carload is involved 

 that is a different story. A man told 

 in a recent issue of the Bee Journal of 

 going from Texas to Tennessee with a 

 carload of honey, and he knew how to 

 market it and got high prices. 



There should be many minor benefits 

 from local associations. Keepers of 

 cows hire cow testers cooperatively 

 and save a lot of money each year by 

 disposing of their least productive 

 cows. They could not afford to hire 

 cow testers, individually. Farmers 

 build grain elevators cooperatively and 

 thus handle their grain at a little above 

 cost, instead of paying extortionate 

 prices as they once did to the elevator 

 companies They operate cooperative 

 stores and cooperative creameries suc- 

 cessfully. University farm investiga- 

 tors in Minnesota have reported that 

 farmers handling their cream through 

 cooperative creameries are realizing 5 

 to 8 cents per pound more for butter 

 fat than are farmers who sell independ- 

 ently. 



In marketing, the writer has been 

 convinced by a rather careful study of 

 the farmer's methods both in organiza- 

 tions and on the outside, that the dif- 

 ference between individual marketing 

 and cooperative marketing of agricul- 

 tural products is the difference between 

 doing things wrong and doing things 

 right. There are exceptions, but the 

 farmer is essentially a producer, not a 

 marketer. The more he can specialize 

 on production the better; but he can't 

 specialize on production as long as he 

 tries to do this marketing all by him- 

 self. Marketing is too big a problem. 

 By association he relegates his mark- 

 eting to another person who, because 



he is marketing for many, can afford 

 to specialize markeling. Thus both 

 production and marketing are done by 

 specialists and are done right. 



Of course, while there are numerous 

 benefits from local cooperation, there 

 are certain additional benefits when 

 several locals get together, purchases 

 in larger quantities, shipments in larger 

 units, a bigger market control, etc., 

 and as associations gradually assume 

 control of a whole industry's output it 

 becomes ideal. 



The beekeepers, where enough of 

 them are in a single community, should 

 by all means work out a cooperative 

 plan for themselves. Many of these 

 locals will form the basis for some- 

 thing bigger in future years. 



Chicago, III. 



[Mr. Gano seems to have taken Dr. 

 Bonney's estimate of not to exceed 200 

 extensive honey producers seriously. 

 The Doctor was either joking or had 

 not investigated the matter or he never 

 would have made such an estimate. 

 There were more than 70 producers 

 present at San Antonio recently when 

 the Texas cooperative association was 

 organized. There are several limited 

 sections where more than that number 

 of extensive producers are to be found. 

 The honey-producing industry is much 

 greater than it is generally supposed to 

 be and is capable of marvellous expan- 

 sion. — Editor.] 



The Sectional Hive 



BY VV. F. GEDDES. 



(Second year thcsh in the Ontario Aericultural 

 Collesc.) 



THE sectional hive is not the par- 

 ticular invention of any one man, 

 but IS a growth, or. as the scien- 

 tists say, an evolution from the hives 

 in use, particularly the standard hive 

 of today, the Langstroth. Shallow or 

 "eke" hives are nothing new, as they 

 date back to the 18th century at least. 

 In the evolution of the hive the eke 

 followed the box type. Some beekeep- 

 ..'rs having noticed that bees place their 

 honey at the highest part of the hive 

 added an upper story. Later the hives 

 were divided into several horizontal 

 sections called "ekes." The eke, of 

 course, had not movable top bars, and 

 the first ekes were made of straw, but 

 in 1821 Radouan, a beekeeper, intro- 

 duced ekes of wooden structure. In 

 1845, Chas. Soria, invented a straw eke, 

 in which he used triangular bars at the 

 top and bottom of each story, placed a 

 bee-space apart so that the sections 

 could be renioved, exchanged, or re- 

 versed without crushing the bees or 

 damaging the cells. Just as the eke 

 has developed from the box-hive so 

 has the sectional hive of today devel- 

 oped from the Langstroth. 



While it is very important to have 

 good well-made hives for the bees, 

 their importance must not be over- 

 estimated. A good swarm of bees will 

 store as much honey in a nail keg as in 

 the most elaborate hive made, other 

 things being equal. Beekeeping con 



