1898. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



105 



are 200 subscribers, and it would require 1,000 to pay ex- 

 penses out of pocket. 



But we needn't go to England for tiiat sort of honesty. It 

 can be found In the columns of the Progressive Bee-Keeper, 

 which has entered Its eighth year, and whose publisher says : 

 "Friends, do you know the Progressive has never made a dol- 

 ar for me yet? It is a fact. It has never paid more than 

 expenses." And yet the Progressive is worth a dozen of those 

 papers that flourlsht such long lists of subscribers, and then 

 mysteriously faded out of existence. It has workt hard for 

 success, but it seems clear that a bee-paper is not generally a 

 Klondike. 



A Honey Syndicate is proposed in Belgium to 

 meet the crisis that is upon them by which the price of ex- 

 tracted honey has fallen till it will not bring in some cases 

 more than 11 to 15 cents a pound. A. Gustin has formulated 

 a constitution and by-laws for such an organization, which 

 occupies nearly five pages of the Belgium bee-journal, 

 Le Rucher Beige. According to the proposed plan each mem- 

 ber agrees to deliver all his honey to the syndicate except 

 enough for his own household, to furnish ouly pure honey, 

 and not to get honey of a third party to furnish to the syndi- 

 date. The matter is being warmly discust, pro and con, but 

 all in the best spirit. 



*-•-•- 



Progress in Bee-Culture. — A. I. Root tells about 

 it in New York Tribune. It makes one green with envy to 

 hear him tell about getting 25 cents a pound for 6,000 

 pounds of extracted honey years ago. He also tells about a 

 man he lately visited in Arizona who had about 300 colonies 

 in one apiary, and averaged more than 200 pounds per colony ! 

 But Mr. Root thinks bee-keeping is a most risky business. By 

 a little carelessness or bad management a man can in a short 

 time lose all. But he can pick up again with marvelous 

 rapidity. A hundred colonies may be cut down to half a 

 dozen In wintering; but if a man is informed and full of grit 

 he may also have his empty hives refilled in one season. 



■*-•-¥' 



This is a Good Time to attend to the payment 

 of subscriptions to the Bee Journal — before the busy time of 

 spring comes on. This is a matter that we dislike very much 

 to refer to in public print, and yet If the financial end of the 

 business of publishing this paper is not carefully lookt after, 

 the whole thing would soon come to a finish. So we trust 

 those whom we have patiently waited on will at once pay 

 up, and also send the dollar due for this year. How many 

 will during February send In their remittances, and thus 

 again be square on our books? 



******* 





Hon. Eugene Secor, General Manager of the United 

 States Bee-Keepers' Union, was also President of the Farmers' 

 Institute held at Forest City, Iowa, Feb. 8, 9 and 10. At 

 that meeting Mr. Secor was down 'On the program for a talk 

 or paper on "The Ideal Farm Home." Of course it was a 

 (wmcly subject, but no doubt it was treated in a handsome 

 and satisfactory manner. 



Mr. a. I. Root is nothing if not accommodating, so see- 

 ing that Mr. and Mrs. Boyden (his newly-wedded daughter 

 and her husband) could not take an extended wedding-trip on 

 account of their being needed in the office, he (A. I. R.) kindly 

 consents to take it for them — going to the Bermuda Islands, 

 where he will incidentally learn about onions, potatoes and 

 things. 



Mk. Jacob Dickman, of Defiance Co., Ohio, who Is a regu- 

 lar reader of the American Bee Journal, sent his report for 

 1897 to the Ohio Farmer, and it appeared in that paper for 

 Jan. 6. Two paragraphs of his report read as follows, his 

 honey being extracted : 



"The yield of our scale hive the past summer has been 

 somewhat marvelous. At least we have heard of none better. 

 The entire yield was 396 pounds, besides enough for winter. 

 The daily increase during part of the best flow was from 18 

 to 23 pounds. 



"The flow the past summer continued a longer time than 

 we ever knew of before, and our entire yield from 50 colonies, 

 spring count, gave us 10,175 pounds, an average of 203}^ 

 pounds, and we increast to 103 colonies. Counting the new 

 colonies worth .§2 each — ^and they are certainly worth more — 

 and the honey worth 10 cents per pound, the profits for the 

 season would be equal to a crop of 6,391 bushels of corn, or a 

 crop of over 225 tons of hay. Whether the business pays or 

 not, let the reader decide." 



Mr. W. H. Pridgen is a "queenly " deceiver. You know 

 h»w angry you feel when you are beguiled Into reading an 

 advertisement when you expected something else, and you 

 know how common the trick is. Well, this man Pridgen has 

 gotten up a pamphlet of a dozen pages, and the title page 

 reads, " Pridgen's Catalog and Price-List of Queens, together 

 with combined and improved methods of Queen-Rearing." 

 Then you look through the pamphlet expecting to see a page 

 or less of stale matter about rearing queens, and all the rest 

 of it advertising matter. That's where you're fooled. Just 

 one page is all he takes to blow his own horn, and the rest is 

 Interesting, useful matter about queen-rearing. If he fools 

 his customers the same way when sending out queens, he'll 

 work up a big trade. 



Mr. S. M. Brooks has been keeping bees for several 

 years five miles directly west of the Chicago court-house. Last 

 season, with 28 colonies In the spring, Mr. B. Increast to 54 

 colonies, and took 2,000 pounds of comD hooey, and 200 of 

 extracted. It is right in the midst of any quantity of sweet 

 clover, but being built up so fast Mr. Brooks will now remove 

 to Stark county, Ind., where he has traded his Chicago prop- 

 erly for a 126-acre farm, expecting to go into bee-keeping 

 more extensively there. 



Mb. John Denter, formerly of Middlesex Co., N. J., has 

 removed to Northampton Co.; Pa., where he purchast a home- 

 stead, and will run the bee and chicken business. Mr. Denyer 

 has been managing several apiaries, but will now combine 

 them at his new place. His partner, A. C. Ramsey, is an ex- 

 perienced apiarist and poultryman. Mr. D. is also a railroad 

 signal inspector. 



Hon. Geo. E. Hilton, of Newaygo Co., Mich., gave us a 

 very pleasant call Feb. 8. Mr. Hilton has recently been ap- 

 pointed postmaster for his town, and will enter upon his duties 

 April 1. He is not only a honey-producer, a bee-supply 

 dealer, and a busy churchman, but also a good deal of a poli- 

 tician. He has some 300 colonies of bees, and will have them 

 In three apiaries the coming season. 



Mr. Joseph A. Shone, a bee-keeper in Benton Co., Miss., 

 died at the age of 68, Sept. 20, 1897, leaving 93 colonies of 

 bees, but his wife, unfortunately, is not able to care for them. 

 She writes that there is no other apiary in that vicinity, that 

 their bees have done well, and that they can sell all the sur- 

 plus honey in the home market. Mr. Shone was for years a 

 reader of the Bee Journal, which Mrs. Shone says they " liked 

 so much." 



Dr. Wm. F. McDonald, of Essex Co., Mass., is a bee- 

 keeper as well as a tooth-doctor. He has sent us a newspaper 

 account of a lively experience he had last July in hiving a 

 swarm in the city where he lives. He keeps his bees on the 

 roof of a three-story brick building, and says that In his 

 family they have consumed about -loO pounds of honey in less 

 than two years. That ought to be, and doubtless is, a very 

 sweet family. 



Catalogs for 1898 have been received at this office 

 from the following who advertise in the American Bee Journal: 



G. B. Lewis & Co., Watertown, Wis. — Bee-Keepers' Sup- 

 plies. 



Bee-Keepers' Supplies. 



s. 



[-Keepers' Supplies. 



