June 18, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



389 



[ Convention Proceedings j 



Chicago-Northwestern Convention. 



Report of the Chicago-Northwestern Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Convention, held in Chicag-o, 

 Dec. 3 and 4, 1902. 



BY OUR OWN SHORTHAND RKPORTKR. 



(Coatlnued from pape 374.) 

 Pres. York — For the benefit of those who just came in, 

 I would say that we are discussing " Commercial Organiza- 

 tion Among- Bee-Keepers." 



Mr. Moore — I think a whole lot of this material that we 

 are going over, perhaps laboriously, is useless. Don't take 

 what I say to heart. All these things will settle themselves. 

 In case any disputes arise you can agree to have an arbi- 

 tration. The thing to do is to get the 700,000 bee-keepers 

 in the United States to know that they want anything. We 

 have a thousand in the National, pretty near, and as I read 

 over what Dr. Mason said, I find that even the Greater New 

 York had only ISOattheoutside, and this number inside and 

 and outside is more than in any other association in this 

 country. Out of the total number there are only 2000 of 

 them who know or realize that they need anything on that 

 subject. It is the capital and the interest that you need. 

 Any of these little details can be settled, or will settle them- 

 selves. 



Dr. Miller — Mr. President, it isn't nice of Mr. Moore to 

 get up and say what I was going to say. I was going to 

 say pretty nearly the same thing. Mr. Hutchinson has 

 been wasting time here, and I almost felt that he was 

 wasting time in talking about the necessity of organization, 

 and when he stopped you started to talk about the little 

 things that would be met with to settle after you had be- 

 come organized. How are you going to be organized ? 

 That is the important thing to talk about. 



Mr. France — The great difficulty, so far as I see is, as 

 Mr. Moore remarked, is to get the bee-keepers interested, to 

 feel that it is a financial benefit to them, that they can not 

 afford to stay outside of it. The bee-keepers in Wisconsin 

 felt that they must belong to the State and to the National 

 Association. We were the first to join the National in a 

 body, and its influence is wide-spread now. But as to ho%Y 

 to go at this is the question. I am at a loss to know how 

 we are going to get them interested ; to feel they are going 

 to get something for the investment. We know that by 

 organization much and great good can be done, but we can 

 not with our membership now in the National Association — 

 why, we are in our infancy. 



Mr. Abbott — I like to agree with everybody if I can, 

 but if I should tell all I think about this idea of a great 

 honey-trust, or whatever you are a mind to call it, I doubt 

 if very many of you would agree with me. I fully realize 

 that- Mr. Moore has touched the central thought, that the 

 main thing, the essential things is to get the bee-keepers of 

 the country to understand that they need something of that 

 kind — to get them to have that kind of feeling. 



Now, most of us look at bee-keeping as a professional 

 pursuit, as an industry, a few of us, I would better say, as 

 an industry for men to devote their liie work to. I never 

 have believed that bee-keeping would be a success in the 

 United States in that way. My ideas are not along that 

 line. I am a believer in bee-keeping as an adjunct to a 

 farm, and I think we should keep that in view, so that I 

 would have a little different idea, of course, of organization, 

 because I would look at it from that standpoint. I would 

 have to go back and discuss the question of whether it was 

 a good idea to have a middle man or not. I think it is. I 

 think the middle man is a good man. I think the Almighty 

 made the middle man. 1 don't think modern society or 

 modern business methods made him. He grew out of a 

 natural condition of things, having an adaptation, when 

 God made him, to do certain things. Some people have 

 adaptability to produce nice goods; other people have 

 adaptability to sell goods, and the production and selliti;,' 

 of goods are two widely different things. The fact that 



"York's Honey " is every place, and that it is "York's 

 Honey," is helpful to the bee-keepers who produce honey 

 all over this country. If there was a Mr. York in every 

 village of a thousand inhabitants all over the United States 

 there wouldn't be any discussion as to the sale of honey. 

 There isn't honey enough in the United States to-day to 

 supply the demand, and there hasn't been enough to supply 

 the demand in five years, much less the demand that can 

 possibly be created. There isn't honey enough to be had in 

 St. Joseph to eat the amount of honey they do, to supply 

 the demand for two months. Now, there ought not to be 

 any great question of disposing of the honey in that locality, 

 but last week there came to me a shipment of honey, and 

 more than half of it was mashed, the sections were broken 

 and were in a dilapidated condition. I went down to the 

 wholesale house the day before I went away, and I was told 

 that they had a shipment of honey in there that was all 

 mashed. I said, "You can sell it to me for 10 cents a 

 pound, or else find some bigger fool and get 8 cents." He 

 said, " I would rather sell it to you for 10 cents a pound." 

 He didn't know what to do with it. I did. And I was glad 

 to have it. Another shipment of honey came in from Wash- 

 ington, Kans., and every section was in nice shape. It was 

 cased properly, and put into the cars properly, and looked 

 after when it went out of the cars properly, because I looked 

 after that myself, and of course that was done properly, and 

 it got into my place of business in proper condition. lam 

 holding it there for future use. I didn't have to bother any 

 about that shipment of honey, it will take care of 

 itself, but the letter that came from that man had some- 

 thing in it. He said he had learned how to handle his 

 honey so he could sell for cash any place, and he wasn't 

 dependent on any commission man or on anybody else for 

 his honey. He wrote that to me after he had his check. I 

 thought then he didn't require any special help to sell his 

 goods, he seemed to think he had solved the problem for 

 himself. He thought if he couldn't sell to me there would 

 be another man he could sell to. There was York in Chi- 

 cago. He could fire it up to York if he saw how nice it 

 came in. 



Pres. York— And you would probably never get any 

 more of it ! 



Mr. Abbott— That's the reason I didn't tell the man's 

 name, because York would probably try to get his honey 

 next year ! There are, of course, large honey-producers 

 where it becomes a serious problem as to what they shall 

 do with their honey. That's a business proposition, and it 

 would take a business head to answer it. I am not built 

 that way. I have too much vim or enthusiasm. I manage 

 to get enough to live on, and when I get that I don't care 

 about business anyway. 



To be serious, I do believe that the secret of the sale of 

 honey in the United States to-day is to teach the bee-keep- 

 ers how to put up honey, and how to make it salable on the 

 markets of the world. Why, they hire men to go from New 

 York city, scour the country all through Colorado and Utah, 

 all through that Western country, and pick up car-loads of 

 honey, and they are anxious for it. Pay their expenses out 

 there to get it. It ought not to be much of a question, or 

 problem, as to where honey may be sold when men do that. 

 If the majority of honey out there is in such condition that 

 it can be packed in cars, and it is only the question of the 

 honey being in proper shape, it seems to me that there 

 is already a larger market for honey than can be supplied. 

 Why are we saying so much about selling our honey ? Is it 

 so hard, after all, to sell it as it would seem to indicate by 

 what we are saying about this organization ? Is honey a 

 kind of a drug on the market ? 



I have been looking all over the country trying to get 

 honey in good condition, and to tell you the truth, that one 

 shipment of honey is all I could get during the entire sea- 

 son that I could get and feel that it would be all right when 

 it got there and meet the demands of that market. Now, 

 there are so many people that have honey and don't know 

 how to put it up, but there doesn't seem to be much honey in 

 the market in the country. There hasn't been for years. 

 That has been my experience. I may be wrong about it. 



After all, is there so much trouble in the sale of honey ? 

 I am just asking a question. I don't pay so much attention 

 to the financial side of it. I go out into the market to buy 

 honey for my own little trade — a very small trade — and I 

 find hard work to get good honey to supply that demand. 



How will we organize? Now, I will tell you how I do 

 business. I had to move not long ago, and the way I moved 

 was this : I got my men, and I said, "I want you to get 

 these goods to my place just as fast as you can." And when 

 they didn't hustle fast enough I, said this man go here, this 



