1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1017 



ments that have been going on in the manu- 

 facturing plant of The A. I. Root Co. during 

 the last few months. 



UDO TOEPPERWEIN. 



On page 1026 of this issue we show an in- 

 terior view of the office of Udo Toepperwein, 

 the young man who has done such a large 

 business in the way of selHng supplies in San 

 Antonio, Texas. I wrote to Mr. T., asking 

 him to tell us something about it, and here 

 is his letter, which will be self-explanatory: 



Mr. K. R. Root:— I hardly know what to tell you re- 

 Karding it, unless you want a few words of what we are 

 doing: here; and in that case I would simply have to say 

 that we are very busy all the time, and the photo was 

 taken just as we are at work every day; and none of us, 

 except myself, knewanythinKof the picture to be taken 

 before about five minutes previous to its having- been 

 taken. I was just reading a letter from a customer, 

 sending in an order. He wanted his goods by return 

 train, and. if I am not mistaken, the order contained 17 

 bee-hive bottoms, 13 R covers, a dozen Danzenbaker 

 hives complete, one of them to be nailed and painted as 

 a sample, besides a lot of other goods of various kinds, 

 and he wanted to know all about how to transfer his 

 bees, and in return told me all about his experience in 

 bee-keeping in the past. This is the reason I look so 

 bothered in the picture, as I had no more Danzenbaker 

 hives nailed an dpainted: and since it takes quite a while 

 to fill an order of this kind in a rush, I did not know 

 whether I could give him prompt service, and my other 

 customers also, as I usually fill orders in rotation. 



Sitting at the desk next to me is the shipping clerk 

 making out orders. At the window is his assistant re- 

 ceiving money for a shipment of honey which has just 

 Vieen delivered by the driver, who is just outside of the 

 window, handing it to him. At the typewriter is our 

 Miss Kate Nentwig, who writes all of these trouble let- 

 ters. She is not quite as old as she looks, for she is only 

 14 and not 40; but, nevertheless, she can write the let- 

 ters all right which you see before you. Just outside of 

 the fence is one of our young men who just received a 

 cake of wax by express, and is bringing it in to weigh 

 it. Udo Toepperwein. 



San Antonio, Tex. 



The young lady who wrote the letter re- 

 ferred to writes scrupulously clean copy, 

 carefully and accurately punctuated, which 

 at the age of only 14 is very remarkable. 

 Mr. T. is to be congratulated on the help he 

 has, and the business he has been able to 

 build up. He has had large experience in 

 producing honey; and, being a native of Tex- 

 as, he thoroughly understands the conditions 

 that confront the bee-keepers of that great 

 honey-producing district. 



Oh, yes! I should not forget to state that 

 Mr. Toepperwein 's hat has grown too small 

 for him— he has a nice baby boy at his home. 



SIDELIGHTS FROM THE NATIONAL CONVEN- 

 TION AT ST. LOUIS. 



In our last issue I promised to give a few 

 sidelights or snapshots of the big conven- 

 tion. In doing so I shall not attempt to fol- 

 low any specific order, but give a few of the 

 things said and done, just as they occur to 

 me at random. 



Mr. Hutchinson, in the Review, has called 

 attention to the fact that this was not a 

 convention where very much was said, but 

 a good deal was done in the way of trans- 

 acting business. It is indeed a fact that 

 this meeting did more real business of an 

 important kind than many of the preceding 

 ones. Some things had reached a crisis. 

 For example, the question of what we were 



to do with the constantly recurring comb- 

 honey lies as they come out in the standard 

 magazines and journals of the country was 

 thoroughly discussed. Instead of wrangling 

 and talking to no purpose, wasting valuable 

 time, committees were appointed— excellent 

 ones tco— that will take hold of the problem 

 in a way that I believe will mean the rapid 

 curtailment of the disease, for that really 

 seems to be what it is. It is violently con- 

 tagious; for when one newspaper breaks out 

 with the infection, dozens of others seem to 

 catch it. The corrective remedies that have 

 been hitherto applied have been only partial- 

 ly effective. In our last issue I called at- 

 tention to the fact that a committee had 

 been appointed to wait on some of the lead- 

 ing dailies of St. Louis, and how the facts 

 the next morning were so garbled as to be 

 unrecognizable to the members of the con- 

 vention, especially to the members of the 

 committee. The press was waited on again, 

 with more favorable results, although the 

 published items were not then entirely satis- 

 factory. 



The convention went on record as saying 

 in most emphatic language that there is no 

 such thing as manufactured comb honey, 

 and never had been. It was voted to offer 

 $1000 for evidence going to show that ma- 

 chine-made comb honey was on the market. 

 Some of the members of the convention 

 themselves offered smaller sums. The news 

 of these doings got into the papers, and I 

 have seen several items that are very satis- 

 factory. Later on, the chairman was in- 

 structed to appoint a committee of 15 repre- 

 sentative bee-keepers, members of the Asso- 

 ciation, scattered in all parts of the country, 

 who shall make it their business, whenever 

 there is an outcropping of one of these lies, 

 to follow it up with the moral force of the 

 2000 membership of the Association and se- 

 cure a retraction. Such committee was not 

 immediately named, but will be given in the 

 official report. 



A NATIONAL HONEY EXCHANGE. 



At two of our late conventions an effort 

 has been made to organize a honey exchange 

 that would be national in character, along 

 the lines of exchanges that are already in 

 successful operation in Colorado, California, 

 and elsewhere. At the St. Louis meeting, 

 Mr. F. E. Brown, of Hanford, Cal., read a 

 paper in which he urged the very great im- 

 portance of having such an organization, 

 and that in his opinion the time was ripe for 

 its formation. He would have a stock 

 company made up of hundreds and perhaps 

 thousands of bee-keepers, each owning a 

 limited number of small shares of stock. 

 As a result of his recommendations a com- 

 mittee of five was appointed to draft a con- 

 stitution and by-laws defining the nature 

 and scope of the proposed organization. 

 The movement received substantial encour- 

 agement to the extent that something like 

 $700 at $25 a share was subscribed. While 

 this, of course, is not a large sum, it was 

 felt that it was an entering wedge. 



