934 



GLEANliSG.S IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



ey-buyer to look up the honey of good localities, 

 and pay a proper pi'ice for it. Friend Hilton is 

 at work at this very thing: and. while he pays 

 producers all they ask. he gets a very fair mar- 

 gin for the trouble and risk in moving it into 

 the cities, and at the same time keeps the price 

 about where it belongs. 



GETTING RAILROAD MEN TO UNLOAD HONEY 

 WITH CAKE. 



Following close on the above comes the above. 

 Many times, when the honey producer or buyer 

 loads his honey on the car with the utmost care, 

 packing it with straw, etc.. after it has reached 

 its destination in perfect order it is smashed up 

 by being pulled out of the car in a hurry by the 

 average railroad hands. On this account, many 

 who send honey by the carload go along with 

 it and superintend taking it off. This is. of 

 course, expen^^ive, and. in some cases, commis- 

 sion men will agree to be on hand when the car 

 arrives, and look after the safe unloading. 



Byron Walker says the failure of a Chicago 

 commission house to look after three carloads 

 of comb honey that he had shipped them 

 cost him over ?3iK). I know of at least one case 

 where a railroad company paid damages for 

 honey that was damag(^d during a transfer. Two 

 comriiission men were with us at the convention, 

 and gave us very material aid during our dis- 

 cussions. They were especially helpful in our 

 discussions in regard to having some establish- 

 ed and generally rt^cognized rules for grading 

 honey. Considerable lime was spent on the 

 matter, and the result was a set of rules which 

 we hope to give in another issue. I believe 

 our old friend M. M. Baldridge first outlined 

 them, and the convention then argued and dis- 

 cussed them. R. A. Burnett and a representa- 

 tive of S. T. Fish & Co. gave material aid. 



Quite a few reported honey-dew during the 

 past season, very black and very poor. Some 

 of it was sold as low as r, cents per lb., and one 

 lot went at only 2}4 cents to a man who used it 

 for making cochrrxich poison. There was some 

 joking in regard to this new use for poor 

 grades of honey. Friend Larrabee, of the Mich- 

 igan Agricultural Collegi". was present and 

 gave us some account of hi'< experimental work 

 during the past season. Rape was tested to the 

 extent of S acres: but. although it gave a pro- 

 fusion of blossoms, covered with bees, no honey, 

 to be perceptible, could be found in the hives: 

 but the bees gathered immense quantities of 

 pollen from it. A large field of sweet clover is 

 growing finely, but will not bloom until another 

 year. An experiment to determine how many 

 pounds of honey ai"e required for one pound of 

 wax seemed to indicate about 11 pounds. 



DOE.S IT PAY TO CONTK.\rT THE BROODNEST 

 FOR AVXNTERING? 



The general testimony seemed to be that it 

 did not; and especially was this thought to be 

 the case where a hive containing only eight 

 frames is used. 



Division-boards for contracting the brood- 

 nest during winter are now but seldom used, 

 especifdhj with eight-frame hives. 



AN EXPERIENCE MEETING. 



Perhaps no one feature of the convention 

 ct)Mtributed so much to the general inter- 

 est as an exercise in which all took part. 

 Our worthy president. Dr. Miller, suggested, on 

 the afternoon of the first day. as soon as we had 

 a pr 'tty good general attendance, that we 

 wanted to get acquainted with every bee-man 

 present: and to accomplish this, each in his 

 turn stood up, gave his name. State. postofiSce 

 address, then told us how many bees he kept, 

 and what his crop of honey had been. There 

 were to be no excuses nor exceptions: and be- 



fore we got through, the merriment and friend- 

 ly bantering got to be so general that every one 

 present knew everybody else; and the result 

 was, we were like a great family during a gen- 

 eral reunion during the remainder of the ses- 

 sion: and I take great pleasure in recommend- 

 ing this method of getting acquainted to con- 

 ventions in general. 



PREVENTION OF SWARMING. 



This was. by universal consent, called as yet 

 an unsolved problem. 



A NOVEL METHOD OF FINDING QUEENS. 



This was given by M. M. Baldridge. Have a 

 light shallow cover, say two inches deep, that 

 can be put over the frames of any hive; and a 

 little drumming while this cover is on will get 

 the queen with a few bees, upon the under side. 

 By drumming one hive, then the next, and so 

 on. and then going back to the one drummed 

 first, you may secure a dozen queens in a very 

 short time, w'ithout taking a comb out of the 

 hive. This will work equally well with box 

 hives having a hole or holes in the top. If you 

 drive up only a teacupful of bees, the queen is 

 pretty sure to be among them. 



SHALL HONEY, LIKE MAPLE SUGAR, RECEIVE 

 A BOUNTY. 



This was discussed considerably. If the low- 

 price of cane sugar affects the maple-sugar indus- 

 try, will it not also affect our industry? With a 

 large yield of honey it miglit: but during the 

 past season the price has kept up pretty well. 



riTRiNG COMB HONEY. 



B.Taylor gave us an account of the way he 

 ripens liis comb honey by the heat of the sun, 

 and the heat of a stove when the sun doesn't 

 shine. Doolittle, vou may reinembei', works in 

 a similar way. When comb honey is taken 

 from the hive when first capped, unless it is 

 ripened, and the water well evaporated out of 

 it in some such way. it is very apt to get watery 

 and sour, and is not nearly equal in quality to 

 honey that has had its looks injured by being 

 left on the hive too long. 



The presence of Mrs. Harrison. Miss Emma 

 Wilson. Dr. Mason. Hon. J. M. Hambaugh, 

 A. N. Draper. Mr. Abbott, of St. Joseph. Mo., 

 O. O. Poppleton, of Florida, and a good many 

 others, added much to the interest and pi'ofit of 

 the convention. 



ON THE ROAD AGAIN. 



My country, 'tis of thee. 

 Sweet land of liberty. 



The above lines come to me as I gaze over the 

 prairies of Iowa. In Chamberlain's new book 

 on tile draining he computes how many acres it 

 took to sustain one tnan before civilization. 

 Then he takes up the march of progress step by 

 step, until now. when even a single acre may. 

 bv rajric((?fu re. give many people the necessa- 

 ries of life. If I forget, and he did not make 

 qnitc the last statement, / am going to make it 

 in my part of the book. With this thought in 

 mind, how many people might live where my 

 eyes are looking so hopefully now I I do love 

 these broad acres, and this land of liberty. I 

 almost feel ashamed of myself for being so hap- 

 py this morning. If I am tempted to feel that I 

 am away off (done, some little incident reveals 

 that my next neighbor among the passengers 

 has read (tLeanings. and feels it a pleasure to 

 meet me. When I opened my eyes I knew we 

 were ;n the land of snows, because of the great 

 board fences on the north side of the ti-ack. A 

 few miles further and we began to see snow on 

 the ground, and now every thing is white. 

 Snow-fences are seen only when the bank on 

 the north side is higher than the track: and as 



