232 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



July 



discouraged. Just go to work and 

 clean it up — follow carefully every 

 de<tail of the instructions for curing 

 the disease, and you will soon come 

 .to the conclusion that it is not so 

 bad after all. Continual watchful- 

 ness is the secret of success in liand- 

 ling this disease. It has one advan- 

 tage — Jt soon puts the careless, 

 slouchy beekeeper out of the way, so 

 it has a bright side after all. 



Don't worry over reverses. We all 

 have them. Just brace up and go at it 

 a little harder. Hard winters and bad 

 seasons are the exception rather than 

 the rule in this locality; there is more 

 sunshine than cloudy weather, and if 

 you stick to your business I am sure 

 you can make it pay you at least a 

 good living with less labor than any- 

 thing you do on a small capital. An 

 amateur beekeeper is not a commer- 

 cial beekeeper, but he should be a 

 faddist in every sense of the word, 

 and if so, his enthusiasm will be un- 

 limited, and he will become a ctom- 

 mercial man later on. If he is of the 

 right material he will want to talk 

 bees in preference 'to anything else. 



The amateur should study all the 

 phases of putting his product on the 

 market, to entice the purchaser to 

 pay him the ma.ximum price. Cleanli- 

 ness and attractiveness will accom- 

 plish thi's. The containers and labels 

 should be tasty, and show your prod- 

 uct off to the best advantage. For in- 

 stance, a purchaser is willing to pay 

 a little more for honey in a nice glass 

 jar than for a tin can. He wants to 

 see what he is getting for his money. 

 Amateurs are usually dependent on 

 the local market, and a man's success 

 depends largely on his reputation, so 

 he must never sell anything as first- 

 class unless it is. Better (tell the cus- 

 tomer it is a little off, but the best 

 you have at the time. Have him taste 

 it, and usually he will buy and be per- 

 fectly satisfied. 



Amateur beekeepers are usually the 

 ones styled "back yarders" by the bee 

 j'ournals, but these are the ones who 

 are the originators of most of the 

 inventions used by the larger men. 

 The back yarder is consitantly study- 

 ing the bees, as they are his hobby, 

 and often stumbles onto some excel- 

 lent appliances. 



There is one thing he should, never 

 overlook, if he is a town beekeeper, 

 and that is, tto be in good standing 

 with his neighbors. The best way ito 

 do this is to sweeten them. When 



Fig. 



In repairing a moth-eaten place in a good comb the bees have rebuilt it with drone-cells 



the honey is taken off, give nearby 

 neighbors a generous sample, and al- 

 ways send the finest you have. This 

 will sweeten their disposition to- 

 wards the bees, and will make ithem 

 good boosters for your product. 



When the man with a few bees gets 

 a good crop it frequently happens that 

 he becomes afraid of not being able 

 to sell out, and cuts the price, or 

 ' does noit keep posted on the market, 

 and sells his goods too cheap. A man 

 told me only a few days ago of buy- 

 ing 300 as nice sections as he had 

 seen, at 20c, and at the time the mar- 

 ket was $8 per case, or 33 l-3c. Now, 

 this man lost the difference and 

 spoiled the market. 



Make preparation in the winter for 

 the coming season. Don't be afraid 

 of having a few more supplies than 

 you would ordinarily need. They 

 will not spoil, and if the honey-flow is 

 good you will need them, and if you 

 did not have them on hand, perhaps 

 you would lose more honey than 

 would have paid for the extra sup- 

 plies, or perhaps the bees will swarm 

 for lack of room. Ii is a great an- 

 noyance to be short. I know, for I 

 have experienced it. Usually at such 

 times, when you send a rush order to 

 the supply house, the goods come in 

 bad order, are delayed in 'transit, or 

 the order is mixed up, so that you 

 can't use them, and then you are li- 

 able to say things which. I will omit. 



The things that I have referred to 

 in this paper are things that most 

 men knqw, but don't think about, and 

 I am merely calling your attention to 

 them as an evangelist calls attention 

 to your sins, so that you may be 

 benefitted in the future. 



Nebraska. 



Don't Get Caught 



Sugar is extremely liigh in price 

 and is hard 'to get in quantity at any 

 figure. Beekeepers who have always 

 depended upon providing sugar to 

 feed any colonies that might be short 

 of stores, had better be extremely 

 careful about extracting too closely 

 this year. The safe plan is to keep 

 plenty of combs of sealed Stores to 

 carry the bees through the winter al- 

 ways on hand and not to depend too 

 much upon later flows, which may 

 fail. For the first time in recent 

 years honey is selling in many places 

 cheaper than sugar. The beekeeper 

 who extracts too closely and has to 

 replace the honey with sugar will lose 

 money on the transaction, even 

 though he does not lose his bees from 

 starvation through failure to secure 

 the needed sugar. 



Fifty pounds of sealed honey for 

 each colony on October 1 is not too 

 much for safety. A cold, backward 

 spring may follow a long winter. 

 VVith ithe uncertainty of the sugar 

 supply, the wise beekeeper will re- 

 tain a liberal supply of honey when 

 selling his crop. 



J'ig. '■, Atltr a portion of a good comb had been cut aw;i 



lie-cells 



Increased Honey Production — What 

 to Do With It 



By O. E. Timm 



During the past few years much 

 has been said and done towards in- 

 creased production. In Nebraska 

 there has been a substantial increase 

 in the number of colonies and the 

 amount of honey produced, but it is 

 as nothing compared to what is go- 

 ing to be produced in coming years. 

 A majority of the Nebraska honey 

 producers are young men, which 

 means 'that they will be ready to sup- 

 port any program that will make the 

 honey producer's income steady and 

 reliable. 



Under existing conditions, our bee- 

 keepers have great diffculty in dis- 

 posing of more honey than their 

 neighbors will buy. A demand must 

 be created for the additional honey 

 to be produced. I have personally re- 

 tailed out several tons of Iioncy and 

 I realize the difficulties. Firms must 

 be found that will handle our product 

 more easily than we can do it our- 

 selves. It appears to me that the 

 honey producers' associations thus 

 far are only trying to replace the 



