682 



Tmm M.'mmmi.GmM mmw i^OivrnMrniL. 



eral of hi3 best Carniolan colonies. 

 They all had plenty of natural stores 

 to vvinter on. 



Mr. Alley has great hopes for Car- 

 niolans. He believes they can be bred 

 to a verj' desirable bee as the Italians 

 have been. His great trouble was with 

 getting a pure mother. He says the 

 tirst Carniolans that cam^ to this coun- 

 try ho discarded because of their im- 

 purity. But now tliey are much bet- 

 ter, and will improve from jear to 

 year. 



After we had viewed the yard, and 

 had opened about all the hives, we re- 

 tired to the sanctum of the Ajnerican 

 AjncuUurist. and talked about bees, 

 steadily, for three or four hours. 



Mr. Alley does not think very much 

 of the new method of rearing and 

 keeping two or more queens in a hive. 

 The experiment he tried w.as a decided 

 failure. He has not yet tested the 

 chambers, however. 



He never uses protection of any 

 kind while handling his bees. He will 

 not clip a queen's wing for anybod}', 

 as he is much opposed to the practice. 

 Foundation is flxed into the "Bay 

 State Hive " frames in saw-kerfs with- 

 out wire. Sagging never occurs with 

 him. 



The sections which he uses, are the 

 one-piece open top, Hs is rather par- 

 tial to sections opening all around. 



His father was an orgaa-maker, and 

 many of liis most useful tools are those 

 left him by the old gentleman. 



He uses tacks in different positions 

 for registering purposes. This system 

 is very plain and simple. 



The shipping-cage used by him is a 

 simple one-half inch block with one 

 two-inch hole connected by a three- 

 fourths inch hole for the candj". The 

 covers are of thin board, one of which 

 has a small hole for air. The queen is 

 put into the cage by forcing back the 

 screen cloth. This cloth is a little 

 short at the candy end, so that when 

 the bees remove the candy the queen 

 is introduced, I 



He uses the Bingham smoker and 

 Dadant's foundation, is an eight-frame 

 advocate, and believes in out-door 

 wintering, withdonble-wall protection. 

 Cushions of cotton about six inches 

 thick are used over the frames in 

 winter. 



At the close of the queen season, all 

 the small combs are put into barrels 

 and headed up. By so protecting, the 

 combs are fresh and white in the 

 spring, Mrs, Alley attends to all wax 

 rendering, etc. His tvvo daughters do 

 considerable writing and copying for 

 him, 



Henry Alley is about 55 years of 

 age, medium height, with long, gray 

 beard, dark complexion, and dark 



ej'es, brimfull of fun, I am not flat- 

 tering when I say he is a handsome 

 man, a royal good fellow, and a push- 

 ing, enthusiastic genius. 



The only fault I found with the visit 

 was that my train left too soon. 



Marlbxaro. Mass. 



ILLINOIS. 



Report of llie Capital Bcc.Kecp- 

 ers'' Convention. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BY c. E. YOCOM. 



The Capital Bee-Keepers' Associa- 

 tion held their annual meeting at 

 SpringHeld, Ills,, on Sept 26, 1890, 

 with P. J, England in the chair. 



The members I'eported an increase 

 in bees of only 21 per cent., with a 

 yield per colony of about 30 pounds, 

 more than two-thirds of which is ex- 

 tracted. Only 2,275 pounds of comb 

 and 10,340 pounds of extracted honey 

 remain unsold. 



Mr. P. J. England delivered the fol- 

 lowing 



President*!^ Ad<Ire»«s. 



It has been one year since the or- 

 ganization of this society, and although 

 we cannot claim a large number of 

 members, I feel that we have made 

 commendable progress, and have ac- 

 complished some good. Let none of 

 us become discouraged, but press on- 

 ward to greater success. I am not in 

 favor of urging everybody to become 

 bee-keepers, but I do desire for us to 

 make a special efi'ort to get all exten- 

 sive bee-keepers within our bounds 

 into our society, believing that we 

 would be mutually benefited. Many 

 were the predictions that this would 

 be a No. 1 year for the secretion of 

 honey, but, contrary to our expecta- 

 tions, 1890 will go on record as being 

 a year of financial loss to many of our 

 fraternity. 



The supply of hcmey is very limited, 

 and prices are bomiiing ; then how in- 

 discrete we would be to flood our 

 home market with ■■ 10 cent" honey, 

 A few weeks ago, one of the mei'chants 

 in this city told me that he could buy 

 a good grade of comb honey at 10 

 cents per pound, I advised him to ac- 

 cept the offer, as comb honey was then 

 worth 16 cents per pound in Chicago, 

 But as I work my apiary entirely for 

 extracted honey, perhaps it would not 

 be amiss for me to give a little of m}' 

 experience along that line. 



For comb honey there seems to be 

 a regular demand, but if you produce 

 extracted honey, a demand must be 

 created for the product ; and, strange 

 as it may appear, you will have more 

 trouble to sell a strictly No. 1 grade of 



honey, than a grade that I would not 

 desire to sell at any price. 



People expect honej- out of the comb 

 to taste like it did when their grand- 

 mothers prepared it by heating the 

 comb, bee-bread and grubs to the boil- 

 ing point, and then give the whole 

 mass a big squeeze. 



There is no necessity for selling ex- 

 tracted honey at one-half the price of 

 comb honey — in fact, people sometimes 

 wonder wh^- I do not charge above the 

 price of comb hone\- for it. If you are 

 producing extracted honey, there will 

 be no uuflnished sections to disturb 

 yoiu' peace of mind, but your crop can 

 always be placed before the people in 

 a marketable condition. 



Be sure to keep the different kinds 

 of honey separate, and always sell by 

 sample. Many persons seem to think 

 that all honey should taste alike — they 

 do not know that each variety of honey- 

 producing flowers secretes a nectar 

 peculiar to itself. I labored hard to 

 secure the patronage of a wealthy 

 banker, and so long as I furnished him 

 a No, 1 grade of clover honey, all went 

 well — but. alas ! on one occasion I 

 was out of clover honey, and without 

 asking him to sample my "goods," I 

 left him 25 pounds of another variety. 

 In due course of time I again called on 

 this same banker, to supply him with 

 hone}', but instead of handing out the 

 silver dollars, he very promptly, and I 

 believe conscientiouslj-. pronounced 

 me a "fraud," 



Allow your honey to become granu- 

 lated, and inform your customers that 

 granulation is a sign of purity. 



I prefer tin packages varying in 

 quantity contained, from one to 25 

 pounds. I grade the price according 

 to the amount sold — that is, the larger 

 the quantity purchased, the less it costs 

 the customer per pound. By so doing. 

 I have built up a large demand for 25 

 pound buckets. 



For success in selling honey, I have 

 no one to blame but myself. ' It takes 

 personal eftbrt to create a steady de- 

 mand for extracted honey. You need 

 not depend upon the ordinary mer- 

 chant to build up a trade for you — he 

 will as a rule make no special eftbrt to 

 sell your honey. ( )f course there are 

 exceptions to this rule, and if j'ou are 

 fortunate enough to find the exception, 

 be sure to keep him in honey. 



Springfield has redeemed its reputa- 

 tion, and demonstrated the f.act that it 

 can support a good Fair. Of course, 

 no large amount has been oft'ered as 

 premiums to bee-keepers, but I be- 

 lieve that the Fair Association will ad- 

 vance the premiums as fast as we 

 deserve them. Then let us make an 

 eftbrt in 1891. and have such an ex- 

 hibit as will astonish even ourselves. 



P. J. EN(iL.\ND. 



