March 6, 1902 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



149 



cattU-. 'I'Ik- liigli qiialilics llial </ur present catllc pos- 

 sess arc u( most value to man, but of no value to the caltU-. 

 •riie high qualities bees possess arc valuable both for the 

 bees and for man. The bee had already a long pedigree 



As to breeding out the swarming habit he said when 

 swallows and rabbits forget to rear young then bees wdl 

 stop swarming. 



Relrogradalion, he thinks, is due to the bee-keeper nurs- 

 ing up weak colonies. There was virtue in the sulphuring 

 match. Nature would destroy them all. 



GENERAL DISCUSSION. I 



in the lullowing discussion many points were brought 

 out. One member said he had more call for such honey as 

 was not tilled and sealed next to the wood of the sections. 

 Mr. Riker, of Iowa, asserted that he could take the poorest 

 queen of a whole yard and rear as good queens from her 

 as from the very best one. It depended wholly upon the 

 manner she was reared, lie did not give a special method 

 of rearing queens, except that they should have an abun- 

 dance of food. Others of the convention, however, took 

 exception. Mr. Olmstead said that would eliminate all 

 chances of improvement. Mr. Riker had observed that 

 there was a great difference in the longevity of bees from 

 different colonies. 



Mr. Olmstead, of New York, brought out this point 

 more clearly in his address later on. He said he had found 

 that some colonies would feed their . young more plenti- 

 fully than others. The young larv^ in some colonies 

 would be surrounded with an abundance of food, not so 

 in others, and he theorized that the more abundantly fed 

 larvee would develop into stronger bees, in particular as 

 to their wing-power, than those scantily fed. The -wings, 

 he said, are the most important indispensable tools for 

 "the field-bcc, and when they are gone, or worn out, the 

 bee's utility is gone and she dies. The wings of the bee 

 develop at the very last end of the imago's life, and if the 

 growing insect runs short of material, the wings will of 

 necessity suffer most, and a short-lived bee is the result. To 

 ascertain the truth of the matter he had inade an experi- 

 ment, selecting two colonies of equal strength ; one, which 

 seemed to provide their young always with an abundance 

 of food, the other, which exercised great economy in this 

 direction. Into each of these colonies, both of the Ger- 

 man race, he placed a comb full of newly-laid eggs at the 

 saine time, said eggs originating from a very yellow Italian 

 queen. When the time came for these yellow bees to 

 become field-w'orkers he kept close watch of the two col- 

 onies. The colony that fed their young abundantly, re- 

 tained yellow Italian bees about two weeks longer than the 

 one which provided scantily. 



Mr. Olmstead did not agree with Mr. Taylor on the 

 point that Nature always weeded out the poor colonies. He 

 said the bees that stored the most honey in the brood-nest 

 would come through the winter best, but they were not 

 the ones the honey-producer wanted. He would prefer such 

 bees as would store the least in the brood-chamber; but 

 Nature would weed them out without he interfered. 



A year ago Mr. Terry said, in a paper read at the con- 

 vention, that bees would adapt themselves to different 

 conditions according to the environments. If bees 

 were employed for a term of years building comb 

 honey, they would eventually become a fixed comb-honey 

 strain. Mr. Olmstead said he could not see how an 

 influence could be exerted upon the progeny of the queen- 

 bee by the workers, since they were not directly concerned 

 in propagating the race except as it might occur through 

 nursing the young. To see what this influence might be, 

 he conducted another experiment, selecting two colonies, 

 one an Italian and extremely vicious, the other a brown 

 German and very gentle. The queens were exchanged and 

 results noted. After a few days, and after the queens had 

 begun laying in their new homes, the yellow vicious bees 

 were nursing the gentle brown young, and the gentle brown 

 bees were nursing the vicious yellow. As soon as the 

 yellow ones had hatched in sufficient numbers in the 

 German colony, they showed unmistakable signs of fight 

 just as their sisters in the other hive. But the black 

 ones seemed to show the bad bringing up they had had, 

 and were found on the warpath, which he could only 

 account for on the theory of "bad company corrupting good 

 tnanners," the Italians giving the word and set the example, 

 the innocent blacks followed suit; and not because the 



vicious nursc-bccs had instilled viciousncss iiilo tlicir blood. 

 Mr. Olmstead thinks he has some proof that qualifications 

 worker-bees have acquired, cannot be transmitted to the 

 future offspring of their mother. 



Developing the Home Honey Market. 



Very few producers are g'>ijd salesman ; this is perhaps 

 quite true. Nevertheless, every producer of honey can, by 

 a little effort on his part, do something towards creating a 

 demand for his product in his town, among his neighbors. 

 The easiest way to dispose of a honey crop is, of course, to 

 send the whole crop to a commission man in some large 

 business center, and take what the commission man sees rtt 

 to give for it. That is the easiest way. But is it the best 

 way? Do you get as much money out of your product as 

 you might or ought to? A great many people follow this 

 plan, I know. They are too easy to make an effort. I know 

 of but few times that sales made by commission men for 

 me were satisfactory, and a great many that were most 

 unsatisfactory. Unwisely I sent a small lot of honey to 

 Pittsburg this year. The firm I shipped to quoted new 

 honey at from 17 to 20 cents before I shipped, and I sup- 

 posed my honey would sell quickly somewhere near their 

 figures. Rut what were the facts — what was the result? 

 Well, after waiting over two months, returns were made 

 disclosing the fact that my honey had been sold at 12 cents 

 per pound! I considered that I had been swindled out of 

 $15. The market report enclosed in the letter showed a 

 wonderful decline in price of honey in that market, although 

 another firm from the same place, and having 

 their place of business on the same street, quoted me 

 prices at 16 to 17 cents. Pittsburg business men are very 

 apt to quote high and sell low, all of them. I don't think in 

 other cities they are quite as bad. But, after all, this one 

 fact is true : The large centers are generally well supplied, 

 often overstocked, and this brings down the price. The 

 remedy seems quite simple: Do not scud your honey to 

 the city. 



I know from experience that a great deal of honey can 

 be sold near where it is produced. I. am myself naturally 

 disinclined to do any peddling, but for the sake of the 

 experiment I decided to make a trial this year. It seemed 

 pretty hard work for me, and I encountered some very 

 unpleasant things. When you have to make a dozen calls, 

 have the door slammed in your face repeatedly, being treated 

 as though you were a dog, and then perhaps not sell anything, 

 or only a ten-cent box or so, is discouraging, and makes you 

 wish you had stayed at home. On the other hand, you will 

 meet pleasures unexpectedly; you will find some friendly 

 good people with whom it is a pleasure to deal ; and though 

 you may not always sell to them, you go away from such a 

 house with a good feeling. Sometimes these people are very 

 kind, accommodating and painstaking; they help you make 

 sales with their neighbors and friends ; they insist on giving 

 you your dinner, etc. You feel encouraged, and- you begin 

 to think the people are not so bad after all. 



Occasionally you will enter the home of a storekeeper 

 I who sells honey from his store. He may tell you how you 

 hurt his trade; he may ask you if you think it fair for you 

 to supply his customers with the very article he is trying to 

 sell, he having to pay big rent, and you perhaps not even a 

 resident of the same town! You, of course, must meet his 

 argument somehow or other. If you sell extracted honey, 

 you can ask him how much of such honey he sells in a year, 

 or whether he sells any at all. If he does not, how can you 

 hurt his trade? It is right the opposite— you may benefit 

 his trade by developing the market, getting the people to 

 use extracted honey by showing them a good, pure article, 

 and letting them sample it— giving the children a taste, too, 

 telling the people how extracted honey is produced, per- 

 haps showing them a photograph of your extractor and 

 how it is manipulated, etc. Then after you have made 

 converts, the merchant can sell your honey in quantities, 

 ten times as great as he ever was able to. 



The extracted honey the average merchant keeps is 

 usually put in jelly tumblers, is of light color and of 

 good body, but, whew! what a taste, compared with a gen- 

 uine article that comes from the hive. 

 I Tell the merchant you will supply him wuth honey free 

 from such glucose mixture as he is selling, at a living price. 

 If he objects, then tell him you have no other way 

 but to go around from house to house and make sales to 

 ■ his customers. 



