136 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



April 



of bee products and will fit in as sug- 

 gestions along with Mr. Latham's ideas 

 for the consideration of the bee- 

 keeper who is willing to try to help 

 himself. 



The present honey grading system 

 of American beekeeping is at fault and 

 beekeepers .should get behind some 

 national body which can change the 

 honey-grading rules, and bring them 

 up to date, which can advertise to 

 create a demand for honey because it 

 is honey, and not because it is a sub- 

 stitute for something else, or because 

 it is being pushed as a luxury. The 

 American Honey Producers' League 

 is attempting to do this. We do not 

 say they alone will succeed, but we 

 will work with them as long as they 

 honestly try to help the beekeeper. 



TOO MANY BEEKEEPERS 



By Oscar Skuw 



Too much can be said in the farm 

 papers and on the street corners 

 about how much money there can be 

 made from a few stands of bees. This 

 creates a class of beekeepers who 

 think that great wealth can be ac- 

 cumulated without cost or labor. 



Consequently they will produce two 

 or three hundred pounds of honey m 

 box hives, without much cost or labor, 

 and as a rule will sell their crop at 

 whatever they can get, and establish 

 a price with which the professional 

 beekeeper cannot compete. Thus, for 

 the last three months I've been un- 

 able to sell a single pound of honey 

 in the neighboring towns, where 1 

 used to dispose of a good deal of 

 honey . Consequently, I've had to 

 seek a different market. When our 

 professors and lobbyists also get 

 these distant territories covered by 

 novice beekeepers, where will the 

 professional with his large crop dis- 

 pose of his honey? 



It would be much belter, I am sure, 

 if the professor and others who seem 

 so determined to increase honey pro- 

 duction would help the fellow who 

 has already produced heavy crops, 

 to find a legitimate market. 



Iowa. 



(There seems to be a general im- 

 pression that there is a large increase 

 in the number of beekeepers in this 

 couinitry. The census shows the con- 

 trary 'to be true in many States. The 

 fact of the matter is that with the 

 general teaching of better methods 

 hundreds of beekeepers of the class 

 mentioned are going out of business. 

 The work of the colleges instead of 

 attracting a large number of irre- 

 sponsible people to take up honey 

 production is having the opposite ef- 

 fect. The fellow whose only interest 

 is in finding a snap does not listen to 

 one of ithese college professors very 

 long until he decides that beekeeping 

 is entirely too difficult for him. 



It is true that more honey is pro- 

 duced than in the past, but it is pro- 

 duced by fewer and better beekeep- 

 ers, who use better methods. The 

 colleges are making a study of the 

 marketing problem and doing much 

 to assist in extending the market for 

 our product. This is a free country 



and there is nothing to prevent a man 

 from engaging in beekeeping if he 

 wishes. Neither is there any way to 

 prevent him from selling his honey 

 below the cost of production if he 

 will. It is far better to make good 

 beekeepers of those who engage in 

 the business, and this the colleges are 

 doing. 



We quite agree with Mr. Skow that 

 too much loose talk about the easy 

 profits in beekeeping may do some 

 harm by starting men to keeping bees 

 who are not fitted for the work. Such 

 however, will not last long. — F. C. P.) 



A SUCCESSFUL CALIFORNIA 

 APIARY 



By Bevan L. Hugh 



The photo showing the mountain 

 scene is remarkable in view of the 

 record made by the bees last summer. 

 Lyie Robertson had 100 colonies of 

 bees and decided to make his living 

 with their aid, so in the spring of 1919 

 he divided the 100 and introduced 100 

 virgins to the 100 increase. He rented 

 the whole 200 in orchards, and by the 

 time he moved' the outfit to the sage 

 he had 200 strong colonics. Weather 

 conditions and everything else favored 

 him, so that he was able to get 26,000 

 pounds of honey. He took off a su- 

 per a week from each colony while 

 the honey came in, a.n'd at the end of 

 the season he was making prepara- 

 tions to divide the 200 to 400 colonies 

 by giving laying queens. He made 

 over $6,000. The picture shows a 

 view of his mountain yard. There 

 were two other yards in these moun- 

 tains near San Jose in nearby can- 

 yons, both owtned by Mr. Robertson, 

 His only helper was his life partner, 

 who wielded a hive tool and pufTed a 

 smoker as well as anyone could. His 

 good wife helped in the extracting, 



moving and everything else about the 

 yards, in addition to cooking for the 

 household, for they have two healthy 

 youngsters, a boy and a girl. Mr. 

 Robertson, prior to keeping bees in 

 earnest, operated a truck, but now he 

 uses the truck in moving his bees, and 

 he finds that there is more money in 

 bees than in trucking. After the sea- 

 son's work in the Santa Clara Valley 

 the beemen take their guns and hunt 

 ducks and quail in the swamps and 

 mountains. 



A ralifornia apiary which produced $6,000 

 worth of honey last season. 



DADANT SYSTEM OF WINTER- 

 ING BEES 



Ktply to Mr. E. A. Eurdick by Dr. 



D. W. Gibson 

 On page 65 of American Bee Jour- 

 nal for 1-ebruary is an able paper un- 

 der above title. The paper is clothed 

 in pleasing rhetoric in treating the 

 negative of outdoor wintering in 

 packing cases. With the consent of 

 Friend Burdick 1 will ask the privilege 

 of presenting the positive side of the 

 method. 



Having just re-read the Dadant Sys- 

 tem of Beekeeping, I failed to find 

 therein adverse principles to those 

 which I tenaciously adhere to. This 

 is a neat little volume of 115 pages 

 full of constructive information, which 

 is carefully read in some three eve- 

 nings, and each progressive beekeeper 

 can ill afford to be without it. I 

 heartily subscribe to the large hive 

 doctrine, the difference being that 1 

 insulate and the author does not. 

 When one adopts the use of the pack- 

 ing case, and specially if one insulates 

 the brood-chamber all year, the 10 

 frame Langstroth hive at once be- 

 comes too small for the size of colo- 

 nies produced. The proper use of the 

 packing case will greatly assist the 

 beekeeper in raising his bees before 

 and for the harvest, and not upon' the 

 honey flow. 



Now it is distinctly understood that 

 FViend Burdick and I are merely 

 treating opposite sides of the ques- 

 tion of insulation; his contention be- 

 ing that it is a disadvantage and mine 

 being that it is an advantage. 



He speaks of the theory of the 

 packing case being based upon the er- 

 roneous idea that it will provide a 

 steady warmth. Technically, neither 

 the packing case nor the insulation 

 provide the warmth, but conserve is 

 the word. The bees provide the 

 warmth, and the insulation is used 

 simply for the purpose of conserving 

 the animal heat and maintaining an 

 even temperature. My consideration 

 is not confined to any one kind of 

 packing material, sawdust having 

 been mentioned, but to the various 

 insulating' materials used by tliose 

 following the method. 



In saying "They are small ice boxes" 

 he fails to recognize the fact that the 

 function of the ice box is very differ- 

 ent to the function of the insulation. 

 The ice box is made to exclude heat 

 and maintain a low temperature of 

 mere inert matter void of life and 

 without the ability to raise or lower 

 its own temperature. The insulation 

 serves as a sort of balance wheel or 



