804 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1 



Miller has prepared. Indeed, I do not be- 

 lieve any one could get up a better short 

 treatise on bee culture than this one. It 

 was issued some time ago in the form of a 

 pamphlet by the State of Pennsylvania, styl- 

 ed "Bulletin 77." Those desiring- the bul- 

 letin should apply to the Hon. John Hamil- 

 ton, Secretary of Agriculture, Harrisburg. 



A SOUVENIR OF THE DENVER MEETING. 



One of the finest convention souvenirs 

 that was ever issued is a booklet of some SO 

 pages, entitled "Bees in Colorado," and is 

 gotten up in the finest style of the printer's 

 art. It gives pictures of some of the most 

 prominent bee-keepers of Colorado and their 

 apiaries, and at the same time furnishes an 

 array of interesting facts and data, cover- 

 ing the industry as a whole as it is carried 

 on in Colorado. D. W. Working, the au- 

 thor and compiler, shows that he has an 

 eye for the beautiful as well as the useful. 

 Copies of it can be obtained, doubtless, of 

 D. W. Working, Denver, Col., by inclosing 

 12 cents. 



ANSWERING QUESTIONS. 



We are always glad to answer questions; 

 but sometimes a correspondent will go into 

 a great mass of unimportant details, occu- 

 pying eight or twelve pages of note paper, 

 and perhaps at the end of the whole there 

 will be one single question. The reading 

 of such communications takes considerable 

 time; and if we happen to be crowded, the 

 letter may be shoved to one side till we get 

 time to answer it; and the probabilities are 

 that we will never get the time. 



We will try to answer all questions 

 promptly, providing those questions are 

 succinctly and carefully stated. Para- 

 graph each question, and do not add any 

 more details than are absolutely necessary 

 for the proper understanding of the situa- 

 tion. If you desire to get information, get 

 down to the meat of what you wish to know 

 in as few words as possible. 



SNAP SHOTS FROM THE DENVER CONVEN- 

 TION OF NATIONAL BEE-KEEPERS' ASSO- 

 CIATION. 



As announced in our last issue, this 

 meeting was a success — not that it was the 

 largest in attendance, for the failure of the 

 honey crop throughout the major portion of 

 Colorado cut down a local attendance that 

 otherwise would have been large. At pres- 

 ent I believe the last convention of the As- 

 sociation at Chicago holds the palm for the 

 largest attendance of any previous or sub- 

 sequent meeting. But Denver will hold the 

 palm for representative attendance, for roy- 

 al hospitality, for mileage of travel of the 

 members who attended. 



I said representative. I believe this was 

 the largest representative gathering of the 

 Association ever held in its history. Six- 

 teen States outside of Colorado had dele- 



gates at the convention, and were appor- 

 tioned something as follows: 6 from Ohio; 

 5 from New York; 4 from Illinois; 4 from 

 Utah; 3 from Missouri; 3 from Nebraska; 

 2 from Iowa; 2 from Michigan; 2 from Ari- 

 zona; 2 from South Dakota; 2from Canada; 

 1 from Texas; 1 from Kansas; 1 from Wash- 

 ington, D. C. ; 1 from California; 1 from 

 Wisconsin. Of course Colorado was rep- 

 resented most largely of any State. 



As nearly as I can figure it, the mileage 

 traveled by the delegates to this convention 

 from various portions of the United States 

 was greater than that of any other meeting 

 the Association ever held. Bee-keepers 

 came from the extreme East, the extreme 

 South, the extreme West, and the extreme 

 North — from all over. One man from Utah 

 actually rode 120 miles on horseback over the 

 desert to get to a railway station in order 

 that he might get to this meeting. A num- 

 ber of others drove 20, 30, 40, and even 50 

 miles to get to their railway stations. 



Another feature was Mr. H. E. Bliss and 

 wife, of New York, who were present. If 

 I am correct they have not missed a conven- 

 tion of the National for a number of j^ears. 

 It makes no difi^erence where the meeting is 

 held, Mr. Bliss is interested enough to come. 

 He is quiet in manner, rarely pushing him- 

 self forward; but any man who will travel 

 hundreds of miles, year after year, to at- 

 tend the National, and who is in no way 

 connected with a bee journal nor with the 

 supply business, ought to have a gold med- 

 al; and at some future time I hope to intro- 

 duce him formally to our readers. Al- 

 though I have been at all the meetings ex- 

 cept the one at St. Joseph and one in Cana- 

 da, for the last ten or twelve years, I failed 

 to get knowledge of the fact that our friend 

 Mr. Bliss, until the Denver meeting, was a 

 regular attendant. 



But how about the convention? General- 

 ly speaking it was a good one. It was 

 marred a little in some of the sessions by 

 too much parliamentary talk — too much of 

 hair-splitting, but through no fault of the 

 local bee-keepers. It is to be regretted that 

 the time of some of these conventions has 

 had to be taken up with parliamentary or 

 constitutional questions. I do not mean to 

 imply that these can be done away with al- 

 together; but somehow some plan should be 

 contrived in advance by which all questions 

 of that nature could be referred to a com- 

 mittee who can report at some of the ses- 

 sions, and thus save taking up valuable 

 time. At the Denver meeting, for instance, 

 there were those who had traveled hundreds 

 of miles, who came not to hear parliamen- 

 tary talk, but to gather inf Drmation on vital 

 questions connected with the industry. Con- 

 stitutional questions should be worked over 

 by the Board of Directors by correspondence. 

 A formal report could then be submitted by 

 one member, and the adoption or rejection 

 of the report would then take place at the 

 next annual election, by ballot. Somehow 

 or in some way bee-keepers who pay down 

 their hard-earned dollars to attend these 



