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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Nov. 1. 1900 



cakes, that, without examining it chemically, we pro- 

 nounced tallow. The matter having- got to the party who 

 was expected to tell all these things, he wrote the consignor 

 telling what they had found, and also advising him his 

 beeswax would be held until he came in, etc. He wrote 

 back and said there was no tallow in that beeswax ; that it 

 was made in the sun extractor, and that the white spot we 

 saw in the cake was hog-lard ; that he had run it from the 

 extractor into a jar that had had lard in it. Well, it did 

 look as tho it might be lard, and I am quite satisfied that he 

 was honest about it. We broke a cake or two of it and 

 found there was a great deal of honey left in the wax, and 

 this some buyers object to ; they claim it won't answer the 

 purposes of beeswax ; there didn't seem to be any grease 

 mixt thru it. So, no%v, there was a small case of ignorance. 

 He had no idea that that little piece of lard was going to 

 affect the price of hfs beeswax, or any one find any objec- 

 tion to it, and not noticing or caring very much what kind 

 of a vessel he put that in, it met with those results. 



Then we get lots of other things. Mr. Baldridge could 

 tell you a whole lot more about the trials, probably, that he 

 has had with me than I could about the trials I have with 

 you. Most of the commission men are anxious to please 

 and to hold their patrons : they do about the best they 

 know. It may be at times they don't sell the honey to the 

 man that would pay the highest price, but he is often very 

 hard to find. Mr. Baldridge will come in and he will say, 

 " Mr. Burnett, what are you charging for honey to-day ?" 

 Why, so aid so. "Yes. Well, I think it ought to bring 

 that." But I notice Mr. Baldridge doesn't ask me to sell 

 him any. "Well," I would say, " what is the matter, Mr. 

 Baldridge ? Why don't you buy this honey if you think it 

 ought to bring that ?" He says, "lean do better; I can 

 get it cheaper somewhere else." If I sell him honey I must 

 meet his views on that question, if I thought he could 

 get that honey anj'where else ; tho I would be stubborn 

 enough if I believed he could not get it at his price, but 

 being fairly well posted in this line of business, I know 

 there are times when he can get that honey for less. 



If I have some honey that a party wants to get his 

 money out of rather soon, I will do perhaps what we call 

 "shading the price," and I make the sales accordingly, and 

 explain to the shipper, perhaps, if he finds any fault, that 

 that was the best price that I could get at that time — it was 

 all the buyer would pay. 



Now, this idea that a commission merchant isn't about 

 like the average producer of honey, I think j-ou will agree 

 with me is a mistake. He is just doing the very best he 

 can in his sphere. I might say, if the president will permit 

 me, that I consider that we are all in a great school, and 

 that the common enemy is ignorance, and the task set be- 

 fore us is to overcome ignorance. As we go along in life, 

 if we have been careful — if we have been industrious, if we 

 have tried to learn — perhaps there are some who have grown 

 faster in knowledge than others. I believe we must all 

 overcome ignorance in every form ; the disturbing- of the 

 equilibrium always brings trials; if something comes up 

 that seems to disturb us very much we call it a trial ; if we 

 allow it to get hold of us in such shape that it destroys our 

 ability to think and plan, and to know or plan, what would 

 remedy the difficulty, we are in rather a bad way, and we 

 must wait until we get the mind in shape again, until we 

 can apply the mind and find the way out of this difficulty. 



Personally, I have no trials. I don't get angry at a 

 fellow if he doesn't ship me his honey, and I am very 

 anxious indeed that every man who ships me his honey 

 shall know the conditions that he is likely to meet before 

 he sends it, and the stereotyped reply almost, I might say, 

 of our office is, " If you can not market your honey yourself 

 in any way that is satisfactory to you, you may expect that 

 our market will bring you so and so, providing that your 

 honey arrives in such condition, and will not be objection- 

 able to the man who goes around with his money and buys 

 where he can buy the cheapest, and at the same time get 

 the best value for the money he invests." 



If I recollect, it so happens that the second man in this 

 part of the world that shipt me honey over 20 years ago, is 

 in the audience. I was asking him how long ago it was he 

 made me that shipment. I think he said it was in 

 1876. I simply mention this as a corroboration of the fact 

 that because a man shipt his honey to a commission mer- 

 chant he must not necessarily die or " go broke." 



R. A. Burnett. 



Pres. Root — This subject is open for discussion for just 

 a few minutes; perhaps there are bee-keepers here who 

 have trials as well as commission men. 



Mr. Hershiser — I have not had many trials with com- 

 mission men ; I have not heard of many that have been 

 tried ; there is once in a while one : I think that the offenses 

 that some commission men usually commit are of such a 

 character as to make it rather a discouraging outlook for 

 any one to bring legal proceedings against them ; they 

 cheat on small shipments. We had a commission mer- 

 chant in Buffalo a few years ago that had robbed people 

 thru the country of perhaps a good manj' thousands of dol- 

 lars on many small shipments. He sent out very attractive 

 notices, and received shipments mostly of poultry from all 

 over the western part of the State of New York, and in 

 Ohio and Michigan, and other places, and he gauged the 

 amount of his stealings from these people according to the 

 distance they lived from Buffalo. If they lived 100 miles, 

 or something like that, so that the expense of coming down 

 to Buffalo would be likely to be more than he would get out 

 of it if he got there, he would cheat that party out of that 

 much money. He finally ran across one man away out in 

 Ohio who was willing to make a trip to prosecute the man, 

 and he had to pay SSOO fine for his cheating. He was 

 prosecuted thru the United States court for using the 

 United States mails for schemes to defraud. That is the 

 only case of the trial of a commission man that I know of. 



A Member — What is his name ? 



Mr. Hershiser — He is not in business any more ; his 

 name was Unger. 



(Continued next week.) 



Contributed Articles. | 



Old or New Hives for Wintering Other (Questions. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLB. 



WILL bees stand the winter as well, and be as healthy 

 in old hives, or those having been used several years, 

 as in new ones ? Tell me in the American Bee 

 Journal. 



Answer. — When I first read this question it seemed to 

 me that the proper answer to give would be this : Old hives 

 in a good state of preservation, with no decayed spots and 

 no open cracks, should be as good as new ones for winter- 

 ing bees, and the new ones as good as the old. But after 

 thinking a little I am not so sure about that answer. Years 

 ago I found out that a single-walled hive painted on the 

 outside would not winter nor spring bees nearly so well as 

 an unpainted hive, on account of the moisture, evaporating 

 from the bees and their food, not being able to pass thru 

 the pores of the wood, as was the case with the unpainted 

 hive, this causing a dampness about the bees and on the 

 combs which was not in accord with the best welfare of the 

 inmates of the hive. All old hives, after long use, become 

 so varnisht with propolis on the inside that this places them 

 in a condition similar to hives painted on the outside; and 

 in cases %vhere the slow passing of moisture out of the 

 hives was not provided for by way of chaff or sawdust cush- 

 ions, etc., I should expect that the bees would winter best 

 in new hives. 



But there is an item generally favorable toward the 

 old hives, which is, that they are more likely to contain old 

 combs; and it is generally conceded by all practical bee- 

 keepers, and was given to the public away back in the 'SO's, 

 by Quinby and others, that, other conditions being equal, 

 bees will winter better on old combs than on new ones. 

 This I have found to be universally true. This being the 

 ",ase, if there is any preference, it would lie along the line 

 -)f old combs in new hives. 



BEES AFFECTED BY MOISTURE. 



Question. — Does moisture affect bees wintering on 

 sugar-syrup stores in the same way as it does those winter- 

 ing on honey ? 



Answer. — That depends altogether where the moisture 

 is — whether a damp outside air, damp cellar, or moisture in 

 the hives. From past experience I think that bees winter 

 best in a moist atmosphere, and I do not think that a foggy, 

 misty winter has anj' deleterious effect on colonies wintered 

 on the summer stands. The moisture often accumulates in 

 my bee-cellar so it stands in drops and runs down the stone 

 flagging overhead, to an extent sufficient to form little pools 



