56 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



January, 1917 



o 



N aooount 



number of 

 conventions we 

 attended in De- 

 cember it will 

 be impossible to 

 give even a di- 

 gest of some 



of the good papers and discussions that 

 were given. Our notes of even one meet- 

 ing would take all the space we could 

 afford to give in a single issue; and there- 

 fore all we can do will be to touch on a 

 few of the high spots in the beekeepers' 

 conventions held at Chicago, Des Moines, 

 Madison and Toronto in early December. 



RADICALLY DIFFERENT METHODS. 



At practically all of the conventions the 

 subjects of comb and extracted honey, 

 marketing, swarm control, and wintering 

 occupied no little part of the time. If a 

 beginner were to take in all of these meet- 

 ings he would be utterly confused because 

 the methods employed by different success- 

 ful beekeepers were so radically different. 



DISCOURAGE SWARMING. 



Some producers, particularly the Da- 

 dants, do everything they can to discourage 

 swarming, and run for extracted honey. 

 They do not pay any attention to cell- 

 killing, but simply provide their bees with 

 large hives, abundant ventilation and shade, 

 a large amount of super room, and let 

 the bees take care of themselves until the 

 crop is ready to harvest. Another set of 

 producers could not and would not use the 

 Dadant methods. 



ENCOURAGE SWARMING. 



They encourage swarming. One of the 

 largest producers, Mr. Frank Coverdale, 

 of Delmar, Iowa, had furious swarming, 

 but he produces immense crops of comb 

 honey. He could not be coaxed to adopt 

 the Dadant system. Other producers run- 

 ning for comb honey discourage swarming; 

 still others dequeen, and secure big crops 

 of honey from their queenless colonies 

 which, of course, will not swarm. They 

 are compelled to cut out cells in seven or 

 eight days after dequeening. 



TWO BROOD-CHAMBERS FOR BREEDING. 



At one or two of the conventions two 

 or three said they secured practically the 

 same results as the Dadants by using two 

 brood-chambers for the queen in the early 

 part of the season. A good queen would 

 have, therefore, unlimited range. Within 

 about a week of the expected honey-flow 

 all the unsealed brood and eggs are put 



in the lowier 

 story, and the 

 s e a le d and 

 1 at chin g brood 

 in the upper 

 story. A queen- 

 excluder is plac- 

 ed between, with 

 the queen below. 

 As the hatching brood emerges iin the 

 upper story there will be empty cells for 

 the storage of honey as it comes in. Auto- 

 matically more cells are made available 

 by brood hatching. In the course of about 

 ten days or two weeks most of the brood 

 will have hatched out, and the cells which 

 it occupied will be filled with honey. Then 

 an upper story is added. By this 

 plan it was argued the queen could ha,ve 

 unlimited egg-laying room as long as it 

 was necessary to have breeding, with the 

 advantage of using a standard hive, and 

 having something that one man can easily 

 lift. 



MARKETING. 



In regard to the matter of marketing, 

 there was as great a diversity of opinions 

 and methods. One class of beekeepers sell 

 around home and dispose of their entire 

 crop. Some of these do not look with very 

 much favor on the large bottler Avho in- 

 vades their territory, and they feel he 

 ought to keep out. 



Another class of beekeepers sell around 

 home and after the local markets are sup- 

 ])lied they dispose of the rest of the crop 

 to large buyers of honey. Still anotlier 

 class job their entire crop, feeling it is 

 far move profitable to devote their time and 

 energies to production, preparing for the 

 next yeai''s season, than to waste their time 

 and energies in trying to do what tliey do 

 not know how to do. 



P.EEKF^PEHS CUTTING PRICES, 



At all of the conventions there seemed 

 to be an undercurrent of feeling that bee- 

 keepers as a class are jealous of each 

 other, and they are, therefore, competitors. 

 In some cases it was pointed out how local 

 beekeepers were cutting and slashing prices, 

 even selling at retail below actual jobbing 

 prices. Any amount of proof was given 

 to show that this tiling is going on in manj^ 

 lotalities, to the great detriment of the 

 industry at large. Small producers help 

 to establish low prices on honey. They do 

 not know what the market is or should be, 

 and so they will set the pace by selling 

 their honey for whatever the dealer will 

 ]iay — often as low as 6 cents for fine ex- 

 tracted honey. Then they will turn around 



