40 



G L K A X I N (i S IN B K E <' I' L T U R E 



January, 1920 



BEES, MEN AND jTHINGS 



MY bees 

 s w a r 111 e d 

 in June. 

 One of the new 

 swarms made 

 five supers of 24 

 sections each and 

 one 8-frame full- 

 depth brood- 

 boay, all full of 



honey besides their winter supply. I left 

 the full 8-frame box on the hive for winter. 

 — John Demi, Steele County, Minn. 



The value of Iowa's honey crop for the 

 season of 1919, 13,260,000 pounds of honey, 

 was $2,652,000. — Burlington Hawkeye, Dec. 

 11, 1919. 



This has been a bumper year here for the 

 beeman. Some colonies have produced as 

 much as 50 pounds of fancy comb honey. 

 The market was good. I sold for 33 to 48c 

 per section. — B. O. Brown, Sullivan County, 

 Tenn. 



There are no up-to-date beekeepers near 

 here. Nearly all keep bees in log gums. 

 The few that have frame hives use cobbled- 

 up affairs, and their honey is chunk honey. 

 It sells for about 30c per pound locally. — 

 Geo. W. Louder, Sussex County, Del. 



I shook a laying-worker colony. Then I 

 took a laying queen from my yard and ran 

 her in at the entrance. Five minutes later 

 I took a peep, and the queen was there quite 

 at home. It was not long before the bees 

 shoveled out the worker drones. — John W. 

 Whitfield, Jefferson County, Pa. 



At the Washington State Fair held at 

 Yakima in September six exhibitors display- 

 ed about three tons of honey in an individ- 

 ual apiary building. It would be difficult 

 to excel the extracted honey produced in 

 the Yakima Valley of Washington, when 

 considering color, body, and flavor. — Geo. 

 W. York, Spokane County, Wash. 



I was glad to see G. C. Greiner classify 

 the Demuth plan of wintering. Of all punk 

 wintering schemes I think the Demuth plan 

 walks off with the blue ribbon. Pretty soon 

 some one will come forward with a plan 

 where each bee is to be wintered in a sepa- 

 rate compartment with a trained nurse in 

 attendance. Let's talk about something 

 else besides packing for a while. — H. V. 

 Schoonover, Adams, Ills. 



A word about Queensland beekeeping. 

 Since 1914 we have had one good season and 

 four bad ones. At the present time we are 

 in a drouth that has lasted for three years 

 with little or no rain, and still no signs of 

 any. It is called "sunny Queensland" and 

 is keeping well up with its reputation, but 

 the honey pot is empty as well as a great 

 number of the boxes. — H. Simpson, Mary- 

 borough, Queensland, Australia, Sept. 20, 

 1919. 



I have been wondering what will be the 

 value of the honev and wax statistics gathci- 



(You may find it here) 



ed by the census 

 tiie coming Jan- 

 uary. Farmers 

 are to tell how 

 many hives they 

 had on hand Jan. 

 i, and how much 

 lioney and wax 

 thev produced in 

 1919. A farm is 

 at least three acres, except when a smaller 

 tract produced $250. A great many beekeep- 

 ers have a smaller tract, and produce less 

 than the required value of honey. . Hence 

 will be omitted in the census. The total of 

 such producers would, if listed, undoubtedly 

 be a large sum, but only guesses are availa- 

 ble as to what it is. — C. W. Campbell, Pulas- 

 ki, County, Ills. 



It seems to be the general opinion here 

 this fall that the bees are short on stores 

 for the winter; and there is no sugar to be 

 had. I have been out hunting wild bees 

 several times with some old timers and al- 

 most without exception those bee trees we 

 have found and cut into contained colonies 

 without sufficient stores for the winter. Some 

 had scarcely a pound and others from five 

 to ten pounds, but the majority had nothing, 

 and they were large colonies. As many as 

 25 wild swarms have been found in this 

 vicinity this fall, an unusual number, I 

 should say. Some of them have been taken 

 up and are doing well. We are getting 35 

 and 40c for comb and 45e for the 16-oz. bot- 

 tle. — Allan H. Faxon, Worcester County, 

 Mass. 



In securing some information relative to 

 making arrangements for the co-operative 

 marketing of honey, 1,600 questionnaires were 

 sent to those beekeepers who received the 

 Beekeepers' Letter. Of that number 350 re- 

 plied. These replies were summed up, mak- 

 ing some rather interesting figures of which 

 I give the following: Number of colonies, 

 17,888;nuniber of pounds of extracted honey 

 produced, 557,253; number of pounds of 

 comb honey produced, 156,997; the average 

 jirice received for extracted honey sold at 

 both wholesale and retail is 25.8c per pound; 

 the average price received for comb honey, 

 35.8c jjer pound. At the time this question- 

 naire was sent out, about the first of Novem- 

 ber, beekeepers reporting had on hand a 

 total of 106,748 pounds of honey which they 

 expected to sell at wholesale. Out of this 

 number we gather the following statistics: 

 Number of beekeepers having 100 or more 

 colonies, 52; average number of colonies per 

 beekeeper, 179; average production per colo- 

 ny, 57 pounds; average return per colony for 

 both comb and extracted, $14.87; 48 out of 

 the 52 beekeepers produced extracted honey; 

 average return per colony for extracted, 

 $15.44; 18 out of the 52 produced comb hon- 

 ey; 14 of the 52 produced both comb and 

 extracted honey. — B. F. Kindig in Beekeep- 

 ers' Letter for Michigan beekeejiers, Novem- 

 li.T, 1919. 



