

*^T IN 



1861 x^ 





40th YEAR, 



CHICAGO, ILL,, OCTOBER 4, 1900, 



No, 40, 



^^ Editorial Comments. ^^ 



Cash vs. Commission Honey Sales. — Messrs. Aikin 

 and Doolittle are not of one mind on this topic, as shown in 

 h e Progressive Bee-Keeper. Mr. Aikin is quite positive 

 that the commission business is neither necessary nor 

 right. He says, " How many have turned over to some- 

 body else all their honey crop to sell when that crop repre- 

 sented their living, and in the end got nothing for it ?" 

 Mr. Doolittle replies that in 23 years' experience he has 

 been trying to sell for cash, but has sold only 100 pounds to 

 distant parties, because he could get cash only on the ar)-i- 

 val of the honey. He was not willing to sell in that way, 

 because formerly he did just that thing, and could not get a 

 cent of pay for what had " arrived at the store in the dis- 

 tant city in good order." He says : 



" And when it comes to shipping my honey to commis- 

 sion men, or shipping for 'pay on arrival,' I will take the 

 commission man every time, for it is a criminal affair for 

 liitn to ' run off with my honey,' while it is no such thing if 

 he runs off with the cash for which he bought my honey, or 

 rather agreed to pay me." 



The moral of all this is, that neither cash buyers nor 

 commission men have a monopoly of honesty, and probably 

 neither of them are composed mainly of scoundrels, and the 

 policy of the producer of honey who sends honey to a dis- 

 tant market is to inform himself thoroly, ar d whether he 

 sells for cash or on commission to deal only with honest 

 men. 



A Story from Bee County, Tex., is going the rounds 

 of the press, several of our subscribers having sent it to us. 

 It says that some of the bees down there will work only on 

 a certain kind of flower, " each hive, or cluster of hives, 

 always drawing its sweets from some particular flower, and 

 religiously shunning the others." Now, aren't those won- 

 derful bees ? 



Then it goes on to say that they have " bee-trackers " 

 there ; that these are native Mexicans "who mount a bron- 

 cho, ride over to a row of hives, wait until a big, healthy- 

 looking bee emerges, and, when it flies away on its daily 

 quest, gallop along in its wake, to see from just what kind 

 of flowers it gathers, so as to help the bee-keeper decide 

 how much honey of a certain flavor he is going to have !" 



This whole fool story is credited to the New Orleans 

 Times- Democrat. 



the honey put in them the following season. Whether to 

 expose fully a large lot in the open air, or to take the slower, 

 and what is in some cases the safer, plan, and allow access 

 to only one bee at a time, is a question upon which there 

 may be difference of opinion. The following Stray Straw 

 from Gleanings in Bee-Culture may throw some light on 

 the subject : 



G. M. Doolittle says, in the Progressive Bee-Keeper, 

 that he had tried the plan of giving bees free access to a 

 large number of unfinisht sections to clean up last fall, and 

 the bees tore the corabs so much that one-fourth of them 

 were spoilt for baits. He calls it " the Dr. Miller plan," but 

 it's the B. Taylor plan. The Miller plan is just the oppo- 

 site : Allow an entrance to the sections only large enough 

 for one bee at a time to enter, which is very much the better 

 plan when there are only a few sections. When one has a 

 large number of sections to be cleaned, the Taylor plan is 

 away ahead, and I don't understand how it should work so 

 disastrously with Bro. Doolittle. 



[A good deal hinges on what Mr. Doolittle means when 

 he speaks of having given access " to a large number of 

 unfinisht sections." I once exposed 10 or 20 poor uneven 

 combs containing honey to the bees just after the honey 

 season, at one of our out-yards, when there were 80 colonies 

 all producing comb honey. I think I never saw a madder 

 lot of bees in all my life. The combs in question were 

 literally covered witii a lot of bees scrambling and tumbling 

 over each other in mad, hot haste to get a sip at the honey. 

 Thousands of bees were also in the air that couldn't even 

 get a smell, much less a taste, stinging right and left. It 

 was impossible to do any work in the apiary, and it seemed 

 as if our clothes were literally filled with stings. We 

 hastily closed up our work for the day, and went off with 

 our hands in our pockets, with a resolve that we would 

 never try it again. When any one talkt with me about 

 letting bees help themselves to unfinisht sections in a 

 wholesale way, I thought he was next thing to a fool ; but 

 I have recently learned that the bees must have unfinisht 

 sections in such numbers so that there will be no scramb- 

 ing and tumbling over each other to get a taste of sweet. 

 If SOO to 1,000 of them were exposed in the apiary in a shady 

 place, I venture to say that Doolittle would have very little 

 trouble, and I would suggest that he try it at some future 

 time, and report. If, in the case I have just mentioned 

 above, I had given SO or 100 combs, I do not think we should 

 have had the rampage we did. But this is a kind of busi- 

 ness that beginners should let entirely alone, and the ques- 

 tion may be raised whether it might not be a somewhat 

 dangerous experiment even for some experts. In any case 

 the first trial of it should be at an out-yard remote from a 

 public highway. — Editor.] 



Getting Unfinislit Sections Cleaned Out is one of the 



things that comes up about this time of the year. Some 

 think it well to leave them without cleaning out, unless it 

 be to extract the honey from them, while a large number 

 insist that they should be lickt out dry by the bees, lest the 

 remaining honey should granulate or sour so as to affect 



Trying to Winter Weal< Colonies is a weakness from 

 which few novices in bee-keeping are free. No matter that 

 he is told the chances are largely in favor of the loss of 

 each weak colony in winter after it has lived long enough 

 to consume most of its stores ; no matter that he is told that 

 two weaklings united will consume very little more stores 

 than each one separately, the beginner gives assent to all 

 that is said in that direction, but holds still in reserve the 

 thought that as so7ne weak colonies do pull thru, kis will be 

 pretty sure to be of that fortunate- number. Time and ex- 

 perience make him change his views, but the experience of 

 others counts for little with him. 



There is one argument, however, that may prove effec- 



