Jan. 1, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



with them to the bank and secure money for them, and they 

 will pay interest upon the money they use. This very same 

 arrangement can be worked out throug^h the National Asso- 

 ciation. If I was in need of money and could not wait until 

 the Association sold my goods, then I could afford to pay 

 interest on the money that I had to have. 



Dr. Mason — Instead of selling your honey at a sacrifice. 



Mr. Brown — Yes, that is the point. The Raisin Grow- 

 ers" Association do it in this way. They pool their product ; 

 it is all placed in the hands of the management of the Asso- 

 ciation as goods belonging to the Association, not in the 

 hands of the individual at all ; the goods were placed with 

 them under written, signed contracts ; the Kaisin Growers' 

 Association place the goods upon the market, and when one 

 car-lot is sold each person receives his pro rata, and so on 

 until the whole store of goods is disposed of, declaring 

 dividends at certain times as they proceed. The same thing 

 can be arranged through the National Association in sell- 

 ing our honey. 



H. Rauchfuss — Couldn't it be done much cheaper by 

 consolidation and co-operation ? Couldn't it be carried one 

 step further ? We all admit it is done cheaper under the 

 Raisin and Fruit Growers' Association than individually. 

 Wouldn't it still tend to lessen the expense if the different 

 organizations had one store-house and one management to 

 market their production from ? 



Frank Rauchfuss — In the first place, we found that if 

 we wanted to do any business in this State we had to make 

 it a stock company at the start. Now, if a person belong- 

 ing to the Association brings in his honey to be sold by the 

 manager, he is charged 10 percent commission for storing, 

 selling the honey, and having it insured against fire, and 

 collecting the money. Now, that might look rather big, 10 

 percent commission ; I suppose it is, but we have to make it 

 that large to be on the sure side ; and two years ago we 

 would also buy a little honej- from the outside, and sell it to 

 people that did not belong to the Association ; then, we 

 would make a little money out of the supply business, and 

 in this way, after the season was over, and we closed up 

 our business, it cost us one-tenth of one percent to have our 

 honey stored, sold, money collected, and all. Just think of 

 it, one-tenth of one percent ! I would like to say, where is 

 the association or business house that could do business for 

 less than that ? And we got an excellent price for our 

 honey. 



If there is a member of our Association that is short of 

 money he will bring in a hundred cases of honey and say, 

 " I would like to have some money on that." He can have 

 his money at very low interest. If it is only a week until 

 his crop is sold the interest is off. 



I believe it will do a great many of our members good 

 to look into the matter a little closer, and get some of our 

 constitutions and by-laws and study the matter; but we 

 ought to have something provided, we ought to be con- 

 nected with this Association, or with some other associa- 

 tion — we ought to have a central organization. 



Of course, we of Colorado are trying to spread out and 

 trying to have our local organizations — for instance, we 

 have one at Longmont, and as we grow we will have some 

 at other places, but really it ought to be done by some one 

 else ; it ought to be done by the organization, and they 

 ought to go to work and do it. But how we could do it is 

 very hard to determine. You can not figure these things 

 out in five minutes. It took us a good many years before 

 we could incorporate, before the people could be gotten in- 

 terested in it and do anything for it. So far it has been 

 successful, and I would like to make a motion to the effect 

 that our chairman be empowered to appoint a committee of 

 five to consider the matter, and find ways and means to 

 organize and get closer in touch with such organizations ; 

 we shall call them business organizations, for that is really 

 what they are. I don't think it is practical to have any 

 State Association or any other of those organizations do it ; 

 it has to be nothing but a business organization. It takes 

 money to do it. Here in this State it has to be a stock 

 company. 



J. Merkley — I second the motion. 



The chairman stated the motion, and, on the question 

 being called for, put the motion, which, on a vote having 

 been taken, was declared carried. 



(Concluded ne.xt week.) 



Queenie Jeanette is the title of a pretty song in sheet 

 music size, written by J. C. Wallenmeyer, a musical bee- 

 keeper. The regular price is 40 cents, but to close out the 

 copies we have left, we will mail them at 20 cents each, as 

 long as they last. 



Rearing Prolific and Long- Lived Queens. 



BY C. I>. DADANT. 



THE discussion which has taken place in the American 

 Bee Journal about this matter has drawn the attention 

 of bee-keepers throughout the world. It may be of in- 

 terest to the readers to hear some of the opinions expressed. 



In the "Revue Internationale," of Switzerland, for 

 October, 1902, Marius Barthelemy writes as follows : 



" It was by crossing and selection that I obtained 

 queens that are beautiful and robust, and producing bees 

 which resist the diseases that prey upon the race, and 

 which I attribute mostly to degenerescence by weakness. 

 One must be very careful in condemning a method, for all 

 depends upon the manner in which it is used, the least over- 

 sight, the least fault, leads to failure. 



" To obtain good queens, we need a temperature of not 

 less than 65 degrees outside ; eggs or young larvae from 

 choice queens whose laying has been stimulated by feeding; 

 plentj' young bees from active colonies ; a copious supply of 

 food till the queens are sealed ; and, lastly and sine-qua-non, 

 the nucleus or colony must be ^o/.f^a' with bees. It is not 

 necessary that the hive be large, if it is strongly supplied 

 with bees. 



"I find the Doolittle method excellent for extensive 

 bee-keeping, but I like also the Alley method. . . . But my 

 opinion is that the great effort must be in the direction of 

 choice breeders to improve the race." 



In L'Apicoltore, of Milan, Italy, the editor of that 

 progressive magazine — the Signor DeRauschenfels, who is 

 the author of a treatise on bees, and who has for years sus- 

 tained the most progressive methods — writes the following 

 in reply to statements and enquiries on the matter of queen- 

 rearing : 



"As to the opinion of Malan Brothers, that queens 

 reared, as it is called, artificially, are less robust and suffer 

 more from long travel than those reared at the swarming 

 season or in replacing an old queen, we assert that though 

 it is customary to prefer a swarm's queen-cell, to a ' sup- 

 plied cell,' the queen which issues from the latter, provided 

 it was reared in a normal colony, transported with sufficient 

 care to a sufficiently populous, so that neither heat nor care 

 could be wanting until the queen hatches, is neither less 

 robust nor alert than the one which is reared in the normal 

 family." 



For many, many years, the tendency of our queen- 

 breeders has been in the direction of color. All, or nearly 

 all, their efforts were on this one point. The Italian bees 

 were yellow, and the yellower the bees the purer they were 

 thought to be. In-and-in breeding was a natural conse- 

 quence of selecting always from the yellowest. Thus the 

 breed was weakened, by a very unreasonable and yet very 

 natural selection. Whatever popular sentiment demands is 

 sure to come on the top. We are much less prone to look to 

 color, because the Italian bee is very thoroughly established 

 in this country, and hybrids few. So we are running much 

 less risk of having our queens bred from only one pattern. 



I believe that these discussions will lead to a great deal 

 of good. Whether we decide that one man or another is 

 right, we will certainly all come to the conclusion that we 

 must use great care in the selection of our breeding-queens ; 

 and that we must, as much as possible, get our drones 

 from choice stock also. All will also recognize that the 

 queens must be bred in hives having a strong population, 

 and lacking in nothing in the way of warmth, nourishment, 

 and nurse- bees. Hancock Co., 111. 



A Central Honey-Producers' Exchange. 



Writlrn fur Ihf Wlscotisin Convenlion held at Madison in February, 1902, 

 BY GEORGE \V. YORK. 



PROF. A. J. COOK, in his article published some time 

 ago in the American Bee Journal, told of the wonderful 

 success with which co-operation on the part of the pro- 

 ducers of certain orchard products had met in California, 

 notably the citrus fruit-growers. He urged a similar or- 



