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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Bee. 2A, 



Mr. Green — I have fed considerable in the spring when I 

 was obliged to. I think the best plan is to let them have 

 enough in the fall so you are sure, and then don't disturb 

 them until the honey season comes, and I prefer, all things 

 considered, to feed out-doors, and to feed so they get all they 

 can well take care of. There is occasionally a great deal 

 of loss. I remember one time when a rainy day came, and 

 a great many thousand bees were drowned, and that is the 

 greatest objection f know to that style of feeding. Aside from 

 that I should prefer it to any style of feeding 1 know of. Of 

 course, sometimes the neighbors' bees will get a share of your 

 feed, but if your bees are very much in the majority there is so 

 much of a saving. I would risk that. 



Dr. Miller — What amount would you feed per day, if you 

 fed every day? 



Mr. Green — All I could a£ford to. 



Dr. Miller — I suppose it would depend very much upon 

 the needs of the bees. 



Mr. Green — I should want to see that they got in a thrifty 

 condition. Two years ago I had to feed in the spring, and I 

 fed two barrels of sugar in about two weeks. 



Dr. Miller — Here are two cases, one is, the bees have a 

 fair plenty, and you are feeding only for the purpose of stimu- 

 lating. 



Mr. Green — In that case I should guess about half a pound 

 a day. 



Mr. Baldwin — Not to exceed a pound. 



Dr. Miller — On the other hand, suppose you have the two 

 things to do. They are going to be short of stores and you 

 want them provided for, and you want the advantage of the 

 stimulating, if there is an advantage. 



Mr. Green — In that case it is simply a question how much 

 they need. You night feed from one to three pounds a day. 



Mr. Baldwin — In case of bare necessity it makes a vast 

 difference to the question asked, " How much would you feed 

 to stimulate laying?" 



Dr. Miller — The remaining question in connection with 

 that is. How often would you feed for stimulating purposes ? 



Mr. Green — Every day. 



Dr. Miller — A question that comes to me in very close 

 connection with that suggests itself just now. Here is 

 a colony of bees that has enough, you think, to last it through 

 until nearly the time of fruit-blooming, but you want it to 

 have more, will you feed it in the fall or in the spring ? 



Mr. Baldwin — I would feed it in the fall, every time — 

 September. 



Dr. Miller — How many think it is better to feed In the 

 fall ? [Six.] How many think it is better to feed in the 

 spring ? 



Mr. Green — If I was sure they had enough for winter, I 

 would wait until spring; if I wasn't, I would feed them. 



Dr. Miller — Tell us why you would feed in the spring 

 rather than the fall ? 



Mr. Green — You might save some honey on colonies that 

 would die during the winter ; that is about the only advan- 

 tage. If I wasn't counting the loss in winter, I should much 

 prefer to feed in the fall. 



Dr. Miller — I think Mr. Doolittle takes the ground that it 

 is much better to feed in the spring. May be I am wrong 

 about that, but some one not very long ago said that there was an 

 advantage in feeding in the spring. It does seem to me, how- 

 ever, that there is an advantage in having the stores through 

 the winter. Here is a hive with a certain amount of space, 

 your bees to be wintei-ed in that, and you fill up part of that 

 space with honey, and I believe they are better off than having 

 air there. When they have a big lot of stores inside it seems 

 to encourage them in some way. 



Mr. Baldwin — If the queen has enough to have "confi- 

 dence" to lay, she will go on. I will give my queen "confi- 

 dence," by giving her plenty. 



GETTING THE PUBLIC TO USE HONET. 



Ques. 7. — What can bee-keepers do to induce the public 

 to use honey more generally as food ? 



Mr. Green — Sell it to them. 



Dr. Miller — Do you know of any one thing, for instance, 

 that any one of us ought to do more than we are doing to help 

 in that direction ? 



Mr. York — Mr. Baldridge could help us out on that. 



Mr. Baldridge — I dispose of it by giving it away. One 

 family where I live used in the last year 20 or 25 pounds in 

 the way of exchange, and they would not have used five 

 pounds, if I had asked them to buy it. 



Dr. Miller — Then it is really not given to them, it is a 

 trade. 



Mr. Baldridge — They gave me papers in exchange for it. 



Mr. Chapman — I believe if we could remove the taint that 



South Water street lends to the honey on the score of adul- 

 teration, a great many more families would want to eat honey 

 than now do. Take, for instance, the California Honey Ex- 

 change principle ; if that was applied to the market here, and 

 the Exchange could guarantee that the extracted honey was a 

 good article, you would find a great many people would eat it, 

 whereas, now they don't know whether it is pure or not. I 

 have followed the Elgin Butter Exchange and their methods. 

 At the time that Exchange was formed in Elgin, on South Water 

 street were adulterators of butter — sold oleomargarine, and it 

 affected the price of butter seriously, so that they didn't get 

 nearly the results they got after the Exchange was estab- 

 lished, which raised their profits, or made it a profitable busi- 

 ness, or took the butter market away from South Water 

 street, so they always get a profit out of their goods. It took 

 away the taint from the market here of adulterated goods. 



Dr. Miller — Cannot these men, who had been adulterating, 

 continue? 



Mr. Chapman — Yes, sir, they did continue, and the result 

 was that Elgin butter sold for so much more than the adul- 

 terated, and the whole people rose up and we got a law to 

 stop them. Now you can go there and buy butter as well as 

 you can in Elgin. If you could establish a honey exchange in 

 this market, and people knew what they were buying, they 

 would buy it. I know from my own experience that the ma- 

 jority of retail dealers never know that they are buying a 

 good article of honey there. They cannot guarantee it to their 

 customers. 



Mr. Grabbe — May I ask Mr. Chapman of what place he is 

 speaking? 



Mr. Chapman— I am speaking of South Water street. I 

 have seen the workings as applied to that particular product 

 — butter. As long as there was a pound here it hurt our mar- 

 ket so that the Eastern people refused to use our goods be- 

 cause of adulteration. Then they took the market in their 

 own hands and controlled it. The people sent there for the 

 pure article, and then when they found out it was all over 

 this country that it was hurting them, and they were not in 

 the Exchange, they rose up and got the "oleo" law, and, of 

 course, that put Chicago back in the butter market. If you 

 can get a similar Exchange here.so that the people could know 

 when they bought that brand of goods it was not adulterated, 

 I am satisfied it would increase the demand. 



Mr. Grabbe — I have had a little experience here in the 

 city selling to grocers. I have a gentleman out soliciting 

 orders for me. He carries a sample of honey that he claims 

 there is no honey in it at all. Mine costs SI. 80 a dozen jars, 

 and the other is put up by a firm here in the city for 60 cents. 

 He tells them here is the pure honey, and this other has no 

 honey in it at all, and he sells as much of that in which there 

 is no honey in at all ; they have a trade for it, and possibly 

 buy it two to one because they get it cheap. Go on Milwaukee 

 avenue, and every dealer is stocked with honey, and the 

 grocery men will tell you that there is no honey in it at all, 

 and the people buy it because it is cheap. I have gone into 

 one of the largest stores in Chicago, and found them retailing 

 it for five cents, and it goes like hot cakes, and there is no 

 honey in it at all. How are going to educate the people to eat 

 pure honey ? I went into a store on 22nd street, yesterday ; 

 I showed them some honey, and they said it sells slowly. 

 There was some they were selling for 12 cents, which goes 

 fast. The people buy that and like it. They don't sell it for 

 honey. What are you going to do with them in that case ? 



Mr. Chapman — The principle is almost identically the 

 same. Selling butter has not affected the "oleo," and won't, 

 because it is cheap, and for no other reason ; but there are 

 people who will only have the pure goods. The effect of that 

 law has been that the prices of the good article have risen, 

 and the cheap has declined. The men who want the pure 

 honey would be willing to pay the better price for it. It would 

 reduce the price of glucose to the proper level. There are a 

 great many people who want that. 



Mr. Grabbe — There are a great many dealers who will not 

 keep it. 



Dr. Miller — Do you think the commission men, or those 

 who keep that, all know there is no honey in it ? 



Mr. Grabbe — The grocerymen tell me they tell them ? 



Dr. Miller — If they know what they are buying, and the 

 thing is before them — 



Mr. Grabbe— Sometimes it is labeled "pure honey." 



Dr. Miller— That is the trouble. 



Mr. Grabbe — Thousands of the families in the city who 

 cannot read or write, buy that for honey, and they believe it 

 is pure honey, and you give some of them a pure sample of 

 honey and they will send it back and say it is not pure. They 

 take the glucose — tbey prefer that to pure basswood honey. 



Mr. Green — That is one of the difficulties that we have to 



