Amarican Vee Journal 



L., "Please teM the doctor what bee- 

 stings have done for you." And he did 

 tell the doctor ; 



"Why, doctor," Mr. L. said, " look 

 licre" — (and he threw out his former 

 sore leg, and shaking it to demonstrate 

 how nice and limber it was after the 3 

 weeks of bee-sting cure — "for 8 months 

 you doctors kept me most of the time 

 in bed, and in pain ; you have filled 

 my stomach with medicine, and almost 

 ruined it; you have taken $200 out of 

 my pocket for thus treating me, and 

 only made my sick leg worse. You arc 

 no doctors at all. If you want to learn 

 something about the cure of rheuma- 

 tism, why, go down to StoUcy's farm, 

 where you can learn all about it." 



Here I again politely lifted my hat 

 and told the "learned" doctor, that it 

 would give me great pleasure indeed to 

 teach him how and where bee-stings 

 should be applied, so as to add some- 

 thing practical to his lacking profession- 

 al knowledge. 



The foregoing is all I desire to say 

 this time, as to the effectiveness of the 

 bee-sting cure for inflammatory rheu- 

 matism. 



And now I lift my hat to Dr. A. V. 

 Bonnev, and wish him a profitable New 

 Year. ' 



Grand Island, Neb., Dec. 10, 1909. 



Something on Wintering Bees 



BV F. GREINER. 



Every year winter is still making in- 

 roads upon the stock of bees in many 

 yards, and while a few bee-keepers are 

 making tire claim of never losing any 

 bees .during winter, the majority enter- 

 tain at least some fear that the dreaded 

 cold season may play havoc with them. 



I have not had very heavy losses dur- 

 ing a long term of years, but I ani not 

 so sure but what I may. The conditions 

 vary so much from year to year. Early 

 last spring I visited a bee-cellar of a 

 friend. There were 275 colonies housed, 

 and although the tiirie was near to take 

 them out, yet they were as still as mice. 

 We were "poking" around among thcni 

 for half an hour, tipping up a hive here 

 and there, to get a better look at the 

 beautiful yellow bees — yet none left 

 their hives. They seemed to be in the 

 most perfect condition. The year be- 

 fore the same lot of bees was very 

 badly afifected with dysentery, and many 

 hives were still showing signs of hav- 

 ing been badly spotted. In both years 

 the bees had stored a nice crop of fine 

 clover honey, and were practically 

 handled in the same manner, yet tliere 

 was this most marked difference in their 

 wintering. 



Another friend in my own town win- 

 ters about 150 colonies in his house- 

 cellar, and is quite successful. He al- 

 ways pries up the inner cover or honey- 

 board, and raises it just a little, to al- 

 low a circulation of air. I prefer to 

 give the needed ventilation in my bee- 

 cellar only from the bottom of the 

 hives. But he claims his bees would 

 suffer from dampness if he did that. 

 I judge there must be a difference in 

 the conditions of our respective cellars. 



In putting my bees into the cellar 

 I aim to disturb them as Utile as pos- 



sible. On the other hand, I have 

 brought bees home from an out-yard, 

 late in the fall, and, after jolting them 

 over 15 miles of rough road, put them 

 directly into the cellar, without noting 

 any disastrous result. Generally, I make 

 all the move in October, before the 

 roads become bad. This is a good prac- 

 tice, because usually the bees have a 

 chance to fly some ibefore being housed, 

 and, of course, the moving is done 

 easier, and with greater comfort. 



Locality is an important factor in win- 

 tering bees out-of-doors, and must be 

 taken into consideration, although we 

 may not understand wherein the differ- 

 ence lies, and, in that case, w'c have to 

 be satisfied to find out by experience 

 what is best in one, and what is suit- 

 able for the other. 



One of my special friends, located in 

 the other end of the county, concludes 

 that it is detrimental to his bees to 

 pack them early. He is using a sort 

 of Quinby hive, which admits packing 

 after the section supers are taken ofif. 

 I rather prefer packing at an early date, 

 fixing up things snug long before any 

 snow comes. I have never known any 

 bad results to come from this. 



I still prefer upward ventilation 

 through a thick chaff-cushion, for chaff- 

 packed hives, and I am trying only a 

 limited number each year under sealed 

 covers. Other bee-keepers fare better 

 by putting the packing on top of the 

 sealed cover; in other words, they do 

 not remove the inner cover or honey- 

 board, and replace by a quilt, 'but leave 

 it as the bees have sealed it after the 

 surplus receptacle had 'been removed. 

 Undoubtedly in some localities one plan 

 works best ; in another the opposite plan 

 gives better results. 



It is quite natural that some of us 

 are looking for easier and cheaper meth- 

 1 ods to winter our bees. We find it cum- 

 bersome to have them in chaff. Cellar- 

 wintering, on the other hand, requires 

 a suitable repository, and it is no pleas- 

 ant work to set the hives in, and out 

 again later We have tried wrapping 

 our hives in black paper, putting on a 

 deep telescope cover, • with paper or 

 bagging under it, and various other 

 plans, but we are not satisfied to have 

 found that easy and safe way we were 

 looking for. Some years our bees came 

 out all right with all methods; in other 

 years, again, all would fail more or less. 

 And so we keep on experimenting. 



Naples, N. Y., Jan. 28. 



Bee-Keeping in Southern Cali- 

 fornia 



BY W. K. MORRISON. 



The business of honey-production in 

 Southern California labors under seri- 

 ous drawbacks. Two of these will be 

 readily appreciated — low prices, and long 

 hauls to market over rough roads. Why 

 the prices of high-class honey should 

 rule low when the consumer is paying 

 high prices, is not so easily explained, 

 but I will try to analyze the situation. 



The market for San Diego County 

 honey is chiefly in Hamburg, Germany. 

 The price obtained there is probably 

 about loYi to II cents per pound, and 

 the price in Liverpool, England, is 



about the same. The freight-rate is 

 about one cent a pound, certainly not 

 more than that, as the rate to Europe 

 is less than to New York. Deducting 

 dockage, etc., the net price ought to be 

 about 9 cents, but the price obtained in 

 San Diego is about SJ4 cents per pound 

 delivered. To the man who has his 

 apiaries 40 or 50 miles from a railway 

 station, over the roughest kind of a 

 mountain road, this price is not en- 

 couraging. M 



As to who is responsible for this state " 

 of aft'airs, I shall not attempt to say, 

 but let me point some of the causes of 

 this condition. 



First, the local market is poor, largely 

 because of inferior methods of selling 

 in the retail stores. A large percentage 

 of the honey for local use is put up in 

 Mason jars, for which the consumer 

 is charged 10 cents in addition to the 

 price of the honey. This deters many 

 from buying at all. True, the grocer 

 refunds the 10 cents, when the jar is re- 

 turned, but, nevertheless, it is putting 

 the case very mildly to say, that this is 

 a very poor way to sell honey. 1 do 

 not know of any other food product 

 which requires a lo-cent package for 25 

 cents worth of goods. At present, but- 

 ter sells for 40 cents a pound in San 

 Diego, but the cost of the package does 

 not exceed one-tenth of a cent. No 

 doubt the butter-makers could use a 

 glass butter-dish to place their butter in, 

 but they don't do it. Why do bee-keep- 

 ers do it? 



There is a fine field in California for 

 the cheap paper packages for honey, 

 such as milk dealers use. 1 think paper 

 bottles are made in Los Angeles, and 

 possibly in San Francisco. In any event, 

 I hope California bee-keepers will soon 

 see the folly of using very expensive 

 packages for honey. These are fine for 

 exhibiting honey, and that is all. 



As it is now, glucose by the carload 

 comes here from Chicago overland, a 

 distance of 2,500 miles, and is sold here 

 at 6 cents per pound. In other words, 

 the California people send their splen- 

 did honey to the East to be exchanged 

 for glucose. They pay the freight both 

 going and coming, and yet they say the 

 people of the Pacific Coast are smart ! 

 1 don't believe it. It seems to me it is 

 tlie Chicago dealers who are smart. 

 True, a large percentage of the honey 

 goes to Hamburg, but they do not buy 

 goods there. The money goes to Chi- 

 cago to pay for the glucose, already 

 bought. Wonderful business! Califor- 

 nia does a considerable trade on this 

 basis. It trades fine olive oil for cot- 

 ton-seed oil and cottolene, and so on. ^ 

 It is a grand tiling for the dealers — and ^ 

 the railroads. 



Very little is used by the baking trade 

 in California — why, it is difficult to say. 

 California used to be the banner wheat- 

 exporting State, but now the biscuit 

 business is controlled from St. Louis, 

 Kansas City and Chicago. \y present, 

 one of the big trans-continental rail 

 roads is out of commission, and will be 

 for some months, but it seems to me it 

 would be a good thing for California 

 if some more of them were washed out 

 by the floods for awhile, until the Coast 

 people learn to stand alone. 



As regards comb honey, the situation 



