DECEMBER 1, 1913 



General Correspondence 



NOTES, NEGOTIABLE AND OTHERWISE 



BY ARTHUR C. MILLER 



Put on supers when it suits your conve- 

 nience, and take them off when the honey is 

 ripe, not before. 



The first three lessons for beginners 

 should be. How to Light, How to Load, and 

 How to Use a Smoker. Some veterans will 

 please take notice — and lessons. 



I had a little skit on the color blindness in 

 bees. The editor left it lying around loose, 

 and Mr. Lovell picked it up, not knowing 

 that it was loaded. My sympathies are 

 extended to the afflicted. 



Some old professors said that action and 

 reaction are equal, and opposite in direction. 

 They may be opposite all right, but not 

 equal. Use your finger to push the bee 

 through a hole and you won't ask me any 

 fool questions. 



If you have neglected to feed your bees 

 until now you should use one of the candies. 

 They are safer for cold-weather feeding — a 

 little more trouble to make, but a lot easier 

 to use, and a whole lot better for the bees 

 — in cold weather, mind you, and, again, 

 some other times. 



If you really want to improve the bee- 

 keeping conditions around you, to help to 

 eradicate bee diseases, get the beekeepers 

 to subscribe to the bee magazines. If every 

 reader will get just one new reader the uplift 

 in bee culture will be beyond anticipation. 

 And I don't own a red cent's worth of a 

 bee paper at that. 



If you do not get what you think your 

 honey is worth, do not blame the buyer, the 

 commission house, nor any one but yourself. 

 Probably you are afraid to ask all it is 

 worth, and a little more, and perhaps you 

 are hard up and need the money. Nothing 

 " bears " the market more than necessity. 

 Poor goods stand next. 



Never mind the increase in price of lum- 

 ber. It is a small matter after all, and you 

 can not afford to go without proper equip- 

 ment and then make up for it in labor. 

 Your own labor is even more costly than 

 what you hire, and you can easily waste 

 many times the cost of the needed appli- 

 ances by not having them, P. S. — I do not 

 deal in supplies. 



A man quoted to me the old saw that bees 

 won't sting you if you hold your breath, 

 and added that it wouldn't work — told him 

 he didn't hold it long enough. Bees don't 

 sting dead things — not if they are quite 



dead, and the color is right. Incidentally, 

 the odor of things thoroughly dead does not 

 cause the bees to assail them. I wonder 

 why. Guess they like that odor. 



Lost, strayed, or stolen. — One odor theory. 

 A liberal reward will be paid for its return 

 to E. R. R., Medina, Ohio, and no questions 

 asked. [The odor theory is still on deck. 

 The editor is not ready to abandon it just 

 yet. Any thing that tends to destroy or 

 obliterate colony or queen odor by smoking, 

 for the purpose of introducing, may or may 

 not support the theory. We are waiting for 

 more evidence. — Ed.] 



Have you begun your plans for 1915? 

 Yes, I mean that year, for those for 1914 

 should have been made long ago, and need 

 only a little polishing up. That sounds 

 foolish, like a waste of good space, for the 

 year-ahead planners will do it anyhow, and 

 no power known to man can start the other 

 kind into getting a move on. But there may 

 be some who only forgot, or are taking a 

 nap, so I guess we will let it stand. And. 

 by the way, do not confuse real planning 

 with day dreams. They are quite different. 



Funny what different notions are held on 

 smokers and the use of them. A good many 

 of the boys use any kind that may be at 

 hand, and a lot of others want something 

 very special. One wants a little vest-pocket 

 affair. Another wants something on the 

 style of a smelting furnace, and about as 

 handy. One will spend much of the day- 

 light hours in stoking, while another seems 

 able to make a pinch of fuel do all day. 

 One will suffocate in a cloud of smoke, and 

 another will forget thers is such a thing. 

 And there are some benighted individuals 

 who persist in using a nasty old pipe filled 

 with tobacco. Say, wouldn't it make some 

 show to line up the boys with a collection 

 of the sundry varieties, and set them going? 



There is one way to sell your honey which 

 will bring top price, take all you raise, and 

 drive you distracted to meet the growing 

 demand. Produce the rich, ripe, come-again 

 kind. It sells itself as well as rum. And 

 right there lies a tale — a true tale. A cer- 

 tain dealer in bottled liquors ordered a few 

 jars of honey to be used with liquor for 

 coughs and colds. Soon more was wanted ; 

 then more and more, and yet more. Each 

 year the volume has increased. Great quan- 

 tities have gone, to people who never use 

 liquor, and now the dealer says that if 

 the trade keeps on growing it will exceed 

 his liquor trade and drive him out of it. 

 The honey has always been of the highest 



