646 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Oct. 9, 1902 



the large corporation, or trust, or com- 

 bination, gets it within their power to 

 oppress those who are not organized. 

 Colorado bee-keepers will recall how, 

 from year to year, I have urged and 

 pressed for organization, not as a 

 monopoly, but as a means of protec- 

 tion, and to facilitate our business : 

 and I am tempted from day to day, and 

 in my private conversation, to recall 

 and point out the work of the fruit 

 organization in Southern California. 

 I know very little about it only by the 

 published reports, principally those 

 given by Prof. A. J. Cook, which you 

 all know has brought about a distribu- 

 tion of the product, putting it in the 

 markets where it is most needed ; in 

 short, an intelligent distribution of 

 the product. Now we want to follow 

 those lines ; we want to co-operate ; 

 we want to produce as specialists, each 

 one of us filling our place in the grand 

 machinery of the whole. Last night 

 some of the speakers referred to the 

 magnificent distances of Colorado, and 

 the one thing, gentlemen, those mag- 

 nificent distances necessitate is co- 

 operation and united work and effort. 

 We can not, as small producers, ship 

 our product to the market that needs it 

 in less than car-load lots to the same 

 advantage that the extensive shipper 

 can do, and we need an intelligent dis- 

 tribution of our product, which can 

 only be accomplished by one of two 

 ways, either by government manage- 

 ment, they doing this business for us, 

 or by co-operation amongst ourselves 

 directly. I am in hopes that this 

 spirit of organization, co-operation and 

 combination that is novy taking pos- 

 session of the business world will even- 

 tually reach where I think it ought to 

 reach — the point where the Govern- 

 ment will take control of it, and man- 



age it to the interest of all the peo- 

 ple, and not to the few who are in the 

 combine. This may perhaps be com- 

 batted by some, but the student of 

 business relations and conditions will 

 be forced, sooner or later, to come to 

 this conclusion, that somehow these 

 affairs in this vast country must come 

 under some grand, general agency and 

 be manipulated in that way ; and this 

 thought has been enforced upon me 

 more and more of late, and I recall one 

 of the last public speeches, I believe it 

 was made by our lamented President 

 McKinley, in which he said that 

 nations are coming so closely together 

 in these days that old methods are 

 practically out of date. A few years 

 ago it was one nation against another ; 

 there was no brotherly feeling, there 

 was no co-operation ; but today trade 

 relations are sucli that what destroys 

 or kills one nation is bound to affect 

 every other nation, and trade with it. 

 Now, the principle applies everywhere, 

 and these influences are becoming so 

 general, and so far-reaching, that to- 

 day there must be co-operation not 

 only of the individuals in a community, 

 not only among the people of the State, 

 but State with State,'and nation with 

 nation. And when we will so co-oper- 

 ate there will be such a demand for 

 every product as we little dream of. I 

 have contended for years that if there 

 were ten times the honey produced that 

 we now have there would be a better 

 market than there is to-day. Go with 

 me into Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Kan- 

 sas, Nebraska — countries where corn 

 and hogs and cattle are the principal 

 products — and there the buyer will 

 come right to your door and buy your 

 hogs and your corn : or, if j'ou choose 

 to load some of them on the wagon 

 and go to town, you will find a market 



for every day in 

 dispose of them 

 them to market, 

 honey product ? 

 you have to get 



the week ; 

 any time 



you can 

 you haul 

 How is it with our 

 You all know that 

 out on the market ; 

 there is no real, established market for 

 honey. I think a few of us have pretty 

 nearly established a market in our 

 communities, but I am speaking in a 

 general sense. Now, our President 

 has outlined for us some of these 

 thoughts, that we are going to keep 

 more bees; we are going to produce 

 more honey ; we are going to organize 

 and co-operate ; and the community 

 that produces any one line of produce 

 is the communit3' that has a market 

 for that product. That is true of any 

 line, it doesn't make any difference 

 what it is; but the community that 

 has just a little bit of any one thing is 

 the community that has no real, set- 

 tled market for that product. So we 

 are going to keep more bees, and keep 

 them more in a co-operative way. I 

 would produce extracted honey ; 

 another will produce comb honey ; and 

 we will follow the thought of special- 

 ism more and more as the years go by, 

 and as we follow specialism we are be- 

 coming more and more dependent, and 

 as we become more and more depend- 

 ent upon one another we are compelled 

 to organize and co-operate. I am 

 heartily in smypathy with almost if 

 not every thought that has been put 

 before you in the address of our Presi- 

 dent. 



It was moved by Mr. York, and sec- 

 onded by Mr. F. H. C. Krueger, that 3 

 o'clock this afternoon be fixed for the 

 election of the officers, and that it be 

 made a special order of business for 

 that hour. Carried. 



(Contiuued next week.) 



^ Contributed Articles, l 



Uniting Colonies of Bees in the Fall. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



OuESTiox. — Two or three of US who take the American 

 Bee Journal, have some colonies we wish to unite this fall, 

 and we wish you would tell us in that paper one or two of 

 plans for doing this. One of our number says you have 

 written on this subject before, but we cannot find it now. 

 Please give us an article pn the subject, and, even if you 

 have written on the subject before, there are many younger 

 readers of the Bee Journal who will be benefited by the 

 same, even if the older ones care not for it. 



Answer. — In all localities whete there is a promise of ' 

 fall (lowers yielding honey, it is generally better to wait till 

 this yield is past about uniting, for the two colonies, sepa- 

 rate, will generally rear more brood at this time of the year, 

 and often store more honey, than would be the case were 

 they doubled during the flow, or just before it began. ]5ut 

 where there is no prospect of any such yield, as is the case 

 with many localities with which I am acquainted, then the 

 sooner the bees are attended to the better. If your colonies 

 are strong in bees, the question might arise whether it 

 would not pay to buy sugar and feed them, did they not have 

 stores enough, so as to have a greater number in thespriug ; 

 but where colonies are both light in bees and in stores there 

 is only one correet solution of the problem, which is to unite 

 the bees till all colonies are strong, and then if stores are 

 still lacking they may be fed. 



I have two plans for uniting, which I have picked out as 



the best from the scores of plans which I have tried, the 

 first of which I use on colonies that are quite fair colonies 

 as to bees, so that only two are to be put together, and the 

 second on those which are a little more than nuclei, or 

 where two, three, four, or five, may be united profitably 

 down to one. 



Having decided to unite colonies like those first spoken 

 of, I hunt out the poorest queen, if there is any choice, and 

 kill her, when I leave the colonies as they are for from three 

 to eight days, according to the %veather and the pressure of 

 business. 



When I am ready I take the now queenless colony to the 

 colony having the queen, and select from each hive the 

 frames having the most honey in them, to the number I 

 wish to winter them on, and set them in the hive which has 

 not been moved, alternating them as far as possible so that 

 the bees may be mixed up as much as possible. In moving 

 the colony of queenless bees they are first thoroughly 

 smoked at the entrance, pounding on the top of the hive as 

 smoking, so as to arouse them thoroughly, when they are 

 placed on a wheelbarrow in no gentle manner, and wheeled 

 rapidly to the hive where they are to be united, confining 

 the bees to their hive after smoking, and doing the whole 

 on some dark, cloudy day, or near sunset, when the bees are 

 not flying, as bees are less disposed to take wing at such 

 times, and return to their old location when uniting. 



Having the hive filled with combs containing the most 

 honey, I next shake the bees (which are on the remaining 

 combs) oft' at the entrance, taking one frame from one col- 

 ony, and the next from the other, and so on, so as to mix all 

 bees up as much as possible. When all are off the combs 

 see that all the bees run inside of the hive, when the work 

 of uniting is done. 



Now remove anything and everything which may be 

 left at the old stand where the queenless colony was, so that 

 there will be nothing to look homelike to any bee which 

 may chance to fly back there on the first flight afterward, 

 and no loss will occur from bees returning. 



