760 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Nov. 27. 1902. 



two-gallons. I have now in my possession letters showing 

 that I could sell over 1500 pounds in Denver to my con- 

 sumers. The only principle is to deal honestly with the 

 people, and give them a good article, and then try to get as 

 many consumers as you can. That is my experience, and I 

 make the most money in that way. Although some of the 

 bee-keepers here in Denver tell me, " Well, Mr. Krueger, 

 you will have to produce comb honey," I never expect to 

 do so ; still, I would not say I may not have to do it by-and- 

 by. I sell some to the grocery people here in Denver. I 

 saw they had honey on the shelves which was adulterated, 

 in nice, white-glass jars, and one of them told me, '•! have 

 lost every customer ; they don't want to buy that stuff." I 

 said, " Here is a 5-gallon can ; put it up to suit yourself ;" 

 and to-day he tells me he has all his customers back. 



I believe we should try to sell it in as large a pail as we 

 can, and sell it to the grocerymen and the home trade. I 

 sold one company about 2500 pounds, and another company 

 2000 pounds. 



Mr. Lovesy — I have introduced on our market a glass 

 jar, but it is a quart jar ; I call it a family package. When 

 I commenced to introduce the package on the market in 

 Salt Lake City people told me I couldn't sell it ; they wanted 

 those little jelly glasses, and if I had anything larger than 

 that they wanted this size jar — quart Mason. I said I was 

 going to put the quart jar on the market. It was the store- 

 keepers who didn't want it, but I finally got it introduced, 

 and now where I sell one dozen of the small I sell 30 dozen 

 of the quart jars. I sell them for 27'2 cents a jar, and they 

 retail for 35 cents ; they get more honey for their money, 

 they get .? pounds of honey, and the jar for a nickel. The 

 package helps to sell the honey; the jar is in demand all 

 over the United States — the Mason quart jar — and the con- 

 sequence is, sometimes I retail 1000 to 1200 pounds of honey 

 by the dozen in Salt Lake City in the quart jar. I sell a 

 few in small jars and a few in jelly glasses, but the quart 

 jar is the package, and the one I sell the most of. 



Mr. Coggshall — I will stand by Mr. Aikin in regard to 

 selling honey. There is one thing I want to add to it 

 which will help the everyday sale. In running over the 

 honey wait till it begins to candy a little bit, and then run 

 it ; it will make the flavor much better, and granulate much 

 finer. 



L. F. Juno — I would like to know how Mr. Krueger gets 

 75 pounds in a 5-gallon can. 



Mr. Krueger — That is all right ; that is what it weighs. 

 If you don't believe it come up and I will weigh one for you. 



E. Davison — There is a great deal of agitation in regard 

 to distributing our extracted honey, and there is a great 

 deal of agitation in regard to the size and kind of pack- 

 ages which we use. We have two papers in our town, and I 

 have an advertisement in each of them, something like this : 



"Wanted. — Gallon syrup-pails in good condition, with 

 lids to fit. We will take some half-gallons." 



I pay 5 cents a piece for the gallon, and 3 cents for the 

 half-gallon. There is a great deal of this common syrup 

 used in our section of the country, and I don't find an)' 

 trouble in getting all of the pails I want in good condition 

 for 5 cents a gallon ; and I put up my extracted honey in 

 that shape. I furnish the grocery stores there with these 

 gallon pails at 90 cents a piece, and the half gallons at 45 

 cents a piece. Where I retail to my customers J sell the 

 gallon pails at 61.00, and the half-gallons at 50 cents. 

 These gallon syrup pails, as you probably all know, hold 

 less than 12 pounds — probably a fraction over 11 pounds ; 

 I put these in the grocery-stores, and I find that the grocery- 

 stores that are handling these in that way are building up a 

 nice trade in extracted honey in that size packages. It is 

 a matter of education. There are two or three grocery- 

 stores in particular that have a good trade ; people that 

 want extracted honey go there for it ; they know what kind 

 of honey they get, and the kind of package ; and nearly all 

 that I sell is in gallon pails, and very few call for half- 

 gallons. 



Dr. Miller — The only extracted honey in which I deal is 

 alfalfa honey, so far as the extracted part is concerned, and 

 I prefer it in 5-gallon tin cans ; I always dispose of all I 

 get in that form. I buy just as often as I need it a 5-gallon 

 can for use on my own table. 



E. Davison — I would say I always put a label on these 

 cans. I have 60-pound cans that I call my storage cans. If 

 any one wishes a 60-pound can I have it. I sometimes sell 

 60-pound cans to the groceries, and they put it into the 

 Mason jars to suit themselves. 



(Continued next week.) 



The Sisters Department— Smoker-Fuel. 



BY WM. M. WHITNEY. 



MR. EDITOR :— I am so glad you have added that Queen- 

 Bee-keeping department to the "Old Reliable." May 

 it expand, and continue to expand, until — no, not till 

 the drones are all crowded out, but until it shall occupy as 

 many pages as the queen occupies frames of comb in the 

 hive ! 



What a gay time these Queens can have all alone. It 

 does not smack of perverseness to defend one's position 

 with spirit and strenuosity, if logically done, unmixed with 

 irritability. It ought to be one of the most interesting de- 

 partments — be co-extensive with the life of bee-keeping and 

 that of the Journal. 



At times, one might feel like making the acquaintance 

 of some one of those " queens," but my advice is: If you 

 know when you are well off, you'll be careful how you intro- 

 duce yourself. I don't want both of my eyes swollen shut 

 with puncture from the poison-pointed pen of one of these 

 analytical "qtieens." I'd fear to approach one of them, 

 though protected with a Globe veil. No, no, I shall admire 

 them at a distance. 



Any old drone, who has the temerity to interfere, in the 

 least degree, with the internal arrangement or manage- 

 ment of this " hive," is to be pitied. One old fellow has 

 essayed to do something of the kind already, and, from ap- 

 pearances, has been " gone for," with something worse than 

 smoke from salted old rags. He looks as if he had been 

 stung right on the end of his nose. No, no, I'll tell you: 

 A'eep out of that enclosure, or you'll have a tune hummed to 

 you in " Rag-time," and you'll wish you'd done your buz- 

 zing and dancing out in the woodshed, or behind the barn. 



Now, Mr. Editor, on this smoke question, allow me just 

 a word — this is for the drones, understand, and for them 

 alone. 



Has any one ever tried decayed appletree wood ? I've 

 tried almost everything from hardwood to saltpetred rags, 

 and nothing suits me so well, unless it be dry, decayed elm- 

 roots. There is none of that black, liquid creosote, dripping 

 all over everything, and making a nasty mess, as is pro- 

 duced by almost every other fuel used. It ignites quickly 

 and, when packed closely, will keep, if the smoker is not in 

 use, for half a day. But this may be another question of 

 locality, as we find almost everything else in beekeeping is 

 getting to be. Of course, this may be emphatically a ques- 

 tion of locality, for you must be in the neighborhood of an 

 old, decaying orchard to be able to secure the fuel ; but I 

 would go some distance to get it or elm root. 



Now, remember I've said nothing about chips, nor have, 

 la" chip on my shoulder." Walworth Co., Wis. 



Various Metliods of Rearing Good Queen-Bees 



BY A. C. F. BARTZ. 



I HAVE followed the discussion on queen-rearing with 

 more than usual interest, because when such men as Dr. 

 Gallup, Henry Alley, and Mr. Doolittle "take the floor," 

 it becomes interesting to learn what the results may be. 

 At one time during the dispute I had decided to keep still, 

 and it would probably have been the best thing I could do, 

 after all. But after seeing that the victory of the battle is 

 leaning as much one way as the other, excepting the state- 

 ment on page 5'»6, together with that of Editors Root and 

 Hutchinson taking a stand with Dr. Gallup, I feel encour- 

 aged to venture to give a little from my own experience in 

 queen-rearing. And before I make any further statements 

 I would like to have it understood that I do not rear queens 

 for market ; so what I intend to say in the following is not 

 intended as free advertising. 



Now, then, the statement has been made by Dr. Gallup 

 that really good queens can be reared in strong colonies 

 only, and from embryo queen-cells. Mr. Alley claims the 

 best queen he ever owned was reared in a small nucleus, 

 and advocates the nucleus method as the only right method 

 for queen-rearing. Mr. Doolittle, who, I suppose, is as able 



