6 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



colonies of bees. The conditions at 

 present are such that it requires four 

 or five times as many colonies and 

 the comparative amount of labor to 

 yield the necessary income. 



This is " too much fun for a shil- 

 ling " and as a consequence the sound 

 of discontentment and desertion is 

 rife. From this time on, the apiarist 

 must /al?o?- for his money. He must 

 produce tons of honey where it used 

 to be a few hundred. After having 

 made up our minds to produce tons 

 of honey instead of hundreds of 

 pounds and market tons of honey in 

 the place of pounds, our customers 

 must purchase tons in the place of 

 hundreds of pounds. 



It is in no way likely that our 

 appetites are going to require a larger 

 amount of a luxury than before ; but 

 as the price of honey falls to the level 

 with other sweets it would be only 

 ordinary sagacity to introduce honey. 

 It is every-day talk that sugars and 

 syrups are adulterated and it should 

 be nothing to be wondered at so long 

 as there is a margin for profit. Peo- 

 ple know and expect everything to 

 be adulterated, and that all invest- 

 ments depend upon their judgment. 

 This is a lucky thing for the apiarist. 

 I believe that very fact turns more in 

 the honeyman's favor than any other 

 one thing ; as all he has to do is to es- 

 tablish his reputation for a pure arti- 

 cle and his game is complete. A 

 customer who cannot tell a first-class 

 article of honey from adulteration is 

 not worth having ; but whatever a 

 customer may be, if we give him poor 

 and adulterated honey, we shall lose, 

 but give him good honey and it will 

 reclaim, him. The foregoing is theo- 

 retical. 



This year my crop was from 800 

 to 10,000 pounds, nearly all extract- 

 ed honey. It has nearly all been dis- 

 posed of. All but about twenty-five 

 pounds was handed directly from the 

 wagon to the consumer. Grocery- 

 men around heie will not handle ex- 

 tracted honey except on commission 



or on trade. When I sell honey it 

 is always spot cash. If a merchant 

 cannot pay cash he is not my man 

 to deal with. 



My method of disposing ot honey 

 is what some around here are dis- 

 posed to call peddling; yet these 

 same ones were seen shipping two 

 or three barrels to distant cities to be 

 sold on commission. After long wait- 

 ings the returns were made at a low 

 rate, barely enough to pay for the 

 barrels and cartage ; 2 1 cents per 

 pound was the net price. 



On each of four different days this 

 fall, I retailed from the wagon into 

 pitchers, pails and jars over 600 

 pounds of extracted honey at an av- 

 erage price of nine cents per pound. 

 Giving them an equal chance, ten 

 pounds of extracted sold to one 

 pound of comb honey. But little 

 theory in this. I sent to Stark Co., 

 111., for honey when mine had nearly 

 all been sold and yet there were 

 apiarists in my vicinity who shipped 

 honey to Stark Co., 111., to find a mar- 

 ket. " Distance lends enchantment 

 to the view." The profits in ship- 

 ping honey are mostly theory. The 

 business itself is " custom running 

 wild." The farmer is being out- 

 blundered. 



Bradford, Iowa. 



INVERTING 

 THE BROOD-NEST. 



Prof. a. J. Cook. 



One of the late innovations in 

 bee-keeping which has gained favor 

 so rapidly that we must think it 

 has come to stay, is that of invert- 

 ing the frames or hives. In either 

 case the brood-nest is turned upside 

 down. This was first accomplished 

 by so arranging the frames that they 

 could be readily inverted. Instead 

 of the old Langstroth frame with its 

 single top-bar, which bad project- 



