150 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 15 



California had 9 inches of rain up to the 

 morning of the 5th, which, according loa cor- 

 respondent, means about 75 carloads of hon- 

 ey by the first of August. I suppose the Cal- 

 ifornians will be hoping that the Coloradoans 

 and the eastern bee-keepers will have a failure 

 of the honey crop. For three years California 

 has had almost a total failure, and now she is 

 to be blessed with a big crop, it seems. 



At the Madison convention a good deal was 

 said in reference to the matter of low prices 

 during a year of large supply. Mr. E. France 

 said it was often a good paymg investment to 

 hold honey over until the following year, es- 

 pecially when prices were ruling low and 

 everybody had a plenty. One year he had 

 50,000 lbs. of honey. Everybody was selling 

 it, and selling it cheap. He held his over, 

 and next year there was a scarcity ; then he 

 unloaded his crop, and. as he said, made the 

 " very best investment" he ever made in his 

 life. 



"BUT 'TWAS A. GLORIOUS VICTORY." 

 Sum people that go to law for dammiges sumtimes 

 get more than tha -want.— Josh Billings. 



Just as this form is going to press I have 

 received information that the plaintiff, or, as 

 he is called, Fruitman Utter, has decided not 

 to carry his case to a higher court, and he has 

 settled by paying all the costs, which can 

 hardly be less than $500 or $600. Thanks to 

 the National Bee-keepers' Association, the de- 

 fense was so strong that the other side knew 

 there was absolutely no show for them. We 

 met the enemy and whipped him so hard that 

 he knew there would be nothing left of him 

 if he attempted to put up another fight. ' Tis 

 well. Hip, hip, hurrah for the Association ! 

 Such a victory ought to appeal to every one 

 of our subscribers who is not a member. Send 

 in a dollar to General Manager Secor, Forest 

 City, la., and have a hand in this glorious 

 work. There are more battles to fight, and 

 we need your help, and — you may need ours. 



PRESIDENT FRANCE AND THE WISCONSIN 

 CONVENTION. 



I HAVE just returned from attendance at the 

 Wisconsin State Bee-keepers' Convention, 

 held in Madison on the 5th and 6th. Owing 

 to the very poor year the general attendance 

 was not so large as formerly ; but lack of at- 

 tendance was fuUy made up in the character 

 of the discussions and the interesting side 

 talks by Pres. France, who not only knows 

 how to " talk bees" but to steer discussion. 

 Mr. France is both President of the Wiscon- 

 sin State Bee-keepers' Association, and foul- 

 brood inspector for the State. For the last 

 two or three years he kas been sent by the 

 State to lecture on bee-keeping at farmers' in- 

 stitutes ; and from what I saw and heard of 



him I should say he was the right man in the 

 right place. 



PICKING up ROYAL JELLY WITH A MEDI- 

 CINE- DROPPER. 



Mr. Arthur C. Miller, who has been experi- 

 menting in this matter, writes us as follows : 



Mr. Root . — In your editorials for Jan. 15 j-ou referred 

 to the use of medicine-droppers for gathering and dis- 

 tributing royal jelly, and you asktd if any of your 

 readers had tried it. During last summer I made sev- 

 eral attempts to use the droppers for that purpose, 

 but it was a failure every tiriie ; the fcod would dis- 

 tribute itself all over the inside of the tube, and would 

 not come out again. I also made some attempts to 

 remove larvge by placing over them a glass tube, and 

 then by placing my finger over the end of the tube I 

 expected to lift them with the food in which they lay. 

 It did not work. I also tried a medicine-dropper with 

 a specially large end, and Miss Larva promptly shot 

 up to the top, with, of course, fatal results. With a 

 tube of the right air capacity, and having a ru'^iber 

 diaphragm over the top, and with an opening ^.rarf/v 

 right, we may be able to succeed. I believe that the 

 matter is worth further investigatirn. 



Providence, R. I., Jan. 31. Arthur C. Miller. 



APPLE-BLOSSOM HONEY AND ITS QUALITY. 



For several years the article that appeared 

 in the A B C of Bee Culture referred to the 

 quality of apple-blossom honey as being very 

 inferior ; but in the last edition, that of 1900, 

 this item was changed, and the honey from 

 apple-blossoms is now spoken of as having a 

 very fine flavor. Mr. R. J. Fox, of Naiick, 

 Mass., has recently sent us another sample of 

 apple-blossom honey — the pure genuine arti- 

 cle. It is light in color, heavy in bod}', and 

 most delicious in flavor. To my notion, alfal- 

 fa stands at the head in point of flavor ; white 

 clover and basswood next ; but between white 

 clover and genuine apple-blossom I do not 

 know which I prefer. The flavor of the apple- 

 tree honey has the same beautiful delicate 

 aroma that one smells when going through an 

 apple-orchard in the height of bloom. 



A. I. Root says he does not know how he 

 came to class apple honey as dark and poorly 

 flavored ; but some one has since suggested 

 that perhaps the honey he tested, and which 

 he supposed was from apple-blossoms, was 

 honey from peach-trees — a honey that is not 

 nearly so good as that from apple. 



THE FOOL POLICY OF SMALL PRODUCERS ; 

 LOW PRICES. 



The editor of the American Bee Journal, at 

 the Wisconsin convention, in explaining why 

 the prices of comb honey are often put down, 

 told how the small dealer would rush his hon- 

 ey off to market, bring it to the grocer, and 

 sell it at whatever price he was offered. Well, 

 this grocer would, later, needing more honey, 

 go to a commission man and inquire the price 

 of honey, but he would be met wUh a figure 

 two or three cents above what he had just paid 

 the small producer. Oh, no! he would not pay 

 that price, for he could buy at a much lower 

 price. The commission man, not willing to 

 lose a sale, cuts the price down to the price of 

 the small producer, with the result that prices 

 fall all along the line. 



Mr. York urged that all the producers, 

 whether large or small, should first get their 

 prices from recognized honey-buyers or com- 



