American Vee Jonrnal 



is carried away and quite evenly dis- 

 tributed among the most of the colo- 

 nies in the apiary. In this case I do 

 no uncapping, for the bees will do it 

 themselves, leaving the combs in nice 

 shape to be used for baits. Even where 

 sections are stored away in the cold, 

 so that much of the honey in the 

 combs becomes candied, by giving to 

 the bees in this w'ay, the dampness 

 gathered in the pile during the nights 

 of May liquefies the grains from which 

 the bees sucked the liquid the day be- 

 fore, so that they in turn become liquid, 

 so that there is nothing wasted and 

 the combs cleaned perfectly clean. 



In these ways everything results to 

 the advantage of the bee-keeper, who 

 has " an eye to see and an ear to hear." 



Borodino, N. Y. 



slow work, and I am more interested in 

 the other question, or was until I found 

 that not one percentum of the bee- 

 keepers in the country believe such a 

 bee possible. Now I have consigned 

 them to the limbo of the moth-trap, the 

 non-swarming hive, and the long- 

 tongued bee, for I have never yet been 

 able to find a strain of bees but what 

 will swarm some time, the claims of 

 their owners to the contrary notwith- 

 standing. 



Buck Grove, Iowa. 



What's a Non-Swarming Strain 

 of Bees ? 



BY DR. A. F. BONNEY. 



I do not write on this subject to dis- 

 courage investigation, as has been sug- 

 gested, but rather to encourage intelli- 

 gent study. If a non-swarming bee is 

 to be developed it will happen in spite 

 of all I might write or say, while all 

 the wishing, and striving, and longing 

 man may indulge in will not alter Law 

 one whit. 



Men have striven for centuries to 

 discover perpetual motion, and the 

 secret of transmitting the baser metals 

 into gold, firmly believing both possi- 

 ble. May it not be possible that bee- 

 keepers are equally unscientific in 

 seeking to develop a non-swarming 

 strain ? To try to answer the question 



I must ask : "What is a non-swarm- 

 ing strain of bees ?" 



I think such a strain would best be 

 defined as bees which under no cir- 

 cumstance would swarm, but ever 

 supersede their queens in the hive. A 

 swarm of bees which, from being in 

 the midst of a vast quantity of empty 

 combs will go without swarming for 

 many generations of bees, may the very 

 next generation swarm repeatedly. As 

 Mr. Smith, of Medford, Oreg., says: 

 "You bet them their non-swarming 

 bees will swarm su?nc lime" and the 

 evidence points that way, for it is the 

 nature of the bees. 



Mr. Stephens, of this State, an old 

 and old-time bee-man of original ideas, 

 gave me a new idea in a recent letter. 

 He says, "Their non-swarming bees 

 are almost always weak colonies," and 

 from what I have opportunity to ob- 

 serve, I think he has hold of Truth by 

 an ear, for I do not know of a non- 

 swarming colony — and I have had one 

 or two such — that gave as much sur- 

 plus as the bees which I let swarm 

 once, putting the young bees back with 

 'le original colony. 



•Ks I mentioned before, a non-swarm- 



II ; colony or strain is one which will 

 not swarm, else the name is a mis- 

 nomer, just as a long-tongued bee has 

 a long tongue or is not what it is 

 called. It seems that once in a while 

 there are bees which will work on red 

 clover, but is it because they have long 

 tongues, or that white clover is not 

 yielding nectar ? I am paying some 

 attention to that question, but it is 



No. 3. —Points on Selling Honey 



BY WESLEY FOSTER. 



In my talks on selling honey, so far, 

 I have dealt more especially on the 

 personal qualities of the salesman than 

 on the real conditions that are pres- 

 ent for every honey salesman to master 

 and bend around, if may be, to his ad- 

 vantage. The instructions to sales- 

 men sent out from time to time em- 

 phasize the necessity of holding the 

 aggressive attitude, never paying any 

 attention to the objections of the pro- 

 spective buyer any longer than to wipe 

 them out, if possible. 



Now it is necessary for any man who 

 wishes to succeed in selling honey to 

 be positive about the delicious quality 

 of this product, but there are other 

 things in the world besides honey, and 

 we will do well to be broad in our view 

 at all times, for we will sell more honey 

 by admitting that maple sugar and 

 syrup (if pure) ranks along by the side 

 of honey as an article of food. I know 

 some bee-keepers who will pay $2.50 

 for a fine, thick, pure maple syrup, and 

 then sell their own honey for a dollar 

 a gallon. Now a bee-man would do 

 well to eat his own product, but a 

 change is welcome at times, so we can 

 readily see that we can not expect to 

 sell all the sweets that are consumed. 

 In fact, we may grant that corn syrup 

 has its place, if it is not an injurious 

 food product. Corn-syrup manufac- 

 turers, or rather their advertisement 

 writers, overstep the mark when they 

 say it is far superior to honey. 



The condition that the honey-trade 

 is "up against " calls for work along 

 several lines in order to hold its own. 

 The plans for advertising Nationally I 

 hope may be worked out, and get 

 farther than just talk. I think many of 

 us have spent too much time at fairs 

 and expositions in comparison to the 

 time spent in educating our grocers at 

 home the way to display and talk up 

 sales of honey. I have great faith in 

 storedemonstrations ; they come nearer 

 the ideal way to popularize honey than 

 the house-to-house canvass, even ; for 

 when we call at the lady's house she 

 has that ever-present prejudice against 

 agents to be overcome, while, if we find 

 her in the store in search of groceries, 

 she will give a willing ear to a strong 

 honey-talk, re-info reed with a gener- 

 ous sample or taste. 



I have made an attractive display in 

 a large store where the windows were 

 large, and spent Saturday showing the 

 store customers the honey; and at 

 noon of the next Monday morning 

 heard a whole crowd of school chil- 

 dren eagerly telling about the live bees 

 in that store, and the pretty white honey 



they had made. I hardly think one of 

 those children would fail to carry home 

 an account of the wonderful sight he 

 or she had seen up at the store. And 

 parents' actions are influenced more 

 by children than many imagine. There 

 is not a store that I have ever heard of 

 that was not anxious to get the bees 

 and the exhibit once or twice every 

 year. Where one shows a willingness 

 to co-operate with the grocer to sell 

 the honey he will always fee! more like 

 doing his very best, and remaining a 

 staunch customer. 



We should feel about our honey as 

 some of our largest and most reliable 

 food-canners do about their goods, 

 that their duty is not done when their 

 salesman has sold a grocery a big order 

 of goods. If those goods do not sell 

 readily these food-canners feel duty- 

 bound to get out and work up trade 

 among the consumers. That is one of 

 the reasons why some houses have such 

 an enormous business — they carry their 

 goods to the consumer, and then the 

 grocer can make more sales. 



The picture I have shown is a view 

 of the booth of the Colorado Honey- 

 Producers' Association at the Pure 

 Food Exposition in Denver. There is 

 one very strong point about the ar- 

 rangement of this booth, and that is, it 

 is equally well arranged for showing 

 the beauty of the goods, and the coun- 

 ters are fixed for the purpose of giving 

 out samples of honey, selling honey, 

 and the distribution of literature. So 

 many exhibits show only the goods to 

 the eye, while this one shows the goods 

 to the eye and taste as well. This point 

 is a valuable one for any who contem- 

 plate the exhibition at fairs. 



A booth of this kind will require the 

 help of three or four people to serve 

 the honey samples, answer questions, 

 hand out literature, and keep the booth 

 always looking attractive. Live bees 

 and a large reading-glass fastened to 

 the observatory hive to make the look- 

 ing at the bees more satisfactory, was 

 the greatest drawing card, unless it 

 was the giving out of samples of honey 

 on crackers. The wax figures and vari- 

 ous bee-appliances aroused much in- 

 terest, and the mottoes, such as the 

 one to be seen hanging near the center 

 of the picture, caused favorable com- 

 ment. 



Every exhibit at a fair will be twice 

 as effective for real stimulation of 

 honey consumption if honey is served 

 and sold right from the booth, for 

 folks want to get closer than just 

 looking. 



Elbert Hubbard says he never feels 

 so highly complimented as when some 

 one calls him "Teacher." That is true 

 of us all ; we like to tell of the things 

 that are interesting to us to those who 

 will gladly listen, and this is perhaps 

 the main reason why exhibiting at 

 fairs and selling honey is interesting 

 work for me. I like to tell what I 

 know to those who want my knowledge. 

 I never yet talked with an exhibitor at 

 a fair — whether it was poultry, bees, 

 honey or live stock that was his pas- 

 sion — who was not bubbling over with 

 enthusiasm. And so this is why I be- 

 lieve every one of us would get more 

 pleasure from our work if we would 

 try and show others about it at the 

 fairs, or in store demonstrations, or by 



