1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



51-; 



fancy extracting and daubing around with the 

 brood-nest, especially late in the season. 

 Wisconsin. S. W. S. I. Freeborx. 



Take ot¥ your sections and sort them over. 

 Put those nearest finished on your best colonies, 

 and extract from the rest. It does not pay to 

 produce comb honey when honey is coming in 

 very slowly. 



Illinois. N. C. J. A. Greex. 



If. on an average, the after-harvest is quite 

 light. I think it would doubtless be wise to re- 

 move sections and extract. If the harvest is 

 good it is easily discerned, and you can then 

 put section-cases on. 



Michigan. C. A. J. Cook. 



The answer to this would depend entirely 

 upon your market. Of late years, colored comb 

 honey has been selling near enough to the price 

 of the white so that I do not think it would pay 

 to change from the production of comb to ex- 

 tracted honey in the same season. 



Michigan. S. W. James Heddox. 



That depends upon what the fall flow is from, 

 and what your market demands. If the late 

 flow is dark honey, and your market demands 

 light comb honey. I believe it would be better 

 to extract the late flow, but. be careful and not 

 overdo the matter. 



Ohio. N. W. A. B. Masox. 



I leave my sections on till quite late. If re- 

 moved to your location I should do the same 

 until experience taught me better. Somehow I 

 don't take much stock in the plan of getting a 

 crop of extracted honey after a crop of comb 

 honey. May be it's all right, though. 



Ohio. N. W. E. E. Hasty. 



I am pleased with the Rhode Island plan — 

 secui'e the first run of honey in sections, then 

 put on extracting-supers. You thus avoid the 

 trouble of having a quantity of half-drawn and 

 half-tilled sections. 



New York. E. Rambler. 



[It seems to me, friends, that the answer to 

 this question must depend on so many condi- 

 tions that it is hard to get at an agreement. In 

 some localities the dark buckwheat honey fol- 

 lows close after the light-colored clover and 

 linden ; and it surely does not pay to have both 

 kinds in the same section — that is, if we can 

 avoid it: therefore not only the locality, but 

 the seasons, and the peculiar circumstances 

 governing the matter in many ways, should all 

 be considered.] 



A COMPLAINT. 



what are the rules goverxixg queex- 

 bree:ders ? 



Mr. Root:— One of your correspondents wish- 

 es for a column devoted to '• growlers " in your 

 valuable journal. I don't think I should like 

 to be a regular contributor to that department: 

 but if I always felt as I do now, I should want 

 some place to vent my feelings. Dui'ing the 

 first week in May I sent for a queen to one of 

 your advertisers, untested, to be delivered about 

 the 20th of the month. I received word, stat- 

 ing the queen would be shipped about the 30th. 

 or a few days later. It is a three-mile trip for 

 me to go to the postofiice and back. I have 

 been eight times. 24 miles in all. on foot, besides 

 losing considerable time, and it is now the 2d 

 of June. As yet I have received no queen, nor 

 heard any thing further from the firm. I pre- 



sume the firm is reliable, and that I shall get a 

 queen some time between now and next Christ- 

 mas, although I paid a May price for it. and 

 really needed it before the 2.5th of the month. I 

 think I have been treated unfairly. What I 

 should like to know is this: What are the gen- 

 eral rules of breeders in shipping queens? Are 

 May queens that are untested, shipped in June? 

 If a dealer can not furnish a queen on time, 

 should he notify the customer or not? 

 Easton. Wis.. June 2. Eugexe Halstead. 



[Friend H., I am glad you brought this mat- 

 ter up. This is one of tlu^ great troubles in ad- 

 vertising, and selling and buying perishable 

 commodities. Wiiere one lives right next door 

 to the railroad station and express office, as we 

 do, it is not so bad : but where it takes a trip of 

 several miles to get to each mail or express 

 train, then there is trouble. I have just been 

 overhauling our clerks, and I do not know but 

 they thought me needlessly vehement by insist- 

 ing that a postal card go to every customer on 

 every train that carries his express shipments. 

 These postals are to avoid needless trips, so far 

 as may be. When a customer receives notice 

 that his goods have been f<hlpped. then he can 

 take a trip to the express office, and not before. 

 Now in regard to mailing queens: A good many 

 are advertising untested queens at 7.5 cts. each, 

 and some for even less than that. How is it 

 that we succeed in doing a large trade at a 

 great deal higher prices? Why, simply because 

 oui' customers learn, sooner or latei-." that, if 

 they order a queen of us. and pay our jjrice, the 

 queen goes back to them as quick as their card 

 reached us: for. in fact, most of the time tin- 

 tested queens are stacked up on our table, 

 ready for shipmeut. Last night the queen 

 clerk went home a little earlier than usual: 

 and after the last train of the day had left. I 

 found the book-keepers had a letter in their 

 hands, ordering four queens. They had so 

 much to do they did not get time to look the 

 matter up, and therefore these queens were one 

 train later than they might have been. Was 

 this a small matter? Well, even if it was. there 

 was quite an overhauling among the clerks: 

 and the one who opens the mail was instructed 

 to give the queen clerk notice of all orders for 

 queens whenever letters were so numerotis that 

 they could not all be opened until only a short 

 time before the train leaves. The queen clerk 

 was also dii'ected to ascertain, before leaving 

 the office, that no queen orders were on hand 

 unfilled. Why, W(> very oft'Mi open a letter or- 

 dering goods by mail, at half-past four, and get 

 the goods on the train as it passes our office at 

 ten minutes after five. Now. this sounds a good 

 deal like an advertisement of our business. In 

 one sense it is: but my motive in explaining it 

 to you as I have above, is, that you may copy 

 our methods, so far as you can," and thus not 

 only hold youi- customers, but' get even better 

 prices for your goods than you now do. You 

 will do much more business by asking a dollar 

 for your queens, and getting them oft' by return 

 mail, than to advertise them for 50 cts.. and use 

 your pati'ons as friend H. tells about. Perhaps 

 it will help matters a little to have the name of 

 our advertiser given in our next issue, who 

 made a customer go 24 miles on foot for his 

 queen, and did not get her. even then. If he 

 has any explanation to make for such slackness 

 in business, let him make the apology himself. 

 In case he could not mail the queen at the time 

 agreed upon, he certainly could have sent a 

 postal card, to save our friend all this trouble: 

 and if it were myself. I should tell friend H. to 

 make out his bill' for tlie 24 miles of travel, and 

 I would pay it. In fact, that is just the way 

 our business has been built up.] 



