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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



July 26, 1900 



PUBLISHT WEEKLY BY 



GEORGE w. York & Company, 



lis Michigan Street, Cliicago, III. 



[Entered at the Post-Office at Chicago as Second-Class Mail-Matter.] 



DEPARTMENT EDITORS: 



C. C. MILLER, E. E. HASTY, 



" Questions and Answers." ** " The Afterthought." 



LEADING CONTRIBUTORS: 



G. M. DOOLITTLE, C. P. DADANT, PROF. A. J. COOK, 



F. A. Snell, R. C. Aikin, "Old Grimes." 



IMPORTANT NOTICES: 



The Subscription Price of this journal is $1.00 a year, in the United States, 

 Canada, and Mexico; all other countries in the Postal Union, 50 cents 

 a year e-xtra for postag'e. Sample copy free. 



The Wrapper-Label Date of this paper indicates the end of the month to 

 which your subscription is paid. For instance, "DecOO" on your 

 label shows that it is paid to the end of December, 1900. 



Subscription Receipts.— We do not send a receipt for money sent us to pay 

 subscription, but change the date on yonr wrapper-label, which shows 

 you that the money has been received and duly credited. 



Advertising Rates will be given upon application. 



VOL. 40. 



JULY 26, 1900. 



NO. 30 



Note— The American Bee Journal adopts the Orthography of the follow- 

 ing Rule, recommended by the joint action of the American Philolog- 

 ical Association and the Philological Society of England: — Change 

 **d" or "ed" final to *'t" when so pronounced, except when the "e" af- 

 fects a preceding sound. Also some other changes are used. 



Why a Bee= Keepers' Exchange?— Prof. Cook seems 

 insistent that every bee-keeper should be a member of 

 .something- like a Bee-Keepers' Exchang-e. What need ? 

 Bee-keepers have heretofore gotten along without anything 

 of the kind, and they can get along now. Their attention 

 has been chiefly given to the best means of securing a crop 

 of honey, and that can be done without any such thing- as 

 an Exchange. A man can produce just as much honey, 

 whether he is to get 5 or IS cents a pound for it. He can 

 produce the same amount if he has no market quotations, 

 and takes his snow-white section honey to the grocery and 

 gets for it just the same price as the grocer paid for some 

 dirty black stuff not fit to put on the table. 



And yet no intelligent bee-keeper would be satisfied 

 not to inform himself as fully as possible, so as to get some- 

 thing like a fair price for his product. He watches the bee- 

 papers to see whether the crop is large or small, to see what 

 the prices are in the market reports, informs himself as to 

 his own particular locality, and makes some effort to get 

 the most he can for his honey. If it be admitted that he is 

 right in doing this, it is hard to stop short of the logical 

 conclusion that a bee-keepers' exchange is something 

 almost in the line of a necessity. 



When a man, who has shown himself for so many 

 years unselfishly interested in the advancement of bee- 

 keepers' interests as has Prof. Cook, urges any measure for 

 the general good, it is well to give heed. The illustrations 



he gives in the line of fruit-growers are strong, especially 

 that of the raisin-growers, with an increase of a million 

 dollars that seems to be credited to the account of co-opera- 

 tion. A significant fact is that the 75 percent that entered 

 the movement at its beginning increast to 90 percent after 

 trial. 



It would not be amiss to quote what has been already 

 done by organization on the part of bee-keepers. A piti- 

 fully small percent of the bee-keepers of the country banded 

 together for a few years, mainly with the idea of resisting 

 the invasion of their rights as to location, yet that small 

 band has made it safe for every bee-keeper in the country 

 to locate where he pleases, with no fear that some crotchety 

 neighbor may have an ordinance past telling him to " move 

 on." 



Adulterators of honey have boldly flaunted their wares 

 in the faces of honest bee-keepers all over the laud, and the 

 first show of weakening on their part has come from the 

 organized effort of a comparatively small number of men 

 acting as one body. 



If Exchanges are good for others, why not for bee- 

 keepers ? If bee-keepers combined have secured advan- 

 tages against invaders of their rights, and against adultera- 

 tors, why may not combination be a good thing for them in 

 the way of buying and selling-? At any rate, the question 

 is a live one, and these cdlumns are open for its full and 

 free discussion. Objections and advantages will be equally 

 welcomed. 



Queen. Excluders When Working for Extracted Honey 



are in common use, the reason given for their use generally 

 being that the queen is prevented from going up to lay in 

 the extracting-combs. J. B. Hall, the Canadian veteran, 

 gives in the Canadian Bee Journal another as his chief 

 reason. By having an excluder between the brood-cham- 

 ber and the extracting-super he is never in any anxiety for 

 fear the queen will be injured, and can thus work much 

 more rapidly. A few workers may be killed as the result of 

 rapid handling, and it matters little, but it would matter a 

 good deal if hasty setting a super on should mash a queen. 

 If an excluder is on, there is no queen to be considered ; she 

 is safe below the excluder. 



An Improvement in Queen-Cages that seems to have 

 originated in Medina or vicinity, seems likely to be of real 

 service. As sent out heretofore, the Benton shipping-cage 

 has at one end a cork closing a hole that leads thru the 

 candy to the queen. The cork is pulled out, and as soon as 

 the candy is eaten out the queen is liberated. The longer 

 the journey the more candy eaten out by the attendant bees 

 in the cage, and if a very small portion is left the intro- 

 duction may be too sudden for best results. By the new 

 plan no cork is used. Instead thereof a bit of pasteboard is 

 nailed over the hole, three or four small perforations being 

 in the pasteboard. The candy comes close up against the 

 pasteboard, and the bees must gnaw away the pasteboard 

 before they can eat the candy. This avoids the possibility 

 of too sudden introduction, assuring greater safety in every 

 case. When a customer receives a queen, there is no cork 

 to withdraw ; all he has to do is to pry off the cover and 

 put the cage in the hive. The bees do the rest. 



Some Things Proved. — Mrs. A. J. Barber, of Monte- 

 zuma Co., Colo., has this to say, in Gleanings in Bee-Cul- 

 ture, about the things she has proven at least to her own 

 satisfaction : 



Since the beginning of the new j-ear I have been look- 

 ing back over the nine years that I have been with the bees, 

 and taking stock, so to speak, of the points that I have 

 proved to my own satisfaction. 'j I have been in the bee- 



