386 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mav 1 



AMVTKUR bee-keeping; possible kesults: 



SLIPSHOD vs. UP-TO-DATE METHODS. 



I like your manner of writing-, of credit- 

 in<c young or amateur bee-keepers. The 

 boy bee-keeper of Arizona whom you tell of 

 is evidently progressive and up to date. I 

 have heard men here in California boast of 

 their thirty j'ears' experience in bee-keep- 

 ing, yet they were not able to afford a de- 

 cent habitation or a bed for their weary 

 bones, and no family to educate or support. 

 It certainly does not speak well of any 

 man, with no one to care for but himself, 

 not to be able to have half a comfortable 

 living off from a large number of bees, and 

 thirty years' experience. Give me a wide- 

 awake, prog^ressive person, such as you de- 

 scribe Mr. Chambers to be. I too am an 

 amateur, with only two years' experience. 

 I am on the shady side of fifty, and have 

 poor health to contend with; j'et with little 

 assistance last season I managed an apia- 

 ry of nearly 300 colonies of bees that pro- 

 duced 16,000 sections of comb honey of the 

 rtuest quality. Every one of the sections 

 passed through my hands four times, and 

 many of them six times. I folded all the 

 sections, placed all the starters of founda- 

 tion in them, graded and cased all the hon- 

 ey, marketed it, and collected for it; be- 

 sides, I attended to many of the swarms, 

 gathering and hiving them, placing- supers 

 on and taking them off the hives. In addi- 

 tion to this I did the necessary housework, 

 cooking, etc., for two persons; contributed 

 to several periodicals, and found time to 

 become acquainted with the little creatures 

 that made our living and much mone_v for 

 us. Under mj^ instructions queens have 

 been reared all winter, weak colonies built 

 up, and we commence the season with every 

 colony very strong; and at this writing the 

 bees are working lively on the alfileria. I 

 procured my best queens of J. P. Moore. 



Newhall, Cal., March 13. J. B. C. 



GOVERNMENT STATISTICS; EARLY CUTTING 

 OF ALFALFA. 



Mr. Root: — It might be an imposition on 

 you to call for more space to discuss the 

 honey statistical problem; but I hope you 

 have time to read a little more on the sub- 

 ject. That our present guesswork belongs 

 to some past century is quite certain. The 

 remedy is debatable. 



On p. 228 Mr. M. Brown advocates that 

 the National Association collect and report 

 information on the subject. While that 

 would be an improvement, I do not think it 

 would be as good as for the Department of 

 Agriculture to do the work. Some reasons 

 are: 



1. The Association can not expect to get 

 as many localities reported in man}' j^ears 

 as the Department can in one. Think of 

 over 200,000 correspondents who are filling- 

 township blanks. These are not all honey 

 townships, but many of them are. Perhaps 

 no correspondent produces every thing re- 



ported — certainly few do; but I think it is 

 the most reliable plan yet devised. Mr. B. 

 says: " Suppose the Department would add 

 a honey column to its blanks now sent out, 

 not one in 500 sent out would be filled out 

 practically, intelligently, and with relia- 

 bility." Would not that sentence be bet- 

 ter if it closed with the largest interroga- 

 tion-point in your office? 



why, yes. the thing is fact, 



Thongn, in regard to numbers, not exact. 



Honey-producers should fill out these re- 

 ports as much as possible, or inform those 

 who do. But remember that they are not 

 all intelligent and reliable. 



2. It is to our interest, and for the public 

 good, that these reports be accepted by all 

 classes. That would never be done so com- 

 pletel}' if the Association gives the reports 

 as if done by the Department. Official in- 

 formation is the thing that counts in this 

 age of the world. 



3. The cost would be considerable if con- 

 ducted by the Association. Our industrjMS 

 to be taken up in connection with various 

 other lines, and the cost to the government 

 would be light. As it is for the public 

 good it should be done at public expense. 

 Why does the wheat-raiser turn over his crop 

 report to the Department, instead of conduct- 

 ing- it as a private enterprise? Every hon- 

 ey-producer should learn why, and then 

 drop in line? 



To my mind there is nothing that would 

 do so much to put the honey market in a 

 healthy condition as reliable statistics well 

 distributed and generally accepted. 



You are entirely correct about the early 

 cutting- of alfalfa. Many bees have recent- 

 ly been moved from this valley to Nevada, 

 mainly because alfalfa is not cut so j'oung 

 there, although the parties are going into 

 foul-broody country, and expect loss from 

 that source. W. A. H. Gilstrap. 



Grayson, Cal., March 29. 



[The only question about government sta- 

 tistics is that thej' are put out too late to 

 have any appreciable effect on the market; 

 but whatever the government does it should 

 have the intelligent co-operation of bee- 

 keepers as a whole. The whole trouble so 

 far with government statistics is not so 

 much that the method of securing those sta- 

 tistics is defective as it is that some States 

 make thorough reports while others do not. 

 Again, it happens that the statistician or 

 person whose business it is to gather the 

 statistics does not get track of all the small 

 producers. See editorials. 



So it is a fact, is it, that, on account of 

 the early cutting of alfalfa, bee-keepers are 

 already being compelled to migrate from 

 localities where alfalfa is not cut before 

 blooming? My, oh my! if it is true that 

 early-cut alfalfa makes a better hay, or, in 

 other words, puts more money into the pock- 

 et of the rancher, then the carloads of al- 

 falfa honey now produced will shrink into 

 mere tons in the future. — Ed.] 



