GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



February, 1919 



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ONE of Cali- 

 f r n i a ' .s 

 daily news- 

 papers reports 

 the following 

 conversation as 

 having taken 

 place between 

 Charles Foss, a 

 beekeeper wiith 



8,000 pounds of honey to sell, and a honey 

 buyer who came to his door to purchase his 

 crop: "You are buying honey to sell it at 

 an exorbitant price. I am going to sell mine 

 at six cents a pound to persons who need it 

 and can not pay your price. God gave us 

 the bee and He charges us no tax on it. 

 He gave us the flowers from which the bee 

 draws its honey and they cost us nothing. 

 Why, when the world is overwhelmed with 

 suffering, should some men profiteer at the 

 expense of those who suffer most? Some 

 day I hope to look in the face of Him who 

 gave us the bee and the flowers, but I 

 could never look Him squarely in the eye 

 if I had made a single penny out of a fel- 

 low creature's stress." The newspaper adds 

 that Foss sold his entire crop at the price 

 of six cents when he could have got 22 

 cents, selling it to people near his own home 

 who consumed it themselves. 



"We are reading with great interest on 

 this side your revelations about large hives. 

 Somewhere about 1860 a certain Mr. Wood- 

 bury made a 10-frame hive, I41/2 inches 

 square and 9 inches deep, and we have never 

 got away from that hive. The result of con- 

 fining brood to such a small space for gen- 

 erations has been to develop such poor 

 queens that many now teach that the 10- 

 frame British hive can not be bettered. 

 Those who import prolific foreign queens 

 and trv to keep them laying on 10 British 

 combs 'find that those bees (Italians, Ameri- 

 cans, etc.) do nothing but swarm. So back 

 we go to our degenerate British bee. For- 

 tunately, Isle of Wight disease is doing 

 something to exterminate the unfit — both 

 bees and beekeepers." — John Anderson, 

 Lecturer in Beekeeping, The North of Scot- 

 land College of Agriculture, Aberdeen, Scot- 

 land. 



' ' I have been troubled with bronchitis 

 for some years, and last winter I had the 

 grip which left me in bad shape. So last 

 spring I began taking a teaspoonful of 

 extracted honey every night just before go- 

 ing to bed, and I do not have any more 

 trouble from these ills." — H. Galloway, 

 Multnomah County, Ore. 



"The season I have just finished has been 

 the best I have ever experienced in my 30 

 years of beekeeping. My honey season 

 started about the last of September, 1917, 

 and finished about the last of April, 1918. 

 The drones were flying and swarms were fly- 

 ing all thru this period — in fact, drones were 

 flying as late as midwinter, which with us is 

 June 21. This was two months later than 



BEES, MEN ANDJTHINGS 



(You may find it here) 



1 



in a normal sea- 

 son. I started 

 last September 

 with 73 colonies 

 and finished 

 with 141 and 

 produced 33,420 

 pounds of ex- 

 tracted honey, 

 all of good qual- 

 ity, an average of 237 pounds per colony. 

 The price here ranges from 8 to 12 cents per 

 pound, packed ready for export. Beeswax 

 sold from 36 to 48 cents a pound and for a 

 short time was up to 60 cents a pound."— 

 A. P. Haberecht, Henty, N. S. W., July 17, 

 1918. 



' ' I before stated some of the advantages 

 of large cubical ('square') hives. I will 

 take 10 hives of 2,250 square inches of 

 comb capacit_y and go to any man 's locality 

 and produce more honey with less expense 

 than he can with any hive smaller than that 

 size. ' ' — T. K. Massie, Mercer County, W. 

 Va. 



' ' I moved my bees to winter quarters 

 after Dec. 1, but did not cover the front of 

 the hive as the weather was mild, and the 

 next day and for several days thereafter 

 saw drones flying in and out. Never heard 

 of drones so late in the season before. ' ' — 

 C. A. Kinsey, Gallatin County, Mont. 



' ' We had a dandy year and I had several 

 of those ' skyscrapers. ' I allow no swarm- 

 ing, but use the double brood-chamber of 10 

 frames each, raising the first way above 

 the second. It is a great system. ' ' — C. L- 

 Eion, King County, Wash. 



' ' There are now in this province of On- 

 tario over 8,000 beekeepers. Tho the precise 

 figures are not available, it is estimated 

 that the product this year amounted to 

 about 5,000,000 pounds." — The Toronto 

 Globe. 



"I will be 81 years old Jan. 6 and had 

 concluded to quit the bee business and had 

 about sold out; but I think now I shall 

 stock up some in the spring. ' ' — G. T- Willis, 

 Vermilion County, Ills- 



"In 1916 I sold about $300 worth of hon- 

 ey from 12 colonies by spring count. I am 

 a farmer way up in ' that blustery Nebras- 

 ka, ' too."— G. L. Mills, Merrick Countv, 

 Nebr. 



' ' Very mild winter here on the Kansas- 

 Nebraska line, and bees are wintering well 

 with some outside protection." — Ealph 

 Livers, Nuckolls County, Nebr. 



' ' Today, Dec. 19, bees are gathering some 

 pollen off the dandelion. Did you ever hear 

 of the like at this time of the year?" — Wm. 

 Kemp, Shelby County, Ind. 



' ' An open winter here. Prospects are 

 good for honey crop next year. ' ' — D. F. 

 Eankin, Jackson County, Ind. 



' ' The prospects for clover for 1919 look 

 good. ' ' — G. W. Haines, Fulton County, N. Y. 



