158 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



to get as much comb-honey as extracted, 

 there will be but little extracted honey 

 taken. I say so, too ; hut, then, no man 

 of intelligence can expect any such a 

 result. I will not call Mr. H. what The 

 Bee World did, but it would require a 

 wonderful manipulation and double 

 amount of comb, and men to manage, so 

 as to dispense with the extractor. To say 

 that extracted will not sell to experienced 

 purchasers, will not bear proof. I agree 

 most heartily that honey should be well 

 ^^ ripened''' before it is extracted; and just 

 here is where honey gets its damage, and 

 it has greatly impaired the extracted honey 

 trade. Some men have lauded bee-keep- 

 ing to the skies; but it is no use now run- 

 ning to extremes the other way. You 

 have gone to such an extreme in making 

 money out of bees, that men of ordinary 

 talent lost sight of you; and now, please, 

 don't come back to your honest starting 

 point and disgrace your beginning. Ah ! 

 friends, you have done too much to in- 

 duce men to bee-keeping, but now you 

 find you have said too much, as a class, to 

 sell your wares, and now your customers 

 are in your footsteps, and like yourselves, 

 looking for the golden prize (a fortune), 

 but now you turn and view. " Oh ! there's 

 too many coming now, and see the multi- 

 tudes about to start." Oh ! listen to the 

 wail of your leaders of " patent hives, 

 honey extractors, comb guides, boundless 

 depths of honey, money in the apiary, big 

 lots of honey for sale,^' etc., etc. Another 

 tune is now played to the words of " Old 

 Hundred.'^ Away with the extractor, it 

 is not needed ; our bees, after being win- 

 tered, and even up to June, after long 

 feeding, nine-tenths have died, we can't 

 sell a small lot of box-honey, and, oh! not 

 a drop of extracted wanted at 9 cents, 

 and I get only 200 lbs. of it per hive. Oh ! 

 stop in time. A German-sized farm Cfour 

 acres) rather than 100 hives of bees. Bu-t 

 w-e w-i-1-1 meet next May, and see what ef- 

 fect the winter will have. Now, such is a 

 true and condensed view of the proceed ings 

 in Ohio and Michigan for five years. There 

 is a man in this State who had his bees 

 manipulated for him just before, and in 

 the beginning of the honey harvest, he 

 extracted an unusually large quantity, 

 but the honey was quite green and should 

 have been one-fourth less. The amount 

 was 48 barrels. But when I saw the ac- 

 count last, in the Rural New Yorker, it 

 had raised to 149 barrels, and 20 barrels 

 on the way to France; but none of it 

 passed New York, or brought over $1.11 

 per gallon there. He had 149 colonies in 

 July, 119 in November, and less than a 

 hundred now, yet he informs us that they 

 are doing finely, and that he has not lost 

 any. He does all he can to keep men 

 from entering the business, and endeavors 

 to drive away what are there, and by 

 means not according to apostolic mode, or 



the golden rule. The truth is, there are 

 no fortunes made, and I am sure, none 

 lost. The income on the investment is a 

 fair one indeed, but it will not do for the 

 inexperienced to depend on it, for they 

 have seven chances to fail to one to suc- 

 ceed. 



I am anxious for the day to come when 

 honey will be put on an equality with 

 other sweets, sugar and syrups, that adul- 

 terations will cease. Put extracted 8 to 

 10 cents, comb 14 to 18 cents, then honey 

 will be consumed instead of sugar in 

 many preparations, and then there will 

 not be any more danger of over-stocking 

 the market with honey than sugar. This 

 will be a good profit for bee-keepers and 

 always a ready sale. Give me a guaran- 

 tee of 8 cents per ft. for well ripened, fully 

 fair, extracted, for three years to come, 

 and they can have, (Heddon) can have 

 the balance. I dare any one to give bond 

 in the sum of $10,000.00 for fulfillment of 

 the contract. I will wager 10 barrels of 

 honey that I can sell 150 barrels per an- 

 num of extracted honey and net 14 3-5 

 cents per lb. Will you take me on either? 



Point Coupee, La. Six, 



Depression in Apiculture. 



The following paper on this subject 

 was read before the N. E. Bee-keepers' 

 Societ}^ at their late meeting at Utica: 



When Mr. Langstroth wrote his "Hive 

 and Honey Bee," more than twenty years 

 ago, the first sentence stated that "Practi- 

 cal bee-keeping in this country is in a 

 very depressed condition." If the above 

 quotation was applicable to the condi- 

 tion of American bee-culture twenty 

 years ago, when bees wintered without 

 loss, when the forests were dripping with 

 nectar and large yields of honey were the 

 rule, and when the labor of the apiarist 

 was amply remunerated by the ready sale 

 at a good price of all the honey he 

 could produce, it is doubly so now when 

 the "bee disease" depopulates our hives 

 in winter, when the denudation of our 

 timber lands has so modified our climate 

 as to render the secretion of nectar uncer- 

 tain, and the low price and dull sale of 

 what honey is obtained diminishes the 

 profits of the apiary. Without entering 

 into the details of the cause of the pres- 

 ent depressed condition of bee-culture in 

 our country, it may not be altogether un- 

 profitable to consider the problem of 

 how we may secure our surplus honey 

 in order to realize the most money there- 

 for. We all remember the excitement 

 created in America by the introduction 

 and use of the honey extractor, and 

 the oft repeated assertion that this 

 machine was the long sought desideratum 

 that would render bee-culture an occupa- 



