DKC'EMBER 15, 1915 



1035 



S»>ino discussion rollowed, after which 

 Dr. Phillips, of the Department of Agri- 

 culture, Wasliingtou, gave an address on 

 the temperature of the honeybee cluster 

 during winter. He elaborated on the state- 

 ments he made in bulletin No. 93, a review 

 of which appeared on page 879 of our issue 

 for Nov. 15. 1915. 



1 will not attempt at this time to give 

 a ffsuuu', as the reference given above is 

 nuich fuller than anything I can give here. 



Dr. Phillips Avas followed by Attorney 

 Melville Hays, of Wilmington, on the sub- 

 ject of bee legislation. Mr. Hays stated 

 that his neighborhood has been having bee 

 diseases ever since a carload of honey was 

 shipped in. To prevent a recurrence of 

 that kind he proposed some advanced legis- 

 lation. He would require among other 

 things that the consumer burn or disinfect 

 all packages or containers as soon as emp- 

 tied of honey. He went on to state that 

 when these packages go out on the scrap- 

 heap the bees in the vicinity carry honey 

 that is infected to their hives. He would 

 place authority in the hands of the State 

 Board of Agiiculture and give it suificient 

 power to enforce its provisions. 



Most of the beekeepers after the adjourn- 

 ment of the session (it was too late that 

 evening tu enter into a general discu.?sion) 

 expres-sed themselves as feeling that it 

 would be impossible to get through such 

 advanced legislation, and they doubted the 

 wisdom of some of it, because the section 

 requiring the burning or disinfection of 

 packages containing honey would convey to 

 the consumer the impression that such hon- 

 ey was full of germs dangerous even to hu- 

 man beings. Many of them felt that, in 

 \ iew of the difficulty of getting such a law 

 on the statute-books, the present law was 

 quite adequate. 



In the morning session the next day Mr. 

 F. W. Summerfield, of Toledo, led off on 

 the subject of migratory beekeeping. Mr. 

 S. is a retired merchant who devotes most 

 of his time to the production of honey dur- 

 ing the summer in and near Toledo, and 

 during winter on the Apalachicola River, 

 Florida, a few miles above the famous ]\Iar- 

 chant location. Mr. Summerfield, who has 

 had a wide experience in moving bees back 

 and forth in car lots, spoke of some of the 

 ])lcasures and penalties in bringing bees 

 back and forth in car lots. So far he had 

 not made a very great success of it, owing 

 to poor seasons; but neither had he made a 

 complete failure of it. He spoke of the 

 difficulties and cost of wintering bees in the 

 North. He eliminated this by moving his 

 bees south, building them up, taking a crop 



of tujielo honey and bringing them back 

 north in two-story colonies. He shipped all 

 his colonies upside down, thus leaving the 

 heavy part of the frames containing the 

 stores against the top-bars now on the bot- 

 tom. As the bottom-bais now at the lop 

 are narrower it gives the bees more idom 

 up for clustering. 



Mr. Summerfield estimated the cost of 

 taking the bees down and back again, in- 

 cluding his own time, at $2.70 per colony. 

 With ordinary seasons such as are experi- 

 enced in Apalachicola, and a normal sea- 

 son in Ohio, he felt he could make a good 

 thing of this kind of migratory beekeeping. 

 He doubted very much, though, whether 

 any one could hire some one else to do this 

 and make it pay. In any event, with him 

 he could afford to operate at a loss, as he 

 does not now have to depend on the earn- 

 ings of the bees to give him a living. The 

 main thing he was after was health and 

 recreation, which he had secured in large 

 doses. 



Mr. Summerfield was followed by Mr. F.. 

 S. Snook, of the traffic department of the 

 Erie Railroad, Akron, on the subject of 

 shipping honey. Besides being one of the 

 prominent railway men on his line, he is- 

 also a beekeeper, and hence he was able ta 

 appreciate the problem from the standpoint 

 of the shipper as well as of the carrier. He 

 made it very clear that the policy of his and 

 all railroads, in fact, was to deal fairly 

 with the public; but the public often dis- 

 regarded the instructions on how to ship^ 

 commoditieL, and the average beekeeper was- 

 no better. Carelessness in packing has a* 

 tendency to advance freight rates. He urged 

 all beekeepers who ship comb honey to ship 

 in carriers of not less than 200 lbs. Small- 

 er shipments, if improperly packed, are 

 very likely to go through in bad order, with 

 the result that a claim would be forthcom- 

 ing to him for adjustment. There had been 

 comparatively little trouble, he said, frona 

 the large shippers of either comb or ex- 

 tracted honey. Most of the claims come 

 from the small producers who have the 

 impression that the railways are soulless 

 corporations that do not care whether the 

 honey is smashed and broken or not. Mr. 

 Snook's address was one that ought to be 

 delivered before the National Beekeepers'' 

 Association, and that organization would do 

 well to get a paper from him. It is not 

 often that a railroad man is also a bee- 

 keeper. 



In the afternoon. Inspector A. C. Ames,, 

 of Peninsula. 0., in the absence of D. H. 

 Morris, gave a brief report of the exhibit 

 that was made under the auspices of the 



