THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



313 



wrong with the distribution, when 

 peaches are allowed to rot, or are 

 hauled to some neighboring "still 

 house" and sold at 15 cents per 

 bushel, which, at a reasonable 

 price, could be readily sold, only a 

 few hundred miles away. As long- 

 as there are no better means of 

 distributing this fruit, the producer 

 in Missouri will mourn that he 

 cannot get more than 15 cents per 

 bushel, and the man in Illinois will 

 lament that he cannot buy it with- 

 out paying $8.00 for them. 



EQUALIZING THE MARKETS. 



The same conditions, in a less 

 degree, apply to hone}'. Surely, 

 with all our railroad and river 

 transportation, there ought to be 

 very much less difference in the 

 selling and buying prices as here 

 indicated. How many people can 

 buy fruit at such prices ? How many 

 thousands of baskets is the deniantl 

 cut short? I do not pretend to 

 sa}' where all this difference goes ; 

 if to the railroads, it is certainly 

 a ver}' short-sighted policy, as they 

 could as well carry ten times the 

 quantit}', and by lower rates still 

 greatly increase their receipts. If 

 the trouble is with the packers or 

 commission men, then their meth- 

 ods are equally short-sighted. It 

 is quite likely that there are en- 

 tirely too many of the middle men 

 in the business. Wh}'^ cannot the 

 producer pack and ship his own 

 fruit or honey direct to the retail 

 dealer or commission man? Then 

 if there are over-charges they can 

 be more easily located and avoided. 

 I believe in allowing every one a 

 fair profit for doing a necessary 

 and fair business. I fail to see 

 Avhere anyone is permanently ben- 

 efited, where by any circumstances 

 they can force prices so high that 

 people cannot afford to buy, and 

 often let goods go to waste. 



Milan, III. 



American Dee Journal. 



ABOUT THE FASTING OF 

 BEES. 



yVyi. F. Clarke. 



The editorial note to Mr. Jones' 

 article, page 681, where it is as- 

 serted that bees can fast for three 

 months without sustaining inj^uy, 

 invites a few words from me. 



I have no idea how long bees 

 can safely fast, or for what periods 

 they abstain from food when the 

 weather and surrounding circum- 

 stances are favorable to their hi- 

 bernating, but I believe that their 

 normal winter condition, in this 

 climate, is one in which they be- 

 come dormant for certain periods 

 during which the}' do not feed. 

 Every well-authenticated case of 

 bees fasting for a certain length 

 of time, tends to corroborate my 

 theory. Mr. D. A. Jones, in his 

 experiments for the cure of foul 

 brood, has demonstrated that a 

 fast of three weeks does not hurt 

 bees if they are kept perfectly 

 quiet. He thinks if we only knew 

 how to regulate the temperature, 

 they could be safely kept without 

 food for a very long time. 



I could not desire a better state- 

 ment of my theory than that given 

 by Mr. D. A. Jones in the Cana- 

 dian Bee Journal of Oct. 19, viz. : 

 '•There is no longer any doubt in 

 our mind that when a colony of 

 bees only consumes a couple of 

 pounds of food during the winter, 

 they must lie in a semi-dormant 

 state much of the time, or 'hiber- 

 nate,' as friend Clarke puts it ; be- 

 cause two or three pounds of stores 

 would scarcely fill the sacs of an 

 ordinary colony of bees, yet it is 

 not an uncommon thing to have 

 them wintered on less than two 

 pounds." 



What we want is a thorough 

 series of experiments in relation 



