THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



187 



h.ad a fine swarm come out May 16 and 

 sold them the next day. 



Lynn, Mass., July 12. 



[We know of several swarms that 

 were hived as early as May 9. — Ed.] 



SELLING HONEY IN SMALL PACKAGES. 

 QUESTIONS BY SMALL BEEIvEEl'EIt. 



1. What size package of honey sells 

 the most readily? 



2. Which is the lietter receptacle for 

 packing honey, wood or tin? 



3. What is the best method to dis- 

 pose of honey? Do you peddle from 

 house to house, or sell to grocery 

 men? 



4. What are the average prices ob- 

 tained for honey in small packages? 



ANSWERS BY J. H. MARTIN. 



In answer to the al)ove questions, 

 let me say that I have had l^ut little ex- 

 perience in packages smaller than 1-lb. 

 If honey is put up in pails from 1 to 5 

 lbs. in a pail, the small pails will gen- 

 erally be sold tirst, but we prefer a pail 

 not smaller than three lbs. For a very 

 small package, a five cent package 

 would be most popular. 



2. Tin. 



3. It is better to supply some good, 

 reliable live dealer. Keep a supply in 

 his store at all times. In peddling 

 from house to house you have much 

 travel and few sales generally. 



4. The 1 lb. pails sell for twelve 

 cents net ; the five cent package would 

 make the honey net about eighteen 

 cents, but the cost of the package and 

 time in putting up, labelling and put- 

 ting in cases of a dozen each, will not 

 pay, unless put up by cheap help and 

 thousands at a time. 



QUESTIONS BY W. B. BAKER. 



If an Italian queen mates with a 

 black drone will her drones be black? 



Please give a chapter on increasing 

 bees. 



Ans. No, the drones will not be 

 black, nor will their color be changed 

 from what it would have been had the 

 queen mated with a yellow drone. 

 However, it is an unsettled question 

 whether the drones from an Italian 

 queen that has mated with a black 

 drone will produce pure Italian bees, 



while I w^ould not use the drones from 

 a hybrid queen in queen-rearing, how- 

 ever handsome and well marked they 

 might be, I am of the opinion that 

 they would produce pure bees. This 

 statement is based upon the fact that 

 a queen can lay drone eggs whether 

 she is fertilized or not. 



Mr. P. K. Russell, of Lynn, Mass., 

 will, by and by, favor our readers with 

 the best and most practical method for 

 increasing bees by dividing up. Last 

 season we purchased nearly his entire 

 apiary and supposed we had about 

 cleaned him out. This season we 

 wrote him for bees, and to our surprise 

 he replied that he could spare twenty 

 colonies. He sold us twenty-six of as 

 line colonies of bees as could be found 

 in the country. "How to increase from 

 live to tifty" will be the subject of an 

 article from Mr. Russell by and by. 

 Mr. Russell is one of the most scien- 

 tific and successful beekeepers in the 

 country, and when he sends an article 

 to the " Api" you should read it care- 

 fully, as he is no " green-un" or novice 

 at the business. 



Canton, W. Va. 



MORE LIGHT WANTED. 

 QUESTION BY A. M. V.'ILLIAMS. 



Professor Cook says that what will 

 poison the higher will poison the lower 

 animals. Is this a rule that we can 

 depend upon? Is it true that what will 

 poison a man will poison all other 

 creatures, as man is evidently the 

 highest of created beings? The pro- 

 fessor reasons that a bee could not 

 carry poison into a hive without being 

 itself poisoned. We learn then that a 

 bee cannot take poison into its system 

 and live. There is no poison then in 

 ' the bee. I once thought when I was 

 stung by a bee and it made a swelling 

 that there was a poison injected in the 

 wound. This must be a mistake, and 

 the trouble all made by the mechanical 

 eflectof the little dart. The bee can- 

 not extract poison from a plant and it 

 is not probable it has a poison-factory 

 within itself If the rattlesnake car- 

 ried poison in its system it would get 

 poisoned, for what will poison a man 

 will poison anything else. That ser- 

 pents carry poison is an old whim. It 

 is said by hunters that quails and par- 

 tridges eat berries that are deadly poi- 

 son to human beings, but this must be 

 a mistake. Mr. Editor, can you give 

 us some light on the subject: 



Central Park, N. Y. 



