DECEMBER 15, 1916 



1175 



his melliods more in detail. He is a busy 

 man; but if we can get him to write we 

 know our readers will be pleased with what 

 he has to say. 



THE SALE OF HONEY. 



This question was handled bj' Mr. E. D. 

 TowDsend. While he admitted that honey 

 could be sold by the producer to the jobber, 

 yet the objection to this method is that it 

 has to go thru two or three hands before it 

 reaches the consumer. He rather favored 

 selling to the consumer direct. He puts np 

 his honey in friction-top pails, five and 

 ten pound sizes, the former selling for 85 

 ets. and the latter for $1.60. If one sells 

 the honey at wholesale he should sell to the 

 one who sells to the consumer. 



Mr. Townsend was asked whether he was 

 a friend of the grocer when he sold his 

 honey in pails from house to house. He 

 replied by saying that the grocer does not 

 object if producers do not undersell him. 

 Then the question was asked whether, at 

 the present price of extracted honey at 

 wholesale or jobbing, a retail price of 

 $1.60 for a ten-pound pail, pail thrown in, 

 is not too low. At this point Mr. R. F. 

 Holtermann, of Brantford, Ontario, made 

 the statement that many beekeepers are not 

 business men; that too many of them retail 

 and wholesale honey at a time when the 

 difference between wholesale and retail is 

 often very small — so little, indeed, that the 

 wholesaler has no encouragement in buying 

 honey to sell again. He believes that one 

 should sell to the jobber at jobbing prices, 

 to the wholesaler at wholesale prices, and 

 to the retailer at retail. When asked how 

 much honey he produced, Mr. Holtermann 

 stated that his crop last year was five car-" 

 loads, and that he sold thirteen more. He 

 sells only to the jobbers — not to the retail 

 trade. 



After Mr. Holtermann had closed tliere 

 were two or three who took exceptions to 

 his statement that the average beekeeper 

 is not a business man. But Mr. Holter- 

 mann hung to his ground. He considers 

 the middleman a blessing in disgiiise, not 

 " a necessary evil." 



Mr. J. F. Moore, a large honey-producer 

 in Ohio, felt that there should be no clash 

 between the two systems of selling. At 

 this point, Mrs. Wilber Frye, of Sand Lake, 

 Michigan, stated that, while she formerly 

 sold her comb honey at 12 cts., she now 

 sells to the jobber at ISVo, the jobber 

 taking the entire ci'op off her hands and 

 paying cash. 



Every now and then a joke was tired 

 at Mr. Holtermann for saying that the aver- 

 age beeman is not a busin&ss man. 



SUCCESSFUL FEKDIXG IN A CKLLAH. 



While it is usually regarded as bad jjrac- 

 tice to feed in a cellnr, yet Mr. Leonai'd 

 Griggs, of Flint, Michigan, successfully fed 

 58 colonies three days after he put thciii in 

 the cellar, and they all came out in tine 

 condition in the spring. The cellar is first 

 warmed up with an oil-stove, so it is about 

 the temperature of a living-room. He takes 

 ordinary ten-pound pails, punches small 

 holes in the top, fills them with a thick syr- 

 up, and gives the syrup (hot) to the bees 

 on top of the brood-nest. The syrup is all 

 taken down in two or three days, and then 

 the feeders are taken off. 



THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE COMBLESS PACK- 

 AGE. 



This was discussed by A. G. Woodman, 

 of Grand Rapids. He has had very satis- 

 factory results getting bees from the South 

 early in the spring, and has almost come 

 to believe that a beekeeper could afford to 

 let his bees die after securing the main 

 crop, sell the honey, and then buy bees in 

 combless packages early in the spring to 

 fill up his hives.' Three pounds of bees 

 in a hive by the first of May give a nice 

 start; and the rapidity with which the queen 

 lays in these combs soon builds up a good 

 colony. In a good season a pound of bees 

 pays for itself well. The feasibility of 

 the pound-package business depends some- 

 what upon the price at which the bees can 

 be delivered in the northern states. Mr. 

 Woodman thinks that $3.00 for three 

 pounds of bees and a queen is a fair price ; 

 and if they can be secured at these figures 

 one ought to make a fairly good return on 

 the investment. 



While in Canada a few days ago we ran 

 across a beekeeper who from eighteen 1-lb. 

 packages of bees and a queen secured 1800 

 pounds of honey, and 18 colonies fit for 

 wintering packed outdoors. While this was 

 quite a remarkable record we heard of a 

 number of instances at the IVIichigan con- 

 vention where others had done quite as 

 well. 



PROTECTING COMBS FROM THE MOTH-MILLER. 



One of the questions from the question- 

 box was what to do with wet extracting- 

 combs just from the extractor. President 

 Running made the suggestion that they be 

 placed in a cool cellar. The temperature 

 of the cellar he said is too cold for the 

 eggs of the moth-miller to develop: that 

 as soon as cold weather comes on, if the 

 combs are taken out a freezing kills the 

 eggs. This is quite a valuable point that 

 many beekeepers would do well to consider. 



On the evening of the second day a 



