376 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



June 11, 



'^^"Sfjf^^ ^t?J?4^^^^ 



PDBLISHED WEEKLV BY 



GEORGE W. YORK & COMPANY, 

 118 JkTioIiig-an St., - CHICAGO, ILL, 



REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS : 

 G. M. Doolittle, of New York. Prof. A. j. Cook, of California. 



Dr. C. C. Miller, of Illinois. Dr. J. V. H. Brown, of Georgia. 



J, H. Martin, of California. Kev. E. T. Al^bott. of Missouri. 



Barnett Taylor, of Minnesota. Mrs. L. C. Axtell, of Illinois. 



Cbas. Dadant & Son, of Illinois. 



11.00 a Year— Sample Copy Sent Free. 

 [Entered at the Post-office at Chicaxo as Second-Class Mail-Matter.) 



VoLinVL CHICAGO, ILL, JONE 11, 1896. No, 24. 



Dark Honey— either comb or extracted — can scarcely 

 be sold at any price in the Chicago market. Don't ship it, 

 expecting to get very much for it. Better forward a sample 

 first, and get a quotation for it before sending a whole ship- 

 ment. If at all possible dispose of all dark grades of honey 

 in the home market. Only the tempting white honey is sought 

 for in city markets, and brings the best price. 



Don't Make a mistake this year, and send your 

 honey Sff to some unreliable city commission firm. Better 

 take two or three cents a pound less for your honey than to 

 ship it any great distance to market, and run the risk of 

 leakage, breakage, and paying high commissions. Supply 

 the home demand first, by all means, and make some effort to 

 enlarge it. Many families do not know how healthful honey 

 is, and need only to be assured of the fact, when they will be- 

 come regular users of it. 



Xlie Xorth American at L,incoln. — The Sec- 

 retary of the North Amer.can Bee-Keepers' Association in- 

 forms us that the Executive Committee, after conferring with 

 the Nebraska bee-keepers, have decided that the next meeting 

 of the Association will be held at Lincolu, Nebr. The time 

 for the meeting will be made known as soon as arrangements 

 for reduced railroad rates have been completed. 



We are glad the matter has now been definitely settled. 

 We presume the Nebraska friends are happy. 'Tis all right. 

 It will be a good meeting. And the hospitality will be of the 

 finest. We saw it published somewhere that all who attend 

 from outside of the State of Nebraska will be entertained free 

 during the convention. That's too generous, altogether, and 

 we fear somebody will regret having made that offer. But it's 

 good enough for those too-open-hearted Nebraska bee-keep- 

 ers. Perhaps next time they'll favor going with the Grand 

 Army. At any rate, we hope that just as many as possible 

 living outside of that State will go, for we don't know of a 

 better way to " get even " with them than for about 500 

 good-sized bee-keepers, with well-developed appetites, to be 

 present at the convention, and take in just as much as pos- 

 sible of the hospitality and sights. 



Present Prospects for Honey seem to be very 

 good in many localities. In the last issue of Farm, Stock and 

 Home, Mr. B. Taylor, of Forestville, Minn., has this encour- 

 aging paragraph : 



Rain, rain, rain has been the word here for weeks, and 

 Mother Earth is again full to overflowing. The honey-plants 

 are just blooming everywhere, and the bees are in the best 

 condition we ever had a like number at this season. We ex- 

 pect a big honey crop, and are getting everything in prime 

 order so there may be no loss from aeglect. 



Loss from neglect I Who'd be guilty of that after so 

 many poor seasons? What a pity it would be, if a good crop 

 were at hand, and the bee-keepers had neglected to make full 

 preparation for harvesting it ! Oh, no ; every one will have 

 his " dish right side up" this year. Just let the "honey- 

 shower" come on. 



In mailings Queens, says the Bee-Keepers' Review, 

 it is important that the right number of bees of the proper 

 age be put into the cage. Willie Atchley says that in a small 

 cage in summer weather, six are sufficient. In a large ,cage, 

 eight or nine are enough. In the fall and spring he would put 

 in twice that number. Don't pick out the large, old bees that 

 are filled with honey. When confined in the cage they have 

 no opportunity to clear themselves, and do not live long. He 

 would use thrifty young bees that are old enough to have been 

 once filled with honey. Select bees that are slim and gaunt. 

 Such are empty and cannot fill themselves with the candy 

 sufiBciently to injure themselves. Never put in a bee that 

 has stung you, as it will soon die, and is quite likely to get 

 stuck fast in the entrance to the food chamber. 



Carelessness is found among bee-keepers as well as 

 elsewhere. We have just recieved a letter from "Alexander," 

 with no State or even name and address of the writer given. 

 Of course we can do nothing with it until we get another letter 

 from the same writer, who will likely "kick" because we do 

 not reply to his former letter, when we have no means of 

 knowing who the man is, or in what State he lives. Be care- 

 ful always to sign your name to a letter, and also give your 

 address in full. 



PJo Slipsbod Work, or lack of careful work, will 

 go in these days of close competition. Did you, last year, put 

 your comb honey on the market without scraping well every 

 section ? If so, don't be guilty of such carelessness or lazi- 

 ness again. Attractiveness is almosteverthing in comb honey. 

 No neat and tidy housekeeper wants to buy honey in a section 

 that is covered with propolis, or that is otherwise dingy and 

 coarse in appearance. It will pay to put only the neatest and 

 nicest sections of honey on the market. 



Past and Present of Bee-Keeping.— On page 

 163, Mr. G. M. Doolittle has an article on this subject. Edi- 

 tor Holtermann, of the Canadian Bee Journal, copied the arti- 

 cle entire in his May number, and made the following editorial 

 comments thereon : 



If our readers will study that article first, they will better 

 understand what we are about to say. Mr. Doolittle wants to 

 know if the depreciation in price is not due to over-produc- 

 tion. In reply to that first question we would say that when 

 some of our best bee-keepers say they would sooner produce a 

 pound of honey than a pound of pork (and pork is quoted at 

 present at .$4.75 per hundred), we can hardly say that there 

 is over-production. One of the essential characteristics of 

 over-production, in our estimation, is having to produce an 

 article and sell it so as not to leave a living profit. We find 

 cases in which people have sold honey at very low figures, but 

 that does not necessarily prove over-production. It may show 

 that the man has not found the best way of marketing his 

 honey, or that owing to carelessness or ignorance, or disad- 

 vantage of locality or season, he has produced an inferior 



