136 



THE AMERICAN APICULTUBIST. 



Gleanings, I see he pays 8 cts. 

 per lb. for a nice article of ex- 

 tracted honey delivered at Medina, 

 which he sells, I suppose, at 10 

 cts. To deliver this honey in 

 Medina would cost me I ct. per. 

 lb., or nearly so, so that 7 cts. is 

 all I would have left for what act- 

 ually cost me 9 cts. Thus if I 

 were obliged to sell my whole crop 

 at these figures, I should have my 

 whole salary cut down to $350 a 

 year, as tlie other costs for pro- 

 duction cannot be reduced. Worse 

 still. I have just got returns for 

 a small lot of extracted honey 

 sent to New York, which nets me 

 only 6 cts. per. lb., so my wages 

 must still come down to $275* per 

 year. I believe 1 am entitled to 

 as good pay, after spending years 

 of toil and study, sleepless nights 

 in planning and framing ideas to 

 be carried out in the apiary, and 

 days of hard work in the hot sun 

 in carrying out these plans, as are 

 our lawyers, doctors, and clergy- 

 men, who sit in their easy-chairs 

 in cool and shady offices, and 

 have given no more time and study 

 in preparing themselves for their 

 avocation than I have. And yet 

 I am called to come down to a 

 tithe of their income, in order to 

 have honey become a "staple arti- 

 cle." 



I here leave the subject by ask- 

 ino- if our low prices and dull 

 markets do not denote that the 

 production of honey is being over- 

 done ; in other words, is not the 

 supply more than adequate for the 

 demand, at living prices? 



In the above I said nothing in 

 regard to the rate of increase, for 

 at^'the low price ($6.00) I placed 

 the bees, the hives, combs, and 30 

 lbs. of honey in the fall, are worth 

 the $6.00, so that the increase 

 might as well be destroyed, as 

 sold at these figures. — Gleanings. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Ed. of Am. Apiculturist : 

 Dear Sir, 



As there has been so much said 

 for and against the Syrian and Cy- 

 prian bees of late in the different 

 bee papers, I thought I would give 

 you some of my experience with 

 them during the last two years. 



I had no pure Syrian or C^'prian 

 workers to try as honey-gatherers, 

 as I had to keep mj poor stocks in 

 a reduced condition to keep them 

 from natural swarming out, fearing 

 lest I might lose the queens in 

 swarming. Besides, I had to draw 

 all the time on those colonies for 

 brood from which to rear queens. 

 The workers of those two varieties 

 were therefore of queens mated 

 with Italian drones. The first 

 year's result : hybrid Syrians first, 

 hyln-id Cyprians next, Italians 

 third. But the workers of one 

 Italian queen from Mr. Harbison, 

 of San Diego, came near to the Cy- 

 prians ; but by the appeai-ance of 

 the workers, that Italian queen 

 was mated with a Syrian drone. 

 As the Syrians surpass the Cy- 

 prians as honej^-gatherers, and the 

 latter are rather vicious as regards 

 stinging, I shall hereafter rear only 

 Syrians. Mr. Henderson, to whom 

 I had written on the subject, in- 

 formed me that his experience co- 

 incided with mine in this matter. 



Last year was a very poor sea- 

 son here in Oregon and adjacent, 

 the white clover having been frozen 

 out for the last two winters, and 

 there was nothing but the fireweed 

 for the bees to work on. The bees 

 here had therefore no chance for a 

 fair trial ; but in Washington Ter- 

 ritory, the drought had produced 

 a great deal of honej^ in the flowers 

 and plenty of honey dew. 



Near Lackamas lake in Clarke 

 Co., I had an apiary of eigiiteen 

 colonies. Four of those had lost 

 their queens during the winter, 



