(Entered at the Post-Office at Chicago as Second-ClasB Mail-Matter) 

 Published Weekly at ftl.OO a Tear by Cieorge W. ¥ork & Co., 334 Dearborn St. 



QEORGE W. YORK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL, JANUARY 18,1906 



Vol. XLVI-No, 3 



% 



(Sbttorial Hotes 

 anb Comments 



J 



Queen- Breeders' Catalog.— We have received the fol- 

 lowing- from the Department of Agriculture at Washington, 

 D. C: 



Inquiries frequently come to this office for the names of 

 queen-breeders of various races and strains of bees, and, in 

 order that reliable information may be given, I am prepar- 

 ing, in co-operation with the American Breeders' Associa- 

 tion, a catalog of queen-breeders. 



There is a catalog of considerable size in this office, but 

 in order that no queen-breeder of any importance be omitted, 

 I would respectfully request all breeders, having 100 or more 

 queens for sale annually to the general public, who see this 

 notice, to send me the following information as accurately 

 as possible : 



Races bred. Annual output of each race, and number 

 of mating yards. 



For my personal information I should be glad to learn 

 the method of queen-rearing used, the number of breeding' 

 queens of each race used, and the number of colonies in each 

 yard from which drones are allowed to fly. 



Hereafter, all persons requesting information concern- 

 ing dealers in any strain will be given the names of the 4 

 dealers nearest to the address of the enquirer. This will, I 

 believe, be a fair way of giving the information without 

 favoring any breeders, and will repay the breeders for their 

 trouble in answering these questions. 



E- F. Philups, 

 Acting in Charge of Apiculture. 



Department of Agriculture, 



Washington, D. C, Jan. 8. 



Dr. 0. M. BlantOIl, of Greenfield, Miss., has been writ- 

 ing for a local newspaper something both interesting and 

 helpful to its readers on the subject of comb honey. He 

 writes : 



" It is astonishing how people are imposed upon by the 

 most extravagant practices, and from the most ignorant and 

 unprincipled sources " concerning honey. " It is surpris- 

 ing to find how few persons know the qualities of honey." 



One buyer of some of Dr. Blanton's honey told him that 

 it was not honey, because it granulated, and his (the 

 buyer's) negro cook said it was sugar ! Afterward the Doc- 

 tor heard that this same customer said that the honey was 

 adulterated with sugar. It is probably impossible to pre- 

 vent entirely everybody from making misrepresentations 

 concerning any producer's honey, for there likely will 



always be those who misrepresent by speaking out of their 

 abundance of ignorance. The best the honest honey-pro- 

 ducer can do is to put on the market only the very finest 

 and best article, and let it sell on its merits. 



Of course, whenever opportunity offers it is a good 

 thing to try to correct the misrepresentation concerning 

 comb honey that has been circulated for so many years by 

 the newspaper and magazine press. But it is surprising 

 how large a majority of people really believe that comb 

 honey has been been made without the aid of bees, and put 

 upon the market in large quantities. Of course, nothing 

 can be further from the truth than such a statement, as all 

 the practical bee-keepers know. 



Mr. Ernest R. Root, recently elected as a Director of 

 the National Bee-Keepers' Association, has resigned, tak- 

 ing, as he says, his wife's advice'. He says further : 



"This action is not based on any dissatisfaction with 

 the policies of the National, nor toward its officers. In- 

 deed, I most heartily approve of that magnificent organiza- 

 tion, and shall do all I can to help it." 



We have not as yet learned who is to be Mr. Root's suc- 

 cessor. As Illinois has the largest membership of any State 

 in the National, but now no representation on the Board of 

 Directors, we would respectfully suggest the selection of 

 Mr. Jas. A. Stone, the able Secretary of the Illinois State 

 Bee- Keepers' Association, and also a very successful and 

 well-known bee-keeper. 



Saving at the Wrong Place, 

 wrote us as follows last month : 



-A New York bee-keeper 



"Owing to the low price of honey and high price of 

 bee-supplies, I am obliged to cut down expenses, so please 

 discontinue sending me the American Bee Journal." 



On receiving and reading the foregoing, we naturally 

 were inclined to think that the writer of it was beginning 

 to cut expenses at the wrong place. There are bee-keepers 

 who are making money at the present price of honey and 

 bee-supplies, and we believe that the American Bee Journal 

 is helping them to do it. In order to meet competition these 

 days it is necessary to know all possible about one's busi- 

 ness. There are many short cuts that are freely given to 

 the readers of every bee-paper,and just how any one expects 

 to succeed better in bee-keeping by saving two cents per 

 week in dropping the American Bee Journal, we cannot un- 

 derstand. It seems to us that if, as our former subscriber 

 says, the price of honey is low and bee-supplies are high, he 

 would need all the help and information that he can get in 



