TMm fEMEKICJCIf BEIE JfJ-URIfKIU. 



57 



they will recognize its worth to them, 

 and willingly join haads with us, that 

 we may battle with the other lawsuit 

 cases, and render other prejudiced 

 men hor dc combat. Brother bee-keep- 

 ers, you have seen what the Union has 

 done — now is the time for each and 

 every one of you to come forward and 

 lock hands with us. " Delays breed 

 dangers. There is nothing so perilous 

 as procrastination." 

 Cincinnati, Ohio. 



MARKETING. 



Selling llie Honey Crop in the 

 ■Ionic market. 



Written for tlie American Bee Journal 



BY WILLIAM CROULEY. 



My report my 1889 is as follows : I 

 began with 8(3 colonies, spring count, 

 in fair condition, increased to 120 col- 

 onies, and took 2,000 pounds of comb 

 honey in sections, and 1,500 pounds of 

 extracted honey, being the poorest of 

 the last three seasons. It was the "off 

 year " for basswood to bloom freelj', 

 and the bees were not in readiness 

 when it did bloom, to do good work ; 

 and it was so dry in the fall, that the 

 fall honey crop was almost a complete 

 failure. 



I have sold the honey at my home 

 market — comb honey at 20 cents per 

 pound, and extracted at Vli to 15 

 cents per pound, right in the face of 

 some of my brother aparists, who have 

 tried to force honey on my market at 

 about half that price. 



DISPOSING OF THE HONEY CROP. 



I will give an idea of how I manage 

 my home market, hoping that it will 

 benefit some of the fraternity, who, I 

 imagine, are a little deficient in this 

 most important feature of our business. 



I furnish each grocery in the town 

 with an attractive show-case, and he 

 gives it a prominent place on his coun- 

 ter. These cases open from behind 

 the counter, to prevent customers 

 from handling the honey. The cases 

 I keep well filled with both comb and 

 extracted honey on sale. I do not ask 

 them to buy the honey, but open an 

 account with each merchant, and re- 

 ceive credit for the honey when de- 

 livered to them, at the retail price, 

 which price I make the same to all of 

 them. 



I do not care how much honey thej' 

 sell, but they sell all that I can use in 

 trade in my family, which is quite an 

 item in the course of the year. 



Now as to the cash part of my busi- 

 iicss : I have the good-will of the 

 merchants, and they have stood by me, 

 for they have not shipped in a pound 



of honey in the last two years, although 

 it has been repeatedly offered to them 

 at ruinous prices. 



In the winter, I make boxes for re- 

 tailing comb honey ; they are made to 

 hold a half dozen one-pound boxes. I 

 make them of a good quality of shin- 

 gles ; 1,000 will make about 160 boxes. 

 The ends are made of |-inch lumber, 

 to nail to. By nailing the shingles one 

 thick end and one thin end, on the 

 opposite sides, it makes a square box. 

 The material costs about 2 cents per 

 box. It makes a neat package for the 

 purpose. 



As soon as the first honey is readj' 

 for market, I take my sample case 

 (which holds two sections, and is 

 nicely made and painted), and go on 

 a little excursion through the towns 

 and country, and of course I show 

 what I have in that " funny little case." 

 I am pretty certain to get an order at 

 nearly every house for at least one box 

 of a half dozen sections, which I sell for 

 only $1.00. My sections are filled so 

 that a half dozen weigh about 5 pounds. 

 I sell them for 20 cents each, in less 

 than a half-dozen lot, so that I seldom 

 fail to sell one box, if they will buy 

 any at all. The majority of my custo- 

 mers have used, so far this season, 

 from 3 to 8 boxes, and I find it the 

 hardest to sell them the first box ; they 

 often hail me on the street with, " Got 

 any more of that fine honey ? It is 

 going fast. Send two or three boxes 

 to my house, just like the last one we 

 had." 



My extracted honey I put up in 

 tumblers — pints and quarts — and two- 

 quart fruit-jars. It often seems to me, 

 when I see bee-men scouring the coun- 

 try several hundred miles from home, 

 offering honey far below the market 

 price, that there must be something 

 wrong. The further I go from home, 

 the harder I find it to sell my honey ; 

 consumers like to know where the 

 honey comes from, for the " Wiley 

 lies " are not yet all dead. 



UNFINISHED SECTIONS — BEE-ESCAPES. 



I find it a tedious job to extract the 

 honey from unfinished sections. Last 

 fall I uncapped them, and filled a 

 super half full, and as far apart as I 

 could get thera. I then put the super on 

 the hive of a colony that needed feed- 

 ing; in 24 hours every drop of honey 

 was taken out, and carried to the 

 brood-chamber. Give it a trial next 

 fall. 



I feel very thankful to those who so 

 kindly have donated to the fraternity, 

 the bee-escapes mentioned in recent 

 numbers of the American Bee Jour- 

 nal. I trust that the)' all will prove 

 successful in getting bees out of the 

 sections. 



Redwood Falls, Minn. 



BEES ON" THE FARM. 



How to manage Bee • Keeping 

 witii Farming. 



Written for the Ameriea/n Bee Journal 

 BY FRANK COVERDALE. 



Bee-keeping amongst farmers is quite 

 often looked upon as a matter of ag- 

 gravation, or little profit, all thing.? 

 considered ; for there are many of this 

 class who even go to the bother and 

 expense to furnish ther bees with mov- 

 able-frame hives, and then hive them 

 upon the same, not even looking to 

 see if they build straight combs, or 

 furnish them with a particle of foun- 

 dation ; then the hive may be unno- 

 ticed for three weeks or more, when 

 the operator will raise the honey- 

 board to see if they are ready for sec- 

 tions, but, too late, the hone}' harvest 

 is over — the sections are put on, but 

 there is no honey, and no profit. 



The farmer is called from the field, 

 by his wife ringing the bell ; he hitches 

 his horses to the fence, and runs to 

 save the swarming bees, thus leaving 

 the hay-field, road-work, or whatever 

 it may be ; so he neither farms nor 

 keeps Ijces successfully. 



With the foregoing state of affairs, 

 it would be better not to have a colony 

 of bees on the place, for such a farmer 

 could buy his honey cheaper. 



As I farm 247 acres of land, and 

 make a success of both farming and 

 bee-keeping, I will tell how I do it. In 

 the first place, I do not work my land 

 until it grows but one-half of a crop 

 of grain or corn ; but I choose a plan 

 different from this, and keep it quite 

 reasonably well in grass, and grow 

 about 50 acres of corn ; so it will be 

 seen that by this treatment, the ground 

 is rich, hence a heavy yield of corn, 

 good pasture, plenty of hay and young 

 stock upon the place. 



I am not compelled to go to the field 

 every day, but can have considerable 

 time to look after my bees. I go out 

 and help to plow the corn the first time 

 through, and if honey is not coming 

 in, I keep on plowing ; thus the corn is 

 not neglected. When the corn-field is 

 clean, and honey is commencing to 

 come in, my man goes right ahead 

 with the corn-field. 



When the bees are well supplied 

 with cases, and well at work, I mow 

 down the grass for hay ; but before 

 starting, I bring some nice, light 8- 

 frame Langstroth hives from the store- 

 house, and place them within reach ; 

 and as the bees are close to the back 

 door, my wife will be sure to hear or 

 see them if they swarm. With queen- 

 cage and veil she starts for the bee- 

 yard, cages the queen (all have clipped 

 wings), puts down the smoker, and 



