1898. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNALc 



179 



Injurious Honey-Crop Reports- 

 Honey. 



-Ripening 



BY C. DAVENPORT. 



In my last I promist to show that reports of very large or 

 expected large crops actually do injure the market for our 

 product. A year ago the past season I went to Minneapolis 

 and took samples of white clover comb honey which was 

 strictly fancy in every respect, and altho there are dealers 

 there who handle honey by the carload, I could not sell them 

 even 1,000 pounds, for from the reports in the bee-papers 

 they said there was the largest crop of honey ever known or 

 heard of, and they expected very low prices later. Soon after- 

 wards, I was in Chicago on other business, and found it was 

 the same there — the dealers all thought there was an immense 

 crop, and refused to buy outright, except at a price below the 

 cost of production. 



Now, as in both Instances, this was early in the season, 

 before they had received any shipments to amount to any- 

 thing, their only way of forming an estimate of the crop was 

 through the bee-papers, for practical bee-keepers do not send 

 private accounts of large crops to dealers, notwithstanding 

 what they may say to the contrary. 



Probably some who read this will think that the price at 

 which honey sells in the cities does not, orcannot, affect them, 

 as they sell in their home market, where they obtain fair, and 

 (n some cases, large prices. But in a short time there may be 

 more honey produced in their locality than the home market 

 can produce. Take my own locality, for instance. But a 

 short time ago here clover and basswood comb honey sold for 

 1.5 and 18 cents per pound; the last two years it has sold for 

 T and 8 cents per pound, by the case, and some bee-keepers 

 have scoured the country retailing it for this, and in some in- 

 stances even less. 



Now, in my opinion, another reason why honey has de- 

 clined in price in the city markets is the inferiority of most of 

 U, to what it used to be. I think without exception all pro- 

 ducers now remove the sections as soon as possible after the 

 honey in them is capt over, and while this results in whiter, 

 nicer-looking honey, it is greatly inferior to what honey was 

 years ago, when it was left on the hives for a month or more 

 after it was finisht, and when consumers paid from 25 to 40 

 cents a pound for it. While I believe that honey can be re- 

 moved as soon as capt, and handled so that it will be nearly 

 M not quite as good as that lefc on the hives for sometime, I 

 ■do not think there is more than one bee-keeper in five thou- 

 sand, as they average, who does, or tries to do, any more with 

 comb honey after it Is removed from the hive than to keep it 

 so it will look all right until it is sold ; when, if it is shipt to 

 some city market it is probably stored In a cool room, and by 

 the time the consumers get it they know that if honey is not 

 now manufactured without the aid of bees it is not what it 

 used to be, and many decide that they can buy other things 

 for the same money that they would rather have. I believe a 

 mistake has been made in paying so much attention to the 

 appearfl,nce rather than quality. 



In order to show that this is not theory, I will say that 

 mv own crop is thoroughly and properly cured after it is re- 

 moved from the hives, and on this account I have customers 

 who take and pay two to three cents more per pound for it 

 than they can buy elsewhere that which looks fully as good. 

 Two years ago my crop was unusually large, and I had to find 

 a new market for a few thousand pounds of it, and these new 

 customers were so pleased with the quality of it that if I had 

 had it the past season I could have sold a good deal more than 

 my previous large crop without any soliciting. 



CUBING-HOIISE FOR COMB HONEY. 



I will briefly describe my curing-house, and the method I 

 pursue in curing the crop. The house itself is a small wooden 

 building double-boarded on the sides, with double floors, and 

 two thicknesses of heavy building-paper between the board- 

 ing and under the shingles on the roof. Being constructed in 

 this way it is an easy matter to keep a high temperature in- 

 side with but a small amount of artificial heat. 



When the filled supers are removed from the hives they 

 are stackt up In this room, with the under ones raised about a 

 foot from the floor, and inch strips placed between them all, 

 so the air can circulate freely between them. The tempera- 

 ture is then kept as nearly 95^ as possible for from 4 to G 

 weeks, depending upon the condition of the honey, for the 

 thickness or body of the sama kinds of honey varies greatly 

 with different seasons. In a dry season honey is usually 

 thicker when sealed than it is in a wet one. The past season 

 white clover honey was very thin and hard to cure in this 

 locality. 



Some who removed sections as soon as they were sealed 



lost part of it on account of its souring in the combs. Until 

 one has eaten it they would not believe the difference there Is 

 in favor of honey that Is thoroughly cured or ripened, and 

 such honey will seldom sour or candy inside of a year if it is 

 kept in an unfavorable place afterwards. It Is also much 

 safer to ship. I ship some honey thousands of miles every 

 season, and so far as known there has never been a dollar's 

 worth broken in transit. Southern Minnesota. 



Again the Evolution of the Honey-Bee. 



BT I. W. BECKWITH. 



If the editor will permit, I will say a few words on the 

 above subject, in reply to Mr. Doolittle's article on page 530 

 (1897), and then drop the subject. 



In his first article, Mr. Doolittle declares that bees can 

 learn nothing : and makes six other assertions neither of 

 which is generally admitted, and when I express a doubt he 

 tells me that the proof devolves on me and not on him. If Mr. 

 D. had ever been present when any point in law, politics, re- 

 ligion, or any other question was being discust pro and con, 

 he would have learned that the affirmative proved the propo- 

 sition or lost its case. I showed that bees do learn, and he 

 admits it, but claims that they were capable of learning just 

 as much at the beginning; and in so doing he admits that his 

 first statement — that bees can learn nothing — is false. 



He tells us that he knows that bees cannot be improved, 

 because God at the beginning pronounced all his work "good," . 

 and he is willing to take God at his word. He understands 

 that as God said it was good, therefore it could not be im- 

 proved, or made better ; so we may reasonably infer that when 

 Mr. Doolittle advertises an improved strain of bees he intends 

 to deceive and swindle his patrons. 



I do not doubt but he is every day making use of vegeta- 

 bles, fruits and animals which he knows to be improvements 

 on those in the natural or wild state — "just as they came 

 from the hand of the Creator, six thousand years ago." 



Yes, I do believe that bees may be educated and improved 

 within certain limits, and that in so educating them they- will 

 not necessarily " become a curse instead of a blessing." 



Weld Co., Colo. 



[In order that a final utterance on this subjsct from both 

 Mr. Beckwith and Mr. Doolittle might appear in the same 

 number of the Bee Journal, we forwarded the foregoing to 

 Mr. Doolittle, who thus responds:— Editor.] 



The following paragraph appeared from my pen in the 

 Progressive Bee-Keeper for March, 1897, and I reproduce it 

 here so the readers of the American Bee Journal may see the 

 item which has caused Mr. Beckwith and others to write 

 much uninteresting matter to practical bee-keepers, in order 

 that it may appear that Doolittle "intends to deceive and 

 swindle his patrons:" 



"INTELLIGENCE IN BEES." 



" Noticing an item in one of the papers, trying to prove that 

 bees were intelligent creatures and reasoned, I am led to say that 

 bees have the same habits now as they did at their creation, as 

 permanent and unvarying as the attraction of gravitation, or any 

 law of Nature. They still act alike under like circumstances. 

 They are incapable of education. Ttiey learn nothing. By taking 

 advantage of these habits, we can control their actions and make 

 them subservient to us, just as we take advantage of any law of 

 Nature, and, by proper machinery and manipulation, cause them 

 to produce desired results. It bees possest the intelligence of the 

 higher order of animals, and could learn tricks like dogs and 

 horses, we could not manipulate them as we do now, and they 

 would become a curse instead of a blessing." 



I believe what I wrote in the Progressive, when taken in 

 a broad, general sense (as practical bee-keepers take the state- 

 ment that drones from an Italian mother when fertilized by a 

 black drone are pure) is true. In a technical, narrow way, it 

 may not be strictly true. However, it is evident that the 

 trouble does not lie in any fear that the item appearing in the 

 Progressive will harm anything pertaining to apicultural pur- 

 suits, but that, unwittingly on my part, this ran counter to a 

 certain evolution theory, that away back In the dim vista of 

 the past, thousands or millions of years, there was an infini- 

 tesimal "mite" which evoluted into a tadpole, then into a 

 monkey, and finally Into the intelligent man of to-day ; hence 

 " a man of straw " was set up, which they proceeded to knock 

 down, wondering why Doolittle did not enter Into the combat. 



Gentlemen, I prefer to take the practical side, which 

 allows the Bible account of how man came on the earth to 

 stand, and that bees have ?iot "learned" so but what they 



