308 



THE AMERICAIT BEE JOURNAL. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



Controlling a Field. 



Cf. 31. DOOLITTLE. 



I read with much interest the arti- 

 cle found on page 80, by James Hed- 

 don, upon the subject of "Locating 

 and Occupying a Field ;" and I agree 

 ■witli his views, providing the occu- 

 pant is a person who is about to 

 change his location in search of a bet- 

 ter or different field. In this case, a 

 man who would locate near another 

 apiary to the disadvantage of both 

 himself and the owner thereof, must 

 be so bereft of reason and the spirit 

 that would •' do unto others as ye 

 would that they should do unto you,'" 

 that any course of getting rid of the 

 intruding party would be justifiable. 

 But there is another side to this ques- 

 tion, which I wish to speak of, to 

 which Mr. H. does not allude, pur- 

 posely or otherwise. 



It so happens the oftener that the 

 person who will injure the occupant 

 of a field the most, is one who is al- 

 ready an owner of a large property 

 near'you, who, from poor health, jeal- 

 ousy, or your reported success in bee- 

 keeping, desires to try his hand at the 

 business. This person, perhaps, is a 

 farmer, a merchant, or a lawyer, who 

 does not want to leave his present 

 location to start an apiary, neither 

 could he well do so if he chose. He 

 starts out with the desire to keep but 

 a few colonies for his amusement, and 

 a little honey for his family, thinking 

 that this will not harm you in the 

 least. After starting, he has a good 

 year as well as you, and he becomes 

 enamored with the pursuit. He falls 

 to reasoning, and says : "I own a large 

 farm, producing plenty of plants and 

 trees which produce honey. Is not 

 this mine by priority, and is there 

 any reason tliat I should not keep all 



the bees I wish on account of Mr. 



wishing his bees to monopolize my 

 fields 'i No, sir- ; I will keep all the 



bees I wish, and if Mr. thinks he 



will crowd me from the field by put- 

 ting in more bees than I have, I will 

 show him that I can put in 10 colonies 

 to his one." Thus our bee-keeper, by 

 using Mr. Heddon's advice on this 

 man, has " cut off his own nose to 

 spite his face."' 



What I want to get at is the right 

 of tlie thing, and for this reason I am 

 going to give a Httle personal history. 



I was born and brought up within 

 ."lO rods of where I now live. Father 

 kept bees when I was a small boy, 

 getting as high as 60 colonies in box- 

 hives. These all died when I was 

 about 10 vears old, of that dreaded 

 disease, foul brood. When I became 

 of age there were about 2.")0 colonies 

 within two miles of us, kept by 3 or 

 4 persons. From reading King"s' Bee- 

 Keepers' Text Book, a desire sprang 

 up for bees. Father and I talked the 

 matter over, and the result was we 



purchased 4 colonies when I was 22 

 years old. That fall he gave me his, 

 and I started out alone in the bee 

 business. 



I am often amused now, as I look 

 back, at the ideas I then entertained. 

 My highest aim was 20 colonies, and I 

 hoped to secure an average yield from 

 them of 20 lbs. each, or 400 'lbs. total; 

 this, at 20 cents per pound, would give 

 $80. Eighty dollars would give me 

 quite a lift, and I could care for the 

 bees and the farm at the same time, 

 without extra lielp. 



After I had increased to about .30 

 colonies (did not stop at the 20, you 

 see), the man living about one mile 

 from me, and having the largest num- 

 ber of bees of anyone (120 colonies), 

 came to me and talked quite similarly 

 to what Mr. H. advocates, saying I 

 was injuring his business, and as he 

 had a large apiary before I began to 

 keep bees, I ought to quit the busi- 

 ness and leave the whole field to him. 



I told him that father had kept bees 

 long before he ever thought of keep- 

 ing them, and that I expected to keep 

 at the business as long as it was profit- 

 able, as we had a farm, and I did not 

 see why my bees did not have as good 

 a righfto visit the clover and bass- 

 wcod on that farm as any body else's 

 bees. The result was that he felt that 

 I was wrong, and I felt justifiable in 

 the course I pursued. 



I wish here to ask Mr. Heddon if 

 he does not think 1 had a right to keep 

 bees under the circumstances V Well, 

 right or wrong, with the 2-50 colonies 

 against our 4 to start with, I have 

 lived to see the time when not one of 

 the parties who then kept bees have 

 a bee at the present time. This shows 

 that some man smarter than I may 

 yet start in bee-keeping in my field, 

 and cause me to move out or quit bee- 

 keeping ; so Mr. Heddon's " neighbor 

 .Jones" may yet cause "Mr. K." to 

 relinquish his field in spite of Mr. 

 Kendairs priority and additional 

 numbers. 



But to return to my story. When I 

 had increased to about 100 colonies, a 

 colony of bees was given by a friend 

 to a neighboring farmer, whose land 

 joined with my father's. As we were 

 good friends, lie often came to see me 

 and talk bees, which I was always free 

 to do. 



He came out the next spring with 

 one weak colony, which did riot seem 

 to build up any." He desired me to go 

 and see it one day, which I did. I 

 told him to come over on a certain 

 day and I would show him how to fix 

 his' colony. He came, and I gave him 

 a frame of brood just biting the covers 

 to the cells, and told him to take it 

 home and place it in the centre of his 

 little cluster of bees. He did so, and 

 from this lie now has nearly 40 colo- 

 nies. He often says if it had not been 

 for Doolittle, he would never have had 

 a bee, while I realize (knowing the 

 man) that had I not done this, or 

 rather had I shown the spirit toward 

 him, " Kendall "' did toward "' Jones," 

 in Mr. Heddon"s articles, he would 

 have been the worst rival in bee-keep- 

 ing I could possibly have. As it is, 

 he is contented to double back his 

 bees to 20 colonies each spring, and 



keeps them for pleasure, and profit 

 also ; for he secures nearly or quite as 

 good results from his bees as I do from 

 mine. 



Two other neighbors starting in 

 bee-keeping (one living a mile away, 

 and the0ther2}^^ miles), I have treated 

 as friends, telling them how I worked 

 bees, and showing them freely all I 

 know of the business, till to-day one 

 has 4o colonies and the other 80, each 

 expecting to make a specialty of bee- 

 keeping. In this I have only done as 

 I would be done by, were I starting 

 again, whether Mr. H. thinks it right 

 or wrong. 



Now, as I said at the outset, I be- 

 lieve Mr. H. to be riglit (as long as 

 there are plenty of unoccupied fields) 

 in his advice regarding bee-men who 

 are changing their location ; but I 

 cannot think the same course applied 

 to friendly neiehbors is a correct one. 

 I believe in letting live as well as liv- 

 ing ; and if my "neighbor desires to 

 start in bee-keeping, there is no law, 

 moral or legal, to hinder him from so 

 doing. After he has once determined 

 to start. I believe he will cause me 

 less trouble if I treat him in a neigh- 

 borly way, then he would were I to 

 try to show him that I thought he had 

 no business keeping bees. 



But perhaps Mr. Heddon thinks as 

 did my good friend Elwood, who once 

 told me that he thought I was doing 

 the bee-fraternity much harm by writ- 

 ing so much information to the bee- 

 papers, and reporting my yields of 

 honey : for, said he, " by so doing you 

 are enticing thousands into our ranks, 

 through your articles, only to be a 

 curse to us by causing lower" prices for 

 our honey from an over-production of 

 the same." 



Perhaps I am wrong, and mistook 

 my calling when I left farming to en- 

 ter bee-keeping. Be this as it may, I 

 have never written w ith but one ob- 

 ject in view ; namely, that of bene- 

 fitting others by my "experience, as I 

 have been benefitted by the experience 

 and writings of such "men as Gallup, 

 Quinby, Langstroth and hosts of 

 others. I have only told of bee-keep- 

 ing as I found it to be, without fear or 

 favor. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



For the American Bee Journal- 



Assorting and Grading the Honey. 



JOHN G. SMITH. 



How to grade the honey, has for a 

 long time perplexed my mind, and is 

 still unsolved. No doubt there are 

 very many others who are question- 

 ingthe fe"asibility or practicability of 

 the apiarist to grade or classify the 

 particular kinds of honey, save two 

 grades ; viz., spring honey and fall 

 honey. 



In my opinion the true source from 

 which the honey is gathered by the 

 bees at any particular time, cannot be 

 ascertained, from the fact that we 

 have so very many different flowers 

 in bloom at the same time. 



I have kept bees on the improved 

 plan for 5 years, and my observations 

 have been "that bees of the same col- 



