724 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Nov. 16 1899. 



Mr. Abbott — I don't believe in trading- off a horse that 

 has been tested and found faithful, sol nominate Dr. Mason 

 for secretary. 



The ballot resulted in the choice of E. R. Root for presi- 

 dent, and Dr. A. B. Mason for secretary. 



COMMITTEES ON HONEY, FREIGHT RATES, AND THE APIARIAN 

 EXHIBIT AT THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION. 



Pres. Whttcomb — I have been requested to appoint a 

 committee of three to pass on the honey that is on exhibi- 

 tion, and I will appoint Messrs. Hutchinson, Selser and 

 Doolittle as such committee. 



Mr. Abbott — I would like to have a committee on 

 freight rates on bee-keepers' supplies appointed by this 

 convention. There is in the West a class of bee-smokers 

 that have alwaj's been shipt as first-class. Just before I 

 came away I shipt smokers, and the freig-ht was high. 

 There is no reason why bee-men should pay fivst-class for 

 tinware. I would like to have the question brought up. I 

 am going before the classification committee when I go 

 back, and I would like to have the influence of the Associa- 

 tion. I have always shipt hives nested, and I suppose I have 

 saved bee-keepers a good many dollars. That is a matter 

 that I think the Association ought to take up before the 

 Western Classification Committee. I have been looking 

 the matter up, and it seems to me that it can be properly 

 presented. The Western Classification Committee has 

 raised the classification so that there is S'i cents put upon 

 the consumer. Now the consumer is interested. I am not 

 selfish about this, but I would like to see something done in 

 the matter. 



Mr. Root — I would like to amend that matter, and have 

 Mr. Abbott appointed as a committee of one. He knows all 

 about the matter, and if he has the influence of the Associa- 

 tion, he can do a great deal. 



Mr. Abbott and Mr. York were appointed as such com- 

 mittee. 



Mr. Danzenbaker — Mr. Abbott speaks about hives being 

 nested. Take a 10-frame hive that has a super and you can 

 put in another hive, and turn the body of the super and you 

 can get in another hive. It takes no more room, and the 

 bodies are nested into each other. I advise people to do 

 this and save SO percent on freight. 



A letter from the Pan-American Exposition, to be held 

 in Buffalo, N. Y., in 1901, was read, requesting the Associa- 

 tion to appoint a committee of three which shall be advisory 

 to the committee there, who shall have in charge the api- 

 arian exhibit. After some discussion, on motion of Dr. 

 Mason, the president was instructed to appoint a committee 

 of five. Messrs. E. R. Root, of Ohio, W. F. Marks, of New- 

 York, George W. York, of Illinois, W. A. Selser, of Penn- 

 sylvania, and O. L. Hershiser, of New York, were appointed 

 as such committee. 



SECOND DAY— Evening Session. 



The evening session was called to order bj' Pres. Whit- 

 comb, and was opened with a song, -'The Hum of the Bees 

 in the Apple-Tree Bloom," sung by Dr. Miller, after which 

 came a paper by W. A. Selser, entitled. 



The Products of the Honey-Bee— Wax, Propolis and 

 Honey. 



When your worlh3' secretary wrote asking me to read a 

 paper I replied that I would, and he could select any subject 

 that he desired. He said he preferred me to select the sub- 

 ject ; after choosing my subject as above, he replied by 

 saying he had put me down for that subject, but he desired 

 me to say all I could about marketing of honey, and was 

 sorry I had not selected that subject, but that now it had 

 been assigned to another, who he thought was not quite as 

 familiar with the large cities in the Eastern market as I 

 was, and I would present an entirely new phase of it ; in 

 other words, he wisht me" to read a paper on marketing 

 and selling honey under another heading. I say this as an 

 explanation that if I dwell more at length on some phases of 

 marketing honey than I do on my title subject, you will un- 

 derstand why I do not stick to my subject. 



First, then, the products of the bee. For some reason 

 the word pollen was inserted by mistake for wax ; pollen is 

 a product of a flower only produced by Nature to further 

 the race, and produces fruit, but used by the bee to dilute 

 honey and make what we call "bee-bread" to feed the 

 young bees. Beeswax is solely the product of the honey- 

 bee ; it is at first liquid, derived from the blood by cell 

 action, and then transuding the structureless membrane 

 and assumes the slight form of a scale. 



The abdomen of a worker-bee is arranged in six dorsal 

 and six ventral inelastic plates which may move upon each 



other, because they are united by delicate membranes, giv- 

 ing to the whole the arrangement of the tucks of a child's 

 dress. 



These membranous glands are as smooth as glass, and 

 present a flat surface from which the fluid wax is distrib- 

 uted and instantly cooling becomes flaky. There are eight 

 of these cooling-dishes on the abdomen of the worker-bee. 

 Any one taking up a bee during the honey-gathering sea- 

 son, and examining it under a glass, can see these scale 

 formations. 



Original beeswax on being supplied to the glands is 

 pure white, but we cannot get it in this condition for mostly 

 it is slightly varnisht by propolis, wliich takes the hue of 

 the flower the bee is working on. We can bring it back to 

 its original color by lenses under the direct rays of the sun, 

 and is much .sought for by the drug-trade, and brings from 

 20 to 25 cents a pound more than the other beeswax. 



Propolis is used by the bees as a cement and a varnish 

 in the new comb. The cell-walls are varnisht by it, which 

 makes them stronger. It is gathered and carried in pollen- 

 baskets as is pollen, and is thinned down by the bees them- 

 selves. It is taken from the leaf-buds of various shrubs 

 and trees, such as poplar, alder, beech, willow, fir, and 

 others. It is hardly necessary to add that it is a great nui- 

 sance to the practical bee-keeper, sticking to the fingers, 

 and varnisht over all his nice, polisht sections. 



Honey is the desideratum of the bee-keeper, if not the 

 bee itself. Honey is evaporated nectar converted from 

 cane-sugar into a grape-sugarlike substance by the bees, in 

 their honey-pouch, by mising- a saliva provided by Nature 

 for that purpose, and then deposited in the cell. 



Bees cannot make honey out of granulated sugar, nor 

 can they make it out of any other artificial, sweetened 

 syrups. While an article so fed might be mixt with the 

 bee-saliva, yet it is not honey unless it is the nectar pro- 

 vided by the plant-life. Nectar is the fluid which flows at 

 the time of the plant's fertilization, and is of a peculiar 

 chemical property, and cannot be made artificially under 

 any conditions. Chemical analysis has reacht the stage in 

 which the slightest percentage of artificial adulteration of 

 honey can be detected. 



When the nectar is so mixt by the bees and deposited in 

 the cell, it is thin like water, and is 25 percent solids, and 

 when evaporated by the bees it is 75 percent solids. This is 

 done b_v a very rapid action of the bees' wings, and so 

 quickly that honey extracted that is gathered in the morn- 

 ing and left in the hive over night, is much heavier than 

 that gathered and extracted in the afternoon of the same 

 day. Many large extracted-honey producers mark their 

 packages " morning honey " and " afternoon honey." 



When honey has reacht the degree above noted, the 

 bees cap it over and then it is pronounced right for the mar- 

 ket. I hardly dare more than touch upon these things, for 

 I fear I will get into a very ocean of thought and develop- 

 ment that would occupj' one of your entire sessions, if 

 not the entire time of the convention, so I pass quickly on 

 to some of the phases of marketing honey. 



First, the man himself, the bee-keeper or salesman. 

 How shall he achieve success ? How can he sell his product 

 to the best advantage ? Not every man can be a successful 

 salesman — it is a gift. I am now presuming he is market- 

 ing his own product, but there are certain characteristics 

 that he must have at least a share of if he is to succeed. 

 One is honesty. Why, you start at once to say, " Do you 

 question such a thing?" I reply by saying that after 

 spending 20 years of my life as a salesman, and coming in 

 contact with the men of almost every nation, I find that 

 misrepresentation and falsehood are the ground-work upon 

 which a large percentage of salesmen trj' to build up their 

 business. It often succeeds for awhile, but eventually it is 

 bound to fall. 



If yours is light basswood honey, don't call it white 

 clover. If your honey has 10 percent of sugar syrup to 

 keep it from granulating, don't call it pure. (Don't feed 

 your bees on sugar to build up on in the spring, after you 

 put on the supers or top story). If your honej- is carried 

 over from last season, don't say it is the new crop. If 

 you sell to two stores near together, don't tell one he is the 

 only store you " sell to in this vicinity." It is not good 

 policy to mention to any customer the other customers you 

 sell to, or the amount. First, it is an unkind thing to ea- 

 pose your friend's business ; and, second, if it is an extra- 

 large amount you have sold him, the other grocer will at 

 once doubt your assertion anj-waj'. 



Again, don't believe all your customers tell you, for 

 many things are said in a half-serious tone to get you to 

 drop in price, and they really don't mean to tell j-ou a direct 



