790 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 



honey-board non- queen-excluding; f^; of an 

 inch spacing is a little too wide to be queen- 

 excluding ; J'„, and even ,,"^5 of an inch, is 

 preferable. \Ve are aware that Frank Che- 

 sliire states that the Carniolans are larger 

 than the Italians. They appear larger, and 

 perliaps are a little larger ; but to test the 

 matter for ourselves we used a queen-ex- 

 cluding honey-board over a hive containing 

 bees from an imported Carniolan qneen, 

 one of Frank Benton's best selected. The 

 honey- board in question had perforations 7;!-, 

 of aninch wide, and yet there was no dilB- 

 culty about the bees passing through it. As 

 to the expense, we think your honey-board 

 would cost as much or more than oixlinary 

 perforated zinc sheets, wood-bound. 



SELLING HONEY ON COMMISSION. 



FUIEND H. i{. WKIOHT REPLIES TO THE ARTICLE 

 ON PAGE 75:3, LAST ISSUE. 



fRIEND ROOT:— The communication in last 

 issue, signed Greeney No. 3, in justice to our 

 many friends in the bee-keeping industry 

 calls for some explanation, as this person 

 who needlessly styles himself "Greeney" 

 gives no dates when he sent us his honey, leaving it 

 to appear that it was a transaction of this season. 



The facts are these: John Andrews, of Patten's 

 Mills, N. Y., in the year 1887 sent a man to this mar- 

 Ket with his crop of honey to sell. Owing to its not 

 being in ans' thing like merchantable shape, he 

 could not sell it, and left it with us to soil ; and aft- 

 er trying to sell it for two months we finally sold it 

 to A. H. D. Smith, a grocer of this city, at 7 cents 

 per pound, and this is the first notice we have had 

 from Mr. Andrews that he was not satisfied. The 

 honey was mixed all through, not being a box of a 

 straight grade, and scarcely a comb that did not 

 have two kinds of honey in it, and the combs were 

 of the very unusual shape of about 5 x 10 inches, 

 weighing about 3 pounds each, and in a very bome- 

 ly, unclean shape, having been packed in various- 

 shaped boxes, holding 50 to 6.5 pounds of honey, 

 without any glass or any thing to show that the box 

 contained honey, which fact may account for send- 

 ing a man along to tell everybody handling it 

 that it was honey, while, if he did his duty it was 

 a failure, for the honey was leaking when received, 

 and, after being set in store awhile, the pile was 

 quite well glued together by the draining honey, 

 which did not help the sale of it. 



This friend has mistaken his calling, or evidently 

 thinks that people are still buying hec-tree honey in- 

 stead of wanting honey now in the most attractive 

 shape possible. It is such bee-keepers as this who 

 have been injuring the industry with their care- 

 less way of raising honey; and the sooner they are 

 out of the business, and no such honey on the mar- 

 ket, those who do take care to produce choice hon- 

 ey, and put it up in attractive shape, will receive 

 their true "reward of merit," or a fair recompense 

 for their labor and painstaking. No slouch should 

 be encouraged in the bee-keeping business. 



Albany, N. Y., Oct. 10, 1888. H. R. W^right. 



And now, friends, we have both sides of 

 this matter. I am very sorry indeed to see 

 the spirit of antagonism that seems to be ev- 

 ident in both letters. I hope friends Wright 



and Andrews will excuse nie for saying so. 

 One of the greatest troubles of the present 

 day is this conllict and bitterness between 

 labor and capital, and it comes about by 

 just such occurrences as the one before us. 

 For God's sake, dear friends, do have a lit- 

 tle more charity, both of you, and remember 

 that this world brings trials, vexations, and 

 disappointments, with even the best of us. 

 I have stood in the place of both producer 

 and purchaser, and I can fully sympathize 

 with both of you. I was afraid, from Mr. 

 Andrews' account, that his honey had not 

 been stored in marketable sections, and 

 shipped in neat and attractive crates, which 

 are now the rule in our commission houses. 

 I am sorry that friend Andrews did not give 

 the date when the honey was shipped ; and 

 had he told us it was shipped in large boxes, 

 without glass, I could have told him it was 

 no wonder that his honey did not bring a 

 better price. I have seen honey carefully 

 lifted from the cars, with the amber liquid 

 oozing from every case, and with the cases 

 so stuck together it was impossible to lift 

 one without pulling up the one underneath 

 it ; and I would rather be excused from pay- 

 ing half price for even tnce honey, if unloaded 

 in this shape. It takes a great amount of 

 labor to do any thing with it at all, and the 

 chances are that there is nothing that can 

 be done to make it salable at any kind of a 

 fair price. From what I know of such 

 cases as the one before us, I think very like- 

 ly that the statements made on both sides 

 may be a little careless ; but I hope that 

 these two friends will take my advice, and 

 drop the whole matter right where it is. 

 The lesson is excellent, and the moral is ex- 

 cellent as it is to all of us. Let those who 

 ship honey to commission houses visit our 

 large cities, and get the commission men to 

 show you what needs to be done to get good 

 prices; and to save unpleasant feelings, 

 perhaps the commission men had better no- 

 tify shippers at once when honey does not 

 seem to go off at the price expected, and 

 ask for further instruction. No worse ca- 

 lamity can possibly happen to bee-keepers 

 than to get into a fashion of calling commis- 

 sion men bad names, and condemning them 

 as a class. In the case before us, I feel sure 

 that these two friends are both good men. 

 They have got stirred up, and the ugly sticks 

 out a little, as it perhaps might with almost 

 any of us under like circumstances. May 

 God help me to convince them that I am 

 right in regard to the matter, and that there 

 is no reason in the world why they should 

 not shake hands over it and drop it. with no 

 unkind feelings laid up at all. Persistently 

 holding on to just such cases as this one, 

 and cherishing hard thoughts and feelings, 

 is the root of our great troubles, ending in 

 strikes, mobs, riots, and anarchy. The rem- 

 edy is for bee-keepers and commission men 

 to get thoroughly acquainted with each other; 

 and there is no better place to do it than at 

 our bee-keepers' conventions. Prof. Cook, 

 in his remarks in tliis issue, strikes at the 

 very root of the matter. Let us get ac- 

 quaiinted, and help each other, instead of 

 waging civil tmr here in our own beloved 

 land. 



