AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Jan. 2, 1902 



"A BACK NUMBER. 



And ".John Rambler" (page 745 of Gleanings), thought 

 that Doolittle was doing all the •' whacking at long tongues,'" 

 because he was becoming "a back number." Bless your heart, 

 old friend. Martin. I I'are not whether I am a back number, a 

 middle number, or wheresoever I am, if I can only aid some 

 brother or sister bee-keeper, by making the road a little easier 

 for thi'ui. Tlie motto "on the wall" when I am writing for 

 publication has always been, " Jlelp a little." You know the 

 ^'^ good Hook '" says. •■Bear ye one another's burdens," and, 

 also, "Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these, ye 

 did it unto me." And the man who is working for the uplift- 

 ing of humanity, by the way of adding his mite to the sum 

 total of knowledge, cares not where he stands in the ranks, 

 and dots no •' whacking back " because some one remarks on 

 his " losing prestige." 



I said what I did on the long-tongue matter because I 

 believed that the pushing of a premature, if not a fallacious, 

 matter, would work injury to the greater number of tlie bee- 

 keeping world : and results have proven that I had cause so to 

 do. And I pushed with the "vigor" accorded me, that all 

 would know that it was not a "milk and water "halt I was 

 calling. I see ^hat it was necessary under the "stampede" 

 then on. to "swing the red lantern'' with all my might, no 

 matter how badly I was " pommelled " for so doing. And I 

 did it, and got the pommelling, too. But I freely forgive all, 

 and especially Mr. \V. T. Stephenson, (page 598 — Sept. 

 19.) as he did it with the best of motives. Neither can I 

 "place a higher value on long tongues,'' as Editor York thinks 

 I may ( page 627 — Oct. 3,1 after my experience of the past 

 summer, for the results prove, by a careful measuring of 

 tongues by Prof. Gillette, that those Italians having the shorter 

 give by far the larger yields of red-clover honey. And this 

 also proves that the long-tongue fad was not only permature, 

 but a mistaki> as well. It is also well to proceed slowly when 

 stepping upon an untried "structure." 



LARGE YIELDS— A CORRECTION. 



On page 637 (Oct. 3), there is recorded a yield of 340 

 pounds of section honey, all nicely cappi'd and marketable, 

 together with lU pounds of honey in sections partly filled, 

 making 3-iOas a total of section-honey from one colony. And 

 the producer, Mr. ,Tohn Lenney, wishes to know if " this is 

 not the best record that you have ever heard from one colony:" 

 to which the edlKU' replies in a foot-note: ■' Yours is certainly 

 a good yield of honey, but we believ(^ Mr. Doolittle once se- 

 cured oHH pounds of comb honey fi'om one colony in one sea- 

 son.'" The correction I wish to make is that the 566 pounds 

 which my colony gave was extracted honey. (Correction ac- 

 cepted. — Ed.) 



My highest yield of comb lioney from a single colony in 

 one Season was 3U9 pounds, hence Mr. Lenney's colony went 

 ahead of mine 8 I pounds, of marketalde honey (as my 809 

 pounds was all nicely finished), or -t L jiounds in all. And un- 

 less I have failed to note or remember, Mr. Lenney's 3-4t) 

 pounds of marki'table section honey from one colony in oni' 

 .season is the largest yield ever reported, and he should have 

 the credit of it. and of standing " at the head," until some one 

 can rightfully claim that place with a larger yield. 



HONEY TRICES— BEING MISUNDERSTOOD. 



It sei'ms at times, that, try as Iiard as I may to make a 

 thing plain, some will misunderstand what I write, and I "fell 

 to wondering" whether the trouble was on my pai't. or on the 

 part of the reader. Very likely on the part of both. f(U' such 

 is generally the Ciise. My mind was called afresh to this mat- 

 ter in reading page 749, (Nov. 21). There I am credited 

 with advising, in Gleanings, that the producer retail\\\s honey 

 at 12 cents a ])Ound where the market quotations will lead us 

 to expect that some commission merchant in a distant city 

 would sell the same at 13 to 15 cents: and nearly a column of 

 space was taken to prove that such advice was wrong. 



Well, had I ever given such advice it would have been 

 wrong, and surely Editor Root would not have endorsed such 

 a wrong thing by putting at the head of tliat article, or "c(]n- 

 versatioii.'' the words "orthodox advice,'' as he did, this show- 

 ing that E. R. Root understood the matter in the light of scW- 

 itig at w/iolesale (not at retail), as I intended to advise. I 

 have always considered it worth 2i4 cents a pound to retail 

 honey by the section, where the same was peddled from house 

 to house, as we would infer tlial Mr. J. L.'IIyde proposes to 

 do with the 700 pounds he will sell out of his lUOL), "by a 

 little push of it to families in my vicinity." I'ushiiig it around 

 to families cannot very well mean aught but a retail trade, 

 and hence, in this case I would advise a price of 14J^ cents 

 with a prospect of honey selling at 18 to 15 cents aliroad. 



In the conversation alluded to in Gleanings (pages 781-2 

 — Aug. 15), the reader will note that the honey was all 

 graded and cased, which meant the selling by the case at 

 least, and selling by the case is generally considered as a 

 wholesale affair, even though but a single case is taken. 



Then I spoke of prices at our nearest railroad station, 

 which, it seems to me. could not possibly be construed into a 

 retail affair. And again, I spoke of selling outright, which 

 means the disposing of the whole crop in a lump: yet not- 

 withstanding. Mr. Hyde interprets all ol this as meaning "the 

 market price at 1'2 cents retail." 



Then, having misunderstood, he goes on to argue how 

 such advice as I gave would bring the price of comb honey 

 down to H cents a pound as "the established price." And 

 " Mr. Hustler " readily sees " why men should not jump at 

 everything that is printed in the bee-papers." When a man 

 starts into a line of reasoning based on false premises, it is 

 quite easy to see sometliing wliich is not a reality, and a some- 

 thing which would never have " seen the liglit '' had said man 

 made sure he was right in his premise at the start. 



No, no: Doolittle would never advise doing anything to 

 lower the jirice of honey, so long as the honey-producer stands 

 to a disadvantage when compared with most of the products 

 of others; nor would he advise ^ver selling at wholesale where 

 the producer can retail his product at a price enough higher 

 to compensate amply for the labor of retailing. 



HONEY ON COMMISSION — A MISTAKE. 



Then I think Mr. Hyde makes a mistake where he con- 

 cludes 300 pounds of honey " is not enough to sell on commis- 

 sion,"' by which I take it he means that 30U pounds would be 

 too small an amount to ship to a commission merchant in some 

 distant city. Some of the very best sales commission mer- 

 chants have ever made for me — sales from one to three cents 

 above market quotations — have been where I have shippel 

 them only from 100 to 200 pounds. In fact, the records of 

 these transactions for the past 23 years show that in no case 

 where I have shipped commission merchants 1000 pounds or 

 more of honey has he sold the same at as good an average 

 price as has the same man or firm where I have shipoed only 

 from 100 to 200 pounds at a shipment. And the freight is 

 no more per hundreil pounds in a single hundred pound ship- 

 ment, than it is where ten or twenty-five hundred is shipped, 

 as it is always reckoned at so much a hundred pounds, as far 

 as I have had freight-rates quoted to me ; with no restrictions 

 as to the number of hundred pounds that must be sent at one 

 shipment. 



My idea as to why a small shipment sells for a better prici^ 

 than a large one is, that many of the small grocery men can 

 dispose of the whole of a small lot of honey, where they could 

 not do so with a larger lot; and as the commission merchant 

 is better pleased at not breaking up a shipment, the smaller 

 lots go first, while the prices are generally at their height, or 

 their best: and the larger shipments are only In-oken up later 

 on, or sold as a whole, and so sell at the reduced price that 

 generally obtains afti'r the holidays are over. 



Then, again, the smalle.r lot is more in the line of a retail 

 trade with the commission merchant, and as the smaller 

 groc<'r can get just what he wants in the small lot. he pur- 

 chases the same, even though he pays a littl(> more for it. So 

 don't think that where a bee-keeper has from 100 to 500 

 pounds more than his home market calls for, that it will not 

 pay to ship the same on commission, for it will pay in two 

 ways : First, it will bring as much, or more, than a large lot 

 in market : and, second, the sending of it away often saves the 

 breaking down of the home market, through the lowering of 

 prices. Onondago Co., N. Y. 



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 copies, so that they may become acquainted with the paper, 

 and subscribe for it, thus putting themselves in the line of 

 success with bees. Perhaps you can get them to subscribe, 

 send in their dollars, and secure for your trouble some of 

 the premiums we are constantly offering' as rewards for 



such effort. 



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