122 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Feb. 20, 1902 



for our honey. Untruthful and unfair means are resorted to 

 in controHing the press, by which prices are depressed and 

 producers encouraged to sell. To illustrate ; I am the regu- 

 lar correspondent for one of the largest farm papers in 

 the United States for the county which produces nearly all 

 the honey shipped out of Arizona ; and I am one of the 

 largest producers of honey in the .Territory. Recently an 

 article appeared in the paper I represent, headed from my 

 Territory, but no name signed to it, evidently written and 

 paid for by some Eastern commission man who never saw 

 Arizona. He had it headed, "Big crop of honey in Arizona ;" 

 and went on to say that the conditions had been favorable, 

 and that the bee-men had harvested a big crop from desert 

 flowers and cactus fruit and bloom, and gave the aver- 

 age yield at four times its actual amount. The entire 

 article was a false statement. I sent a reply, giving the 

 exact report of the amount produced, correcting his false 

 statements, and saying that the desert flowers had started 

 four times the past three years and had dried up without 

 bloom or seed, and I doubted if there was seed left to sprout 

 again ; and that I never saw cactus honey. 



Supply and demand have nothing to do with it. Early 

 in the season, before the crop was harvested, Arizona bee- 

 keepers received letters from commission men, all quoting 

 the same low prices, telling us of the big crops and for- 

 eign competition. One who had been handling our honey 

 before was bolder than the rest and went on to say that 

 our brother bee-keepers in Cuba were offering to lay down 

 honey in Chicago at 3 cents, and we would have to meet 

 this foreign competition or hold our honey. This was too 

 much for an alfalfa bee-keeper to stand. The commission 

 man got a reply that we had no 3-cent honey, and that when 

 the Cuban bee-keeper packed his honey on burrows from 

 the interior to the coast, and shipped it to New York and 

 paid 20 cents a gallon duty, then shipped it to Chicago and 

 paid him his commission, we would advise our brother 

 bee-keeper to send a cargo of bananas along to pay expenses. 



On page 643 (1901) a Chicago commission man tells us 

 that Colorado. Nevada, and Utah are finding that there 

 is riot the demand from the East that has existed, and are 

 beginning to get anxious about marketing their honey. That 

 is just what those letters and false articles were sent out 

 for, and it is that which has unsettled the market and held 

 back buyers from buying his supply. As usual, the local 

 merchants, and even the farmers, have refused to buy their 

 usual can of honey, all quoting the big California, Cuban. 

 or other foreign crops : unwilling to pay even a reduced 

 price. He says that when we know the facts we will be 

 governed accordingly. Yes, the facts are not allowed to go 

 to press, as in my case, and won't be until this year's crop 

 is sold. He goes on to try to convince us that it will do us 

 good to have these false reports sent out, but we know 

 better, and want the truth. 



Can't the National Bee-Keepers' Association stop such 

 adulteration of the press? Maricopa Co., Ariz. 



[This article was received early last December, but 

 became mislaid, else it would have appeared sooner. But 

 it has not lost its- value by reason of the delay. — Editor.] 



{J*^i*^*V*i«>*J*^lV*i^*4^**^*V>!V*iJ*^J:4JiV*4J!iK*V« 



^ 



The Afterthought. ^ I 



The "Old Reliable" seen through New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. HASTV, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, O. 



SMALL LOTS OF HONEY ON COMMISSION. 



One would reasonably imagine that 100 pounds of honey 

 would be too small a lot to ship to the commission man. 

 Poor guide, that imagination, it seems. Mr. Doolittle has 

 an experience 23 years' long on just that point; and he finds 

 that such little lots always turn out more profitably than big 

 ones. Let's mark it down. Page 6. 



SPRAYING FRUIT-BLOOM. 



The valuable paper of Prof. Beach, of Geneva, N. Y., 

 on the red-hot subject of poisoning our bees — well, we want 

 the scientists to hurry up, so as to have not quite so many 

 may-be-sos and may-be-nots. The fact that hitting all the 

 blossoms soon after they open will destroy all the young 



fruit, appears to be one of the best things to give our pomo- 

 logical neighbors. As for the rest, perhaps an appeal to 

 their sense of justice may be worth while. To destroy 

 fungi and kill insects by the only practical means does not 

 greatly oft'end tlie public sense of justice, even if some 

 minor interests do suffer. But it does offend the public 

 sense of justice to spread injuriously poison, just for the 

 sake of thinning out the fruit. What would be thought of 

 the farmer who thinned his corn by shooting shot through 

 it — and peppered his neighbors' cows ? It might also be 

 worth while to say: Do you want the strong, first blooms 

 all killed, and only laggards and side blooms left to furnish 

 your crop of fruit? Interesting to see that Prof. Beach classes 

 apple pollen as one of the kinds not well adapted to floating 

 on the wind, and therefore specially depend on insects. 

 Pages 7 to 9. 



GETTING HONEY FROM BOX-HIVES. 



It is not merely a few pounds but several hundred pounds 

 of honey that are involved, page 10. If Dr. Miller will be 

 patient with my know-it-all style, I wish to protest his 

 answer to the man who wants to close out 20 box-hives. 

 Don't melt chunk honey, except to close out the remainders. 

 If the man will properly sort over his combs, and tlien pro- 

 ceed by crushing and draining in a warm place, he may just 

 as well have from one-third to two-thirds of his honey of 

 excellent quality as to half spoil it. As it is not the neces- 

 sary heat that does the major part of the mischief, care in 

 that respect will not make the honey good. The harm comes 

 from contact between hot honey and dirt, and contact between 

 hot honey and pollen and propolis. Most cappings and 

 most combs have more or less propolis on or in them — and 

 dirt also. Combs with masses of pollen in them are likely 

 to make trouble even without melting, and would better be 

 left for a second lot. 



INCREASE OUT OF LOW-GRADE HONEY. 



Where a man wants both honey and increase, and oper- 

 ates two locations, it's just the cunning thing to make the 

 increase in the location where low-grade honey comes in 

 during the time when bees incline to boom. Rather dark 

 honey with off flavors will make up into bees as well as 

 any. S. Q. Conkle suggests this for us on page 13. 



BEE-KEEPING IN RUSSIA. 



And so in Russia, when their bees all kick up their heels 

 and die, they go 2,800 miles and buy a lot more. That's 

 all right. And, the world over, what a cosmopolitan the bee 

 is, in this little matter of taking sudden leave of her keeper 

 and slipping through the shady gates! And the juice-pro- 

 ducing blig, who puts the gates ajar, he's a cosmopolitan 

 also, it seems. Some of our people would give up if they lost 

 500 colonies at 'one lick. Pages 18 and 2b. 



COLD-WATER HIVE-P.\INT. 



That cold-water hive-paint, page 20 and elsewhere ; we 

 are all axious to see it. If water will wash it on, why won't 

 it wash it off? 



BEES NECESSARY TO THE FRUIT-GROWER. 



This department does not run to quotations much; but 

 it puts in gladly and fully this one from H. W. Collingwood. 

 It's not likely to be printed too many times. Glad so weighty 

 a man as the editor of the Rural New-Yorker said it, and 

 not one of the smaller fry — and not a bee-man of any sort : 



'• With all his proud dominion over the lower forces ot nature, 

 man cannot produi;e the tiuest and most perfeut fruitF without the 

 liulp of his friend, the bee. That, 1 believe, will be the conclusion of 

 BVeiy t'ruit-^rower who will really study the question." V&ge 20. 



MASCULINE PRONOUNS FOR WORKER-BEES. 



!• laugh to see that Editor Collingvvood's masculine pro- 

 nouns applied to the bee, a big lot of them, got into the 

 .-Vmerican Bee Journal without being checked out. While 

 nobody's listening let me make a horrible confession. I 

 mostly use masculines for the bee, too (or would, if I had 

 my sweet will) but the Editor she won't let 'em go through. 

 — [And Editor Collingwood wouldn't have succeeded in get- 

 ting them through, either, had it not been that there were 

 so many of them in his paper. And, besides, he is not a 

 Ijce-keeper. We e.xpect bee-keepers to call things apiarian 

 by their right names, as they are supposed to know better. 

 .\ he woman would never get into the American Bee Jour- 

 nal, even if a Collingwood or a Hasty would try it on. — 

 Editor.] 



