'•n " ' <»< i fB ^^ 



American Bee Jonrnal j 



a strain of bees superior to common 

 bees. 



" Management." as the Doctor thinks, 

 is a whole lot, but not, as he infers, the 

 whole thing; else why could he not 

 have like results every year ? Cannot 

 one " manage " a colony the same every 

 year ? But suppose one strain yields 

 one-third or more surplus with the 

 sami- management than another strain, 

 and does it year after year ? Is not 

 that an improved bee as compared with 

 the other ? Our improved live stock 

 give more flesh or milk, as the case 

 may be, for the like amount of feed 

 than do the "scrub" stock;" hence 

 they are an " improvement " over the 

 scrub stock. 



Such colonies as produce regularly 

 more bees than are secured by natural 

 selection an- improved bees. I believe 



are superior as to honey-gathering and 

 non-swarming to bees bred from nat- 

 ural swarming. For si.x seasons I have 

 depended for my sole support upon the 

 bees, and as I did not have enough 

 colonies of this strain, I have yielded 

 to the temptation to keep over some of 

 the best colonies of the common bees 

 that I should have requeened. 



I have, however, gained control of 

 my neighborhood by purchasing most 

 of the bees around here, and still hope 

 to increase my stock of selected bees. 

 I am not trying to advertise, and have 

 no bees or queens for sale. 



I notice where bee-keepers are be- 

 hind the times, and use the old-fash- 

 ioned way of increase by natural swarm- 

 ing, that their neighbors generally have 

 bees, if thev want them enough to hive 

 swarms. With this condition one can- 



FiG. 5— How THE Signal and Number Card Looks.— (See page 371.) 



" like will produce like " in bees as 

 much as in other things. They claim 

 that we cannot control the male par- 

 entage. But we do not fully under- 

 stand the question of mating. On page 

 274, Mr. F. W. L. Sladen says "the 

 difficulties of mating might be over- 

 come by isolation, but this cannot be 

 done in settled districts," just where we 

 wish to test for honey-gathering. I 

 believe Mr. Sladen is mistaken in this. 

 I believe there are neighborhoods 

 where a bee-keeper has the field so 

 completely to himself that if he will 

 rear drones from the best stock only 

 he will in the great majority of cases 

 have his queens properly mated. 



I am not a believer in the theory that 

 young queens go several miles to mate. 

 In fair to large apiaries the young 

 queens certainly mate not far from 

 their hive. The beeeder, therefore, can 

 control the male parentage by furnish- 

 ing all, or near all, of the right kind of 

 drones, and uotic, or as near none as 

 possible of poor stock. Allow me to 

 give my own personal experience. 

 " Seeing is believing." What one i^ees, 

 what one handles, is the thing one 

 really knows, if one knows anything. 



Beginning with one good queen 15 

 or It) years ago I selected colonies with 

 queens as near like her as I could get 

 for breeders. And in spite of the fact 

 that I have kept some common stock 

 which furnished drones all the time, I 

 have quite a number of colonies that 



not breed bees, as, of course, the field 

 will be stocked with all kinds of bees 

 except the best. 



I have kept bees 18 years, and my 

 neighborhood gets freer from other 

 bees the longer I stay in one place. I 

 aim to keep the field stocked with ruxt' 

 Ifi-s, and the other fellow must either 

 keep better rusllcrs or take better care 

 of them. 



In conclusion, let me report 5)^ tons 

 of honey for the past season from 200 

 colonies, and an increase of 50 colo- 

 nies. The Doctor, located near by, re- 

 ports the season a " perfect failure." 

 They say "money talks." Honey is 

 nearly as good as money now-a-days. 



Dunlap, Iowa. 



Advertising Honey 



BY A. F. BO.NNEY. 



I have no hesitation in confessing 

 that I was once caught by the fine ad- 

 vertising of a Correspondence School, 

 and parted with some of my good 

 money to take a course in Ad VVriting. 

 Had I had robust health I think I 

 would be at it yet, for I soon had a 

 position paying $Il-"> per month. 



This is my excuse for writing about 

 selling and advertising honey, for I 

 have had good success in disposing of 

 honey, as well as other goods — by ad- 

 vertising. 



I shall start with the proposition that 



advertising is guess work, for no man 

 alive can tell the result, the clia-cinf,r 

 /lo.-ivv- of an ad, until after he has been 

 permanently separated from his coin. 

 His answers may cost him 10 cents 

 each ; they may cost him twice what 

 the article is worth that he is trying to 

 sell, or twice the retail selling price, if 

 that be so much as one dollar, and yet 

 it may be a "good " ad ; that is, it may 

 be well written, properly arranged and 

 displayed, and in the proper mediums, 

 but some way does not drazv, and the 

 venture is a failure. 



A writer suggested that the bee men 

 of the United States raise a fund to 

 advertise honey. It will never be done, 

 because it is not a practical scheme. It 

 would cost too much. Fifty thousand 

 dollars would not be a start; /mean 

 $.50,000 a year, while I opine Mr. Fos- 

 ter had a simple sum of that amount in 

 mind when he wrote ahout it. I like 

 Mr. Foster's writings. He is practical, 

 sensible, entertaining, but in this one 

 case his hope had run away with his 

 judgment. The sum will never be 

 raised ; for while there are many who 

 would cheerfullv subscribe one, two. 

 or even ten dollars for each ton of 

 honey they produce, they know that a 

 few persons only would have to pay 

 all the tax, and to invest under such 

 circumstances would not be good judg- 

 ment. While it might be tried once, I 

 doubt seriously if they could ever get 

 together another fund, unless such ad- 

 vertising were vastly more productive 

 of results, immi-iliatc results, than my 

 judgment tells me it would be. 



If the scheme were practical, the 

 first question would be, " Where shall 

 we advertise ?" and the answer would 

 be (selfish interest), " In my locality, 

 or where / may benefit." Mr. Foster 

 would want some of it. I should like 

 to see some of the money applied here. 

 California bee-men would naturally 

 look out for their interests, and that 

 miserable little $.50,000 would look like 

 a pound of honey set in the midst of a 

 hundred hives when a drouth is on. 



The real good magazines, the hiff 

 ones, like The Ladies' Home Journal, 

 get hundreds of dollars for each page 

 that thev print. I have been told that 

 this particular publication gets $1000 a 

 page a month. Fven with their tre- 

 mendous circulation they reach but 

 about one percent of our great popu- 

 lation. This is but one of thousands 

 of publications issued in the United 

 States. Fifty thousand dollars would 

 not put a small ad in enough of them 

 to reach one-fourth of the population 

 of the country once. 



If we had the money to make an ag- 

 gressive campaign, I doubt seriously if 

 it would pay, because ire liaj'e iiotliinff 

 slaithiffly ne-w or novel to exploit; be- 

 cause we have not a suHicient margin 

 of profits between the cost of produc- 

 tion and the selling price. With the 

 money invested and the time employed, 

 the bee-man who receives $10i>0 a year 

 for his honey has little to spare for ad- 

 vertising. 



This brings me logically to the 

 things advertised in the papers and 

 magazines, their cost (probable), and 

 the selling price, retail (known). Let 

 us take the first breakfast food put on 

 the market, if my memory serves me. 

 They have the public so into the habit 

 of buying il that they do not now hesi- 



