THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



153 



pronounce it as "revolutionizing," 

 Tlios. G. Newman as " new and origi- 

 nal ;" and when A. I. Root and D. A. 

 Jones consider it patentable, it ill 

 becomes an " independent " writer to 

 apply such terms as " old idea," 

 " common property," " old acquaint- 

 ance," etc. 



Father Langstroth gave us the 

 movable frame, and Mr. ileddon now 

 gives us the movable hive, i. e., by 

 means of his hive and system of 

 management, we can run our apiaries 

 almost entirely by manipulating hives 

 instead of frames ; it is a grand step, 

 and its progress over the land will not 

 be stayed by a few unproven asser- 

 tions. 



Rogersville, (^ Mich. 



ror tne American Bee JoumaL 



Selling Extracted Honey. 



M. M. BALDIUDGE. 



The editor,knowing me to have had 

 considerable experience for a term of 

 years in handling extracted honey as 

 a specialty, and successfully, desires 

 me to answer the following queries : 



" Will some one having experience 

 please answer the following questions 

 through the Ajierican Bee Jour- 

 nal V 1. Do those who practice sell- 

 ing extracted honey in small cans 

 still find a growing demand for it in 

 the same towns in which they form- 

 erly sold ity 2. What size packages 

 do they use V— North Freedom, Wis." 



1. My experience in selling ex- 

 tracted honey is directly to consumers, 

 and not, under any circumstances, to 

 retailers. When I supply a town, 

 village or city, I visit every family in 

 it with a true sample of the honey 

 that I propose to deliver, for the pur- 

 pose of securing orders for the 

 quantity desired. In no case do I 

 take an order for less than 5 pounds, 

 nor more than 20 pounds. No family 

 is omitted — no matter how poor nor 

 how rich, nor whether they "be white 

 or black— and the price to "all is the 

 same under all circumstances. When 

 thfc orders are secured I then deliver 

 the honey and collect the pay— 

 unless I agree, when the order is 

 taken, to wait for it until a specified 

 date. 



As a rule, the first time a town is 

 properly canvassed more honey will 

 be taken than at any one time after- 

 ward, for tiie simple reasons that 

 many will buy who are not lovers of 

 honey, but wish to have some in the 

 house for sickness, or for the novelty 

 of it, or perhaps because their neigh- 

 bors are buying! No matter how 

 good the quality of your honey may 

 be, there is in every town plenty of 

 people who do not relish the article, 

 and never will. After supplying a 

 town the second time, tlie sale of 

 honey from year to year will be quite 

 uniform, provided the same is " gilt- 

 -edged." I have now in mind one city 

 that I have supplied regularly for the 

 past twelve years, and my sales the 

 past year have been as good and as 

 satisfactory as during any one of those 

 years. The great secret of my success 



perhaps is that I never sell a poor 

 quality of honey. 



2. I use only one size of package, 

 and that is a common 2-quart tin-pail 

 with a loose cover, which holds .5 

 pounds of thick liquid honey, net 

 weight. When 1 deliver the honey 

 the consumer can keep the pail or 

 empty it as may be desired. If the 

 pails are emptied and returned to me 

 at the time of delivery, I deduct 10 

 cents for each pail. I find that most 

 of my customers prefer to empty the 

 pails and keep the honey in glass 

 fruit- jars. 



St. Charles. 5 Ills. 



For the American Bee JoiirnaL 



Bees as Fertilizers of Flowers. 



J. F. LATHAM. 



On page 6, Mr. G. M. Doolittle 

 quotes two paragraphs from a paper 

 which he " chanced to pick up," and 

 makes the ideas embodied therein 

 the subjects for the comments con- 

 tained in his article. 



As Mr. D's quotations are too 

 cramped to be illustrative of the whole 

 of the article from which the quota- 

 tions were made, it seems not im- 

 proper, 'for the '" first author " quoted, 

 to direct his attention to pages 260 

 and 261 of Vol. XIX of the American 

 Bee Journal, where he will find the 

 subject more broadly treated. If I 

 rightly construe the gist of Mr. D's 

 critique, a fair digest of the whole 

 of the article from which his quota- 

 tion was copied, would illuminate any 

 doubt, pro or con, having direct refer- 

 ence to the actual agencies which aid 

 the feeundation of the melliferous 

 floi'a, or flowers which are not nectar- 

 producing ; and thus relieve an appar- 

 ent misapprehension. The second 

 quotation in Mr. D's article (for 

 which I have no further use), was 

 quoted " second hand." the explana- 

 tory purport of which I, like Mr. Doo- 

 little, am not inclined to endorse. 

 That the flowers of many species of 

 the vegetable world do not require 

 insect aid in the process of fecunda- 

 tion is evident ; and that any species 

 of the melliferous flora is absolutely 

 dependent upon the insect tribes for 

 their fecundation, I am not prepared 

 to accept as an axiom from which 

 deductions may be drawn, that 

 harmonize with the principles of 

 sympathetic reproduction as unfolded 

 in cosmogony. 



At the commencement of the first 

 paragraph on page 7, Mr. Doolittle 

 records another slight mistake in 

 asserting " that he (myself) represents 

 that both the breeze and the bees may 

 be needed to fertilize the same and 

 all plants." Such is not the sense of 

 the quotation. The phrase, " may be 

 needed," is not in the sentence 

 quoted, neither does it embody the 

 idea tliat all or even any flower 

 actually demands the aid of the 

 breeze or insects to complete the de- 

 signs of nature in its cosmic capacity, 

 so to speak. If my authority, and 

 my deducements therefrom are cor- 

 rect, flowering plants existed on our 

 globe many epochs prior to the devel- 



opment of an animal organism capa- 

 ble of winging its way from " flower 

 to flower," and accelerating the in- 

 crease of vegetation by insect " ferti- 

 lization." 



According to Dr. Hitchcock's ar- 

 raugementof the different animal and 

 vegetable species, in the order of 

 their development, geologically, flow- 

 ering plants existed on the land dur- 

 ing the latter part of the Salurian 

 and Cambrian periods, wtien no ani- 

 mal life except that inhabiting the 

 water existed (or, in fact, could ex- 

 ist); while the sub-order, hymeuop- 

 tera, to which the honey-bee belongs, 

 did not make their appearance until 

 the latter part of the Tertiary period. 

 Such being the premises, it is evident 

 that the luxurious growth of flower- 

 ing vegetation, which matured and 

 decayed during the limitless evolu- 

 tionary epochs intervening the two 

 periods mentioned, especially during 

 the Carboniferous period, must have 

 depended upon other agencies than 

 those of the honey-bee, or other 

 nectar-feeding insects, for their " fer- 

 tilization ;" as the earlier insects 

 seem to have been allied to the Aphis 

 family. 



That the flowering plants, which 

 evolved ther organism contemporary 

 with that of the nectar-subsisting in- 

 sects are dependent upon those in- 

 sects, to a greater or less degree, 

 through sympathetic sources, for their 

 perfect fecundation, does not appear 

 improbable; in fact, the influences 

 pertaining to the development of 

 cosmic matter in all its organic forms, 

 tend to support such a theory, and 

 confirm the idea of nature's " prime 

 method " of distributing the fecun- 

 dating element. 



As Mr. Doolittle says in his con- 

 cluding paragraph, " Let us have the 

 scientific " part, from those qualified 

 to impart it. 



Cumberland, p Maine. 



For tbe American Bee JoumaL 



Sectional Broofl-Clianilier Hiyes. 



DR. G. L. TINKER. 



The extensive discussion during the 

 past year in the bee-papers, on the 

 methods and the advantages of re- 

 versing brood-combs, as well as the 

 result of the trials, has proved that 

 there is no profit in reversing single 

 combs, because of the great labor re- 

 quired, and that there is no advantage 

 to be gained from the practice. Like 

 many discussions on other subjects, 

 the truth is made to appear, although, 

 as in this case, the truth that we had 

 sought — the germ of wheat sifted from 

 all the chaff — is quite unlike what we 

 had been seeking or had anticipated. 



It is no new idea, by any means, 

 that the getting of the brood close up 

 to the sections in working for comb 

 honey is a measure of great value. 

 As the outcome of all the invention 

 and discussion we have discovered 

 perhaps all of the measures by which 

 brood can be brought near the sec- 

 tions, so that we can now point out 

 the one plan most practicable and 

 valuable. Here I wish to say that no 



