1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



915 



carload of honey in barrels, from W. J. Pick- 

 ard, of Wisconsin, who, it will be remember- 

 ed, at the Chicago convention championed 

 barrels as against cans. Well, when we came 

 to sell that same honey, the man to whom we 

 sold said he would have paid one-fourth of a 

 cent more if it had been put iji cans, and the 

 Pickards know how to barrel honey if any one 

 does. Mr. Pickard oflFered the honey to us m 

 barrels. If he had offered it in cans we could 

 have paid him extra. The trouble is, you bar- 

 rel fellows haven't yet found out that some 

 markets will pay extra for honey in cans. It 

 is our present practice in the case of nearly all 

 table extracted honeys to pay half a cent ex- 

 tra in small lots when put in cans ; but the 

 fact that we pay the extra half-cent may not 

 always show in the quotation. For instance, 

 John Jones writes that he has 2000 lbs. of 

 clover honey in barrels. We make a price di- 

 rect ; but if Mr. Jones says he has 1000 lbs. in 

 barrels and 1000 in cans, the quotation may 

 show half a cent more for the latter than for 

 the former, depending on the producer, and 

 the market at the time. We do not claim this 

 has been our universal practice for several 

 years back ; but we have discovered the great 

 convenience, as well as the saving in loss, by 

 having the honey in cans, so that we are now 

 willing to pay a difference. Well, now, the 

 next time you secure a crop of honey, put part 

 of it in barrels and part of it in cans ; and if it 

 can be used on the table — tupelo and man- 

 grove, say — just note the difference in the 

 quotation. 



By your way of figuring, the barrels will be 

 cheaper. But let us figure again. Suppose 

 you have half a cent extra for the honey in 

 cans. The saving in cost of receptacles and 

 the saving in freight would make a difference 

 in favor of the barrels of !?1.48 on 30 gallons of 

 honey. This 30 gallons would, by the ordina- 

 ry figuring, amount to 360 lbs. This, at half 

 a cent a pound, would make $1.80, or a differ- 

 ence of 32 cts. in favor of the cans in actual 

 saving. 



We do not know what is the practice of the 

 large buyers in Chicago in reference to honey 

 in cans and that in barrels ; neither do we 

 know what the price is in the New York mar- 

 kets ; but we are firmly convinced that the 

 trade will in time, for all table honeys, offer 

 half a cent extra, or enough difference to get 

 tin cans used everywhere. Now, let it be dis- 

 tinctly understood that all dark honey should 

 probably always be shipped in barrels and 

 kegs. 



I do not say that we always pay half a cent 

 difference between the two packages. A good 

 deal will depend on the condition of the mar- 

 ket ; whether the honey is to be sold out in 

 large lots or in small lots ; and whether the 

 man who raises the honey has the reputation 

 of getting good barrels, and knows how to 

 cooper honey in them so that they will not 

 leak ; but there are very few who know how 

 to put up honey in barrels so they will go 

 through to destination in good order. 



Now, why do manufacturers, bakers, and 

 tobacconists, prefer barrels ? Simply because 

 they do not want to fuss with little packages. 



The honey is run from barrels into large vats, 

 and the barrels are handled by means of 

 cranes. — Ed.] 



CUBA AFTER THE WAR ; ITS RESOURCES, ITS 

 MOSQUITOES, AND ITS CLIMATE. 



Some Words of Advice to those who Expect 

 Go into Bee-keeping on the Island. 



BY H. G. OSBURN. 



After the lapse of four years, September, 

 1900, finds me once more on Cuban soil. But 

 what a sight meets the eye of the visitor if he 

 takes a ride in the country as I did a few days 

 after my return ! Charred and crumbling 

 ruins on every hand bear silent testimony of 

 the awful ravages of war. That this fertile 

 island, so lavishly endowed with nature's 

 wealth, should have been chosen by fate to be 

 the slaughter-ground of tens of thousands of 

 her brave sons between 1492 and 1900 seems 

 indeed an undeserved fate. 



That the nineteenth century will mark the 

 dawn of an era of prosperity and freedom 

 for a young and deserving generation, there 

 can be no doubt. The soil over which has 

 run so much blood, which three different 

 armies have fought for, holds in its embrace 

 vast wealth awaiting the advance of modern 

 civilization. Although we are only 90 miles 

 from the nearest point on the Florida coast, 

 still in that distance great changes have taken 

 place. We find a different climate and a far 

 different people ; a country that is very rich, 

 and a climate that is comparatively mild, with 

 the exception of about three months in mid- 

 summer, when one would almost wish he were 

 in Greenland, in hopes that the change would 

 do him good. But we can not have climate 

 and conditions made to order, and so I will 

 venture to say that any man with a little mon- 

 ey, and lots of push and perseverance, willing 

 to put up with a hot damp climate, and who 

 is not afraid of flea-bites or sticky mud, can, 

 I think, make a good living here now, as the 

 price of every thing is high, and there is an 

 unlimited demand for every thing raised here 

 at the present time. 



The bee- keeping industry, so far as I can 

 find in the short time I have been back, is ad- 

 vancing quite rapidly. Several parties of 

 northern capitalists have come here and start- 

 ed in the business on a large scale, knowing 

 absolutely nothing about the climate or the 

 difficulties to be overcome, some not even 

 knowing a worker from a queen, but fully 

 aware of the fact that flowers produce honey, 

 and that bees gather honey ; and also, having 

 read or heard some one say that flowers grow 

 profusely here, they thought by bringing a 

 few thousand hives here, or buying them here, 

 they can set them down anywhere, and the 

 bees will go to work and fill the hives with 

 wealth, and all the owners have to do is to 

 gather it and sell it. But one or two summers, 

 when the moon gets just right for the moth 

 to have its summer appetite, and the fast- 

 spreading foul brood commences at the other 

 end of his apiary, he will wish he were a boy 



