1898. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



757 



• Dr. Miller — How does he secure so many hives on the 

 wagons? Is there some special provision for that? 



Mr. Hatch— He fastens the hives together with what are 

 known in Wisconsin as " butter-tub staples." If you have oc- 

 casion to fasten your hives together, you will find those very 

 convenient things. But I thinlc we could talfe small loads on 

 good farm-wagons with two horses, dividing the big load up 

 into three lots, and save at least 12 hours In the trip. It took 

 him three hours in one place to go a mile and a half, where 

 with ordinary farm-wagons he could have driven over it in 20 

 minutes with 25 hives on the load. And then the wagons 

 would cut through the road. I had been hauling honey and 

 delivering it to the station over the same road, taking a ton at 

 a load, or sometimes a ton and a half, and had gotten over the 

 roads all right ; but when those big wagons came to go over 

 they would cut and sink dowu a foot where the ton-loads had 

 gone over all right. There were some short turns to make, 

 also, and the men would have to stop and dig away so that the 

 big wagons and the long teams could get around. Then they 

 were so tall they were liable to upset. The racks had to go 

 away up above the wheels. They had to have large wheels, 

 and they had to take at least three or four men on each load 

 to balance them in the sidling places. If I was going to move 

 bees, I would take ordinary farm wagons with two horses, 

 and put on what they could haul, and they could get over 

 almost any road. 



Dr. Mason — Mr. H. R. Boardman was at our house a few 

 days ago and was talking on this same subject — migratory 

 bee-keeping. He had practiced it to some extent, moving his 

 apiary about 12 miles to catch a honey-flow from buckwheat. 

 He said It didn't pay. It was too much work, and too hard 

 work. Several years ago we moved froon the city to a farm, 

 having 75 colonies of bees. It not being much of a honey re- 

 gion, I moved a portion of the bees back to the city, where 

 there was an abundance of sweet clover. It didn't pay. 



Mr. Hatch — Did you notice that dwindling of the colonies ? 



Dr. Mason — It seems to me I did, but it didn't impress 

 itself upon me at the time. I don't think I would ever move 

 my bees again, without some better reason than I had then. 



Mr. Rauchf uss — I have had some little experience in this 

 line. We have moved bees into the cleome fields, but only 12 

 or 15 miles. I did the way that has been described. We put 

 about 40 colonies on a hay-rack load. It always paid us. 

 The smallest average we had was 40 pounds, and we have 

 had as much as 160 pounds. It is practically gathered In 

 two or three weeks, and at a time when we could not get any 

 honey where our bees were located. We are In the alfalfa re- 

 gion, and we moved to the cleome fields. It has paid us. 



Mr. Danzenbaker — I had a little experience. In 1897 I 

 moved 6 colonies of bees from North Carolina to Washington. 

 I stopt in Washington 8 weeks, and the 6 colonies stored 200 

 pounds. Then I moved them SO miles by cars into the moun- 

 tains, and they stored 400 pounds more. I felt that that was 

 a pretty good thing, and that I would this year buy a lot of 

 bees in North Carolina and work them there and then move 

 them direct to the mountains. I think it hardly paid me in 

 Washington, for the reason that the honey was not of as good 

 quality in the city. In moving from Washington to Virginia, 

 it was a very hot day — from 95^ to 96- — and while I suc- 

 ceeded in getting the bees safely to the mountains, they 

 dwindled. In about two weeks I noticed that they had shrunk 

 a good deal. I had lost a good many tiees, the eflect of the 

 heat. Altho it didn't kill the bees outright. It weakened them 

 so that it shortened their lives. This year I intended to move 

 40 colonies from North Carolina. If I had had a carload I 

 could have gotten a good rate, but to move less than a carload 

 would have cost S2. 25 a hundred pounds. I could buy the 

 bees in Virginia for about .$1.50 a colony. If I had moved 

 them this year. It would have been a failure. While the pros- 

 pect in Virginia was promising early in the spring, it was the 

 dryest season there I have known in nine years. I have come 

 to this conclusion, that if I were in a place where I could put 

 my bees on a wagon and move them through the night, it 

 wouldn't hurt them at all, and it would pay ; but if I had to 

 spend three or four days in making the trip, I wouldn't do It. 

 IContlnued next weeli.T 



That New Bee-Book Offer on page 765 ought 

 to " make your mouth water," if you haven't already one of 

 the standard books on bee-keeping. Remember, that liberal 

 offer will be withdrawn Dec. 10, and no mistake about it. We 

 couldn't afford to hold It open longer than that, as we expect 

 that the edition may be exhausted before that time. Better 

 write quick if you want Prof. Cook's 450-page, cloth-bound 

 bee-book for only 50 cents! Turn to the offer now, and read 

 it — on page 765. 



HoHey from Cuba — Other Southeru Honey. 



BY O. O. POPPLETON. 



I wish I could have been at the late convention in Omaha, 

 so as to have helpt in the discussion which followed the read- 

 ing of my short paper on " Bee-Keeping in Cuba ;" but I will 

 join In it a little now with the pen. 



No, I said nothing about foul brood ; as there was none 

 there when I was in the island, and I know no more about it 

 now than do others who keep up with bee-literature. 



What Mr. Danzenbaker said about the large number of , 

 mosquitoes in Cuba was news to me. I cannot imagine where 

 he obtained such news, unless from the " yellow journals." I 

 never saw while there any such numbers of mosquitoes as he 

 speaks of. In fact, I should be heartily glad to trade what 

 mosquitoes we have here on the East Coast of Florida, for 

 what mosquitoes they had when I was in Cuba. 



Mr. Whitcomb's idea that "it would not take much 

 patriotism to receive what honey might be sent from Cuba," 

 is, of course, of no force whatever. Hard business facts have 

 more to do with commercial transactions than patriotism. I 

 hardly think Mr. Whitcomb has much knowledge of our honey 

 market, especially in our Eastern markets where most of the 

 Cuban honey is sent, or he would not have hazarded the doubt 

 that it would not affect the price of our honey at all. Cuba is 

 without doubt able to send into our markets an immensely 

 larger amount of honey every year than California has yet 

 done in her best years ; and every one who has ever disposed 

 of many large crops of honey in our general markets knows 

 just what that means. It means a shrinkage in price of much 

 more than the half cent a pound Dr. Miller estimates. It Is 

 not wisdom to shut onr eyes to such plain facts as these. 

 Doing so only deceives ourselves. This is one reason — not all, 

 by any means — why I have always opposed the idea of annex- 

 ing Cuba to this country. 



I am aware that the opinion Is quite general among bee- 

 keepers in our Northern States, that "climate has much to 

 do with the flavor of honey," the best flavors coming from the 

 North; also, that "Southern honey has a strong flavor." I 

 doubt either of these opinions being correct. 



I am very much within bounds when saying that I have 

 produced over 50,000 pounds of honey in each of three 

 widely different localities— northern Iowa, southern Florida 

 and Cuba — aud I have found the three extremes of strong, 

 mild and best-flavored honey here in this semi-tropical central 

 location of the three. The South — or, more accurately speak- 

 ing from a bee-keeper's standpoint — the Southern honey-field, 

 covers an enormously larger area than does the Northern 

 honey-belt, and contains a very much larger variety of honey- 

 yleldlng flora. Some of these flowers give us very strongly- 

 flavored honey, some very mild, and some between the two 

 extremes. As none of the species of flowers that give honey 

 in the North yields anything down here. It is impossible to 

 note with ab-;olute accuracy whether climate has anything to 

 do with the flavor of honey ; but snch white clover honey as I 

 have tested from the extreme southern localities where such 

 honey is obtained, was the same, neither better nor poorer 

 than we got in northern Iowa. This tends to prove that cli- 

 nlate Is not a factor in determining the flavor of any honey. 



We are all of us too apt to judge the entire product of any 

 locality by such portions of that product as we ourselves have 

 handled. There Is such a large variety of kinds of honey 

 from the South tjiat very few, if any, of us can speak intelli- 

 geutly of Southern honey as a whole. Nearly all, at least five- 

 sixths, of all Cuban honey that reaches the general markets. Is 

 from the bellQower, and is, as I said in my essay, a close sec- 

 ond to white clover honey In flavor, and Its equal in body 

 and flavor. This all comes during the winter months, and Is 

 followed during the spring and summer by a light flow of very 

 dark, strong-flavored honey, nearly all of which is used by the 

 bees themselves. 



That soldier that Mr. Stilson quotes as saying that Cuban 

 honey is much Inferior to our own, was In Cuba during the 

 summer only, when hives contained this dark honey, and he 

 probably saw nothing of such honey as the great bulk of 

 honey that comes from Cuba is like. A person who sees such 



