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fHE A/WBHICAN BEE JOURNAIU 



December 29, 



simply a drummer, and shows that the Union is anxious to 

 have him continue. It his membership is worth anything, it 

 ought to be worth enough to pay for this postal-card drum- 

 mer. You know how it is with newspaper people; when a 

 subscription expires, the newspaper sends out notice of that 

 fact, and every inducement is thrown out to get the subscriber 

 to renew his subscription for the coming year. It seems to me 

 that as a simple business proposition, we can afford to send 

 out a little drummer of that kind, and I think the General 

 Manager and the Board of Directors should make provision 

 for that sort of thing. I believe that the General Manager 

 can send out a postal that will make an excellent drummer. 



Mr. Secor — The dilBoulty is that under our system of book- 

 keeping, I keep the names of the members in alphabetical 

 order, and not in the order of the receipt of their membership. 



Dr. Mason — This provides that the notices are to be sent 

 out at least 80 days in advance of expiration of memberships. 

 That might mean 40 days or more, so that the General Man- 

 ager need not send out each notice exactly 30 days before the 

 expiration, but he can send out a batch of them at a time. If 

 that is going to be too much work, I will volunteer to help him. 



Mr. Secor — My impression is that a mistake was made in 

 changing the constitution as it was before. Then when the 

 General Manager sent out his report he could send out the 

 whole thing together. 



Dr. Mason — At Buffalo I got at least $2o in membership 

 fees that I would not have gotten if the memberships had ex- 

 pired at the end of December. A person who paid Jan. 1 

 would be entitled to protection for, one whole year; if he paid 

 Dee. 1 he would get protection for only 30 days. That is not 

 just. This matter was all canvast at Buffalo last year, by a 

 committee who talkt the matter over and decided that it was 

 best to put it in this way, and the proposed amendment was 

 almost unanimously adopted by the members of the Union 

 when they voted on it in the December following. 



Mrs. Acklin — Why not do as some of the newspapers do, 

 and let them have an extra month ? 



Dr. Mason — That would not be just to the others, either. 



Mr. Danzenbaker — I believe the members of this Union 

 are liberal men. I think you have made a good change here, 

 in providing that the terms of the oflfisers shall run for the 

 calendar year, beginning with the first of January, and I 

 think it would be a good thing to have the membership the 

 same way. I paid a dollar at Buffalo last year, and until yes- 

 terday I forgot that for several days I was not a member. I 

 do not want it to be that way. I would like to have my mem- 

 bership expire on the first of January, and I would vote for 

 that change. 



Dr. Mason — If those postal cards were prepared before- 

 hand and printed, and on the first of each month they were 

 sent out to each member who would be delinquent in the next 

 45 days, that would not be much trouble. 



E. R. Root— I would suggest that for this work a clerk be 

 employed to send out the notices. I am sure that the Board 

 of Directors would be willing to pay the expense. Then we 

 would be sure that every member would be given notice from 

 30 to 45 days in advance of the date of the expiration of his 

 membership, and every one could renew his membership if he 

 wanted to. 



Pres. York — I wonder if It would not have been a good 

 plan if we had provided last year that the memberships should 

 expire every three months. If I paid for membership to-day, 

 that membership could begin on the first of next month — Octo- 

 ber. I believe that would have been a good thing, if we had 

 thought of it. Then we would have memberships expiring on 

 the first day of January, March, July, and October. 



Dr. Mason — Even thea the man who didn't pay until the 

 second or third day of October would have no protection until 

 the first of the following January. 



Mr. Danzenbaker — You speak of the matter of protection. 

 I didn't count that at all ; I never expect to need any. I am 

 opposed to adulteration, and I am willing to contribute my 

 fee, and more, too, to help protect others in that regard. 

 Adulteration is only practiced with extracted honey, but I am 

 willing to use as much effort as the rest do in helping to fight 

 the adulteration of extracted honey. 



Dr. Mason — I move that we make this suggestion. The 

 Board of Directors can pay the General Manager not to exceed 

 20 percent of the receipts for his services. If that Is not 

 going to be enough for his services, we can change it so as to 

 give him a larger salary. 



The motion of Dr. Mason was seconded and carried. 



RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED. 



Mr. Secor here offered the following resolutions : 

 Resolved, That the hearty thanks of this society be and 

 are hereby extended to the local members of the Nebraska 



Bee-Keepers' Society, Hon. E. Whitcomb and L. D, Stilson, 

 for the time, labor, and expense by which they have con- 

 tributed to the comfort and pleasure of this convention. 



Resolved, That we appreciate the courtesy of the Commer- 

 cial Club of the city of Omaha in providing our convention 

 with these pleasant rooms. 



The resolutions were approved by a rising vote. 



Dr. Miller — I wish to speak of a matter which has im- 

 prest me and pleased me very much, and that is the perfect 

 harmony that has prevailed in our sessions. Everything has 

 gone harmoniously and smoothly, and that fact cannot but be 

 gratefully acknowledged by every member. And another 

 thing: I don't believe that many of you recognize how much 

 hard work our General Manager has to do. I think we ought 

 continually to bear that in mind, and let him feel that we are 

 grateful to him and anxious to give him our best support. 



Mr. G. M. Whitford, of Nebraska, then read the following 

 paper, entitled. 



The Relations Exi§ting Betivcen the Apiary and 

 llic Siiceessfnl Production or Fruit. 



,:^<i The successful production of any crop depends upon cer- 

 tain conditions, some of which are easily controlled. To at- 

 tain as nearly as possible to perfection in producing crops, we 

 must not only know what these conditions are, but must learn 

 how we can control them. Fruitgrowers realize that a vary 

 important condition is the perfect fertilization of the blos- 

 soms of all kinds of fruit. 



Nature has wisely provided for. the polienization of blos- 

 soms of the vegetable kingdom, in the creation of bees. Of 

 the different agencies depended upon to do this important 

 work the bee is the most thorough. We may plant our fruit- 

 trees in such a way that those prolific in the production of 

 pollen will be intermingled with other trees that are to be fer- 

 tilized; or we may depend upon the Winds to carry the life- 

 giving dust from one planter tree to another : but there are 

 times .when these will fail, while the bee would perform the 

 work perfectly. 



It is true that at times the bee Is unable to fertilize the 

 blossoms of some kinds of fruit perfectly, owing to unfavor- 

 able weather at the time the blossoms appear, and the pollen 

 is ripe. The spring just past was such. We have an apple- 

 orchard of about 350 bearing trees, that bloomed abundantly ; 

 just as the blossoms were opening, cold, wet weather set in 

 and continued during the entire time the trees were in bloom, 

 consequently the apple crop will not exceed 25 bushels for 

 the entire orchard. The same trees in 1896 yielded about 

 1,500 bushels. Plum and cherry trees blossomed before the 

 wet weather began, and bore a full crop of fruit. 



Our first cherry trees were set out in the spring of 1875 ; 

 at that time there were no bees within four miles of the trees, 

 which bore a yery small quantity of fruit, some years failing 

 entirely, until 1886, when we bought a colony of bees. Now 

 we get a crop of cherries each year ; at present the cherry Is 

 considered an annual cropper, and it is expected that the trees 

 will commence bearing as soon as they are large enough. The 

 same varieties are grown that were put out 10 or 12 years 

 ago. The only way we can account for the increast yield of 

 fruit is the fact that there are more bees in this locality. 



The same facts hold true with all kinds of fruit — unless 

 the blossom is fertilized no fruit will be developt. 



Orchards that are visited by bees produce better and 

 more uniform specimens of fruit, than those not visited, from 

 the fact that the bee carries pollen from one tree to another, 

 thus cross-fertilizing the blossoms. G. M. Whitford. 



A discussion of the paper was dispenst with, in view of 

 the lateness of the hour. 



Hon. E. Whitcomb, of Nebraska, then read a paper, on 



The Apiary on tlie Farm and in the Orchard. 



The apiary is fast being recognized as one of the sources 

 of profit on the farm, especially with the farmer who desires to 

 carry on a system of diversified farming. The farmer, of all 

 people, is perhaps the least dependent upon his fellow men, 

 and on every fair-sized farm there annually goes to waste sev- 

 eral hundred pounds of nectar, unless he has the means of 

 gathering and storing for the use of himself and family. It is 

 not necessary that the farmer bee-keeper become a competi- 

 tor in the markets with the expert bee-keeper, and in most 

 Instances this would not be desirable or profitable, but I have 

 earnestly advocated that the farmer should produce at least 

 sufficient to supply his own table, if not more. 



Honey is being recognized as so healthful a diet, especially 

 for children, that not a family can be found where honey en- 

 ters into the everyday diet who have any cause to call the 



