440 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15 



The frames were of the simplest possible 

 design, being made of lumber /& x y& through- 

 out; yet even when the lumber was bought 

 in 16-foot strips, 1000 lineal feet at a time, 

 they cost the same as finely made factory 

 goods. Freight and duty added, factory 

 frames cost in Victoria a trifle under 3 cts. 



Were I to add the value of my own labor 

 in making the hive parts (and for a fair com- 

 parison this should be done) I would have 

 no hesitation in saying tliat it emphatically 

 does not pay, either from a monetary or bee- 

 keeping standpoint, to make one's hives ex- 

 cepting in a case of necessity, such as was 

 mine in June, 190S. I will go further, and 

 say that cutting out lumber for a hive is not 

 a job that the average planing-mill is fitted 

 to tackle. My experience emphatically sug- 

 gests it is rather within the domain of a cabi- 

 netmaker. So far as I can see, the average 

 employee in a planing-mill is not a skilled 

 workman. He is only an ordinary laborer, 

 and does not feel the necessity of accuracy, 

 which is part of the training of such a crafts- 

 man as a cabinetmaker 



After this brief statement of cold facts I 

 will proceed to tell how I set about making a 

 lot of hives so that anybody wishing to ex- 

 periment along that line may do so with the 

 least possible trouble. 



Let it be understood 1 am located on the 

 very outposts of civilization, that not one 

 hive in my purchase was of standard Lang- 

 stroth size, and that, therefore, I had to work 

 out dimensions of every kind for myself. In 

 addition I had various factors in my own case 

 I wanted to consider, and felt it would be 

 wise to modify the hive construction accord- 

 ingly. I will state some of these factors, as 

 they may be of interest to others. 



COMB OR EXTRACTED HONEY — WHICH? THE 

 POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE QUESTION. 



In the first place, the ratio between the 

 price of extracted and comb honey in this 

 city convinced me the former was more prof- 

 itable to produce. I am not going to enlarge 

 at length on this perennial problem of the 

 bee-keeper as to which form of honey pro- 

 duction will pay him better, because, from 

 my point of \ iew, the question was practical- 

 ly settled in a general way long ago. The 

 one pays just as well as the other. !■ or years 

 I have bei*n interested in political economy, 

 and have karned that the value of an article 

 is determined by the amount of average labor 

 necessary for its production. Generally 

 sp.eaking, the value and selling price iigree. 

 Occasionally the operation of tlie law of sup- 

 ply and demand will cause a divergence in 

 one direction in one place, but there will be 

 a compensating divergence somewhere else 

 to e juahze the first. So, broadly speaking, 

 so far as the question of remuneration is con- 

 cerned the average bee-kt. eper need not lose 

 sleep worrying as to whicii form of honey 

 production will be the more profitable for 

 him. In a series of years the one will be as 

 good as the other. If he be far from markets 

 he must consider the risks of transportation, 

 which, of course, is more hazardous in the 



case of comb honey. But outside of such 

 considerations the average bee-keeper may 

 rest assured that, no matter what the form 

 of production, all he will get for his labor, 

 one year with another, will be just what is 

 sufficient to maintain him at the standard of 

 living enjoyed by the class of the community 

 to which he belongs — that of a fairly skilled 

 workman. 



In discussions on this subject in the bee- 

 journals, great stress is always laid on the 

 necessary amount of bee labor; but political 

 economy does not recognize such. It con- 

 cerns itself with human labor only. Bee- 

 keepers interested in this problem might 

 with advantage study the quotation of mar- 

 ket prices in the journals, and figure out for 

 themselves the ratio between comb and ex- 

 tracted honey. It will be found to be con- 

 stant within certains limits. On account of 

 market conditions here (largely geographi- 

 cal, to a smaller extent local), the proportion 

 of prices appears to me to be in favor of the 

 production of extracted honey, and tiierefore 

 I am preparing for that form. 



Ere I leave the subject of remun' ration, 

 let me point out that the principles stated 

 show why there is no fortune to be made in 

 beekeeping. It is practically a one-man 

 business, so that it is almost impossible to 

 exploit human labor by the wages system. 

 A bee-keeper is not a capitalist. He is a man 

 who has paid out a certain sum of money to 

 buy himself a steady job. As a matter of 

 fact, he is exploited, as the difference be- 

 tween the wholesale and retail price of his 

 commodity readily shows. 



Next, I have a decided aversion to lifting 

 heavy weights, for physical reasons. I had 

 the choice of two systems of working — either 

 use a large hive, a la Dadant, and never lift, 

 or adopt the divisible hive with the lighter 

 weight to handle — not to exceed 40 lbs. at 

 the most. I chose the divisible hive, because, 

 if experience ultimately decided against it, 

 the divisions would always be available as 

 supers. 



Simplicity appeals very strongly to me, and 

 the thought of a perfectly interchangeable 

 system of hive-bodies was too alluring to be 

 resisted — no need to worry about having on 

 hand a proper proportion of bodies and su- 

 pers; any division can be used for either ac- 

 cording to the needs of the moment. My an- 

 tipathy to heavy weights would compel a 

 shallow super in any case, and so would the 

 conditions set forth in the next paragraph. 



The climatic conditions of the Pacific coast, 

 at least that part with which I am familiar, 

 extending from the Northern California line 

 to British Columbia, are peculiar in this, that 

 there is always a decided drop in the tem- 

 perature after sundown. For instance, in 

 Medford in the summer a drop of 30 degrees 

 occurs between 8 P.M. and 11 P.M., while in 

 Victoria it is about 25 degrees. During the 

 honey-flowthe night temperature in Soutnern 

 Oregon will be ordinarily from 60 to 70 de- 

 grees, while in Victoria it is from 50 to 54 de- 

 grees. Bee-keepers do not need to be told 

 that right here is a very interesting problem 



