THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



309 



ony do Rather lioney from various 

 kinds (if tlowers all at the same time ; 

 and lliat ea<h bee gathers a particu- 

 lar kind of honey. For instance, if a 

 bee starts out in the inoriiins; and 

 works on a particnlar llower, it will 

 invariably gather from that same 

 source all liie day, and perhaps for 

 several succeedingdays, whileanother 

 bee will visit some other llower in like 

 manner. 



.Vt this time we have, in this local- 

 ity, many thousands of different 

 flowers in bloom, with our bees gath- 

 ering from every source. It is simply 

 spring honey. My neighbors s+y that 

 1 have my bees so well trained that I 

 can handle them as though they were 

 tlies ; but I have yet to see the colony 

 of bees so well trained that they will 

 all gather one kind of honey at the 

 same time. 



New Canton, 111. 



for tue American Bee JouniaL 



A Bee-Keepers' Union Wanted. 



R. .J. KENDALL. 



Every article in any number of the 

 Bee Journal, dealing with the ques- 

 tion of marketing honey, I always 

 read with interest— and I read too 

 few. I entirely agree with Mr. H. O. 

 Edwards, that this subject does not 

 seem to receive enougli attention. To 

 me it seems that the cause of the pres- 

 ent low rates for honey is very much 

 the fault of bee-keepers themselves. 



Mr. Geo. W. House, "from time 

 immemorial" almost, has been 

 preaching up co-operation ; but no one 

 appears to pay much attention to him, 

 if we may take actions as evidence of 

 attention. Yet in co-operation, un- 

 doubtedly, lies the real secret of suc- 

 cess. We want .co-operati(m in com- 

 munities, in counties, in States, and 

 throughout the whole country. About 

 a year ago I showed how, by co opera- 

 tion, any section could educate the 

 honey consumers of that section to 

 take either extracted or comb honey ; 

 but my article fell as flat as ditch 

 water, on the community ; no one ap- 

 parently took any notice'of it, and we 

 are still going on in the same old rut. 



I believe that by combination and 

 study, bee-keepers could net §1,000 

 per year as an average income ; and 

 this amount is by no means high. If 

 a man runs an average of 100 colonies, 

 he ought to get an average of 100 

 pounds per colony, and this would 

 give 10,000 pounds of honey, which, at 

 10 cents per pound, would give SI, 000. 

 Is 10 cents per pound too much V Is 

 100 pounds per colony too much ? 

 Surely not. Yet we see extracted 

 honey quoted at fij^, 7, and 73>^ cents 

 per pound. Honey sold at retail at 

 1'i cents per pound is cheap ; and a .5 

 cent margin should pay all expenses 

 from prod\icer to retailer ; and I be- 

 lieve by right management it could be 

 done. 



This method of shipping honey in- 

 discriminately to commission mer- 

 chants is bad, and tends directly to 

 lower prices, as any one who has lived 

 in a large city will testify ; i. e., if he 

 has had experience with commission 



merchants. The better way would be 

 to either sel(>rt some one man to 

 handle all the honey, or else establish 

 our own agenc) on the co-operation 

 plan. To such a central depot, honey 

 could be shipped in bulk, and be there 

 bottled, labeled, etc., and sohl to re- 

 tailers at not less than a certain price; 

 or it could be sent already bottled, 

 labeled or canned ready to retail. iJut 

 I hear some one say, "If such a course 

 were adopted, some firm would start 

 up to cut prices." Notpostively. For 

 in the tirst place, with unity amongst 

 honey-producers, such a lirm would be 

 unable to get honey at less than 10 

 cents per pound ; or if it did, it would 

 get inferior honey from persons who 

 produced it incidentally, and were 

 simply bent on getting something for 

 an article upon which they had be- 

 stowed little or no care. The conse- 

 quence in the end would be increased 

 repute for the honey produced by the 

 union men, and their brand would be- 

 come the staple brand. 



Now, to prove that my idea is 

 sound, I may say that the honey 

 dealers, Messrs. W. H. Hoge & Co., of 

 London, are now advertising the 

 formation of a honey-producing -and 

 honey-selling company, with a capi- 

 tal of £80,000 (nearly .?400.000) in 80,- 

 000 shares, of £1 each. They propose 

 to purchase 10,000 colonies of bees in 

 California; shi]) the honey produced 

 to England, and sell it in the London 

 market, both wholesale and retail. 

 They say, as one inducement to spec- 

 ulators to join them, " the monopoly 

 is complete." If a number of capi- 

 talists can do that, surely a number 

 of honey -producers can also do it. 



Now, if every legitimate lioney-pro- 

 ducer was to become a member of our 

 union ; and every union a member of 

 a central union," they could control 

 the honey market. They could keep 

 an even supply in all the markets, so 

 that St. Louis should not be glutted 

 and Chicago short, or vice versa. Every 

 producer would know just where to 

 send his honey, and by a little organi- 

 zation, we could get regular honey 

 railway cars, with an attendant who 

 could travel with it, to collect the 

 honey, once, twice, or three times per 

 year, and so get better and safer car- 

 riage, delivery, etc. I believe the 

 saved burstage and leakage would 

 pay the extra expense of all this. In 

 fact, it would seem that things have 

 all the room to improve, and very 

 little to go the other way. 



When at a convention of honey-pro- 

 ducers, a leading apiarist gets ud and 

 says they cannot calculate on getting 

 more than o cents per pound net for 

 honey, honey-producing is below par ; 

 for a man, if he is intelligent, desires 

 something more than a bare existence, 

 and that is about all honey at .5 cents 

 per pound will give him. As to local 

 honey markets' of course no man will 

 sell ill them at less than 10 cents per 

 pound, and he would always be at 

 liberty to sell at more. If every honey- 

 producer were to decide that he would 

 not sell at less than 10 cents net, in 

 the city market, and 11 or 12 cents in 

 the local market, but keep it first, 

 honey would fetch higher prices. But 

 just so long as men act on the princi- 



ple of " every one for himself, and the 

 devil take the hindmost," so long will 

 the f(uemost not fare so well as he 

 would if he co-operated with his fel- 

 lows. 



Again, we do not want to try to in- 

 duce every body to become bee-keep- 

 ers. Any person who really desires 

 to become a bee keeper, by all means 

 help him by advice, etc., but this try- 

 ing to induce everybody to keep bees, 

 I am convinced is going to benefit no- 

 bidy. The idea I urge, will beneflt 

 alike all good bee-keepers, whether 

 they combine bee-keeping with any 

 other business or not; and it will 

 cause a wide gulf between them and 

 those who let the " bees work for 

 nothing and board themselves," and 

 whose only care is to get the honey 

 every fall. 



Finally, bee-keepers who agree with 

 me in the above, de not let this mat- 

 ter rest by your simply saying, 

 " That's a good idea ;" but keep up 

 the agitation until we get a " Bee- 

 Keepers' Trade Union." No doubt 

 many will read this article, look at 

 the name of the writer, and say, 

 " Kendall I who's he V He's nobody ;" 

 and so pass it by. Never mind who 

 Kendall is, or who he is not. Call 

 him Jones if you like, but consider 



the idea, which is 

 me, on its merits, 

 us a better. That 



not original with 

 If it is bad, give 

 ' in union there is 



strength,'" is as true of bee-keepers 

 as of others ; and if we are wise we 

 will work on it. 

 Austin, Texas. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Improved Section Case. 



FRANK A. EATON. 



I have sent you one of my Section 

 Cases to be placed in the Bee Jour- 

 nal Museum. I believe the points of 

 most importance in a section case are: 



1. To have a case that the bees will 

 enter and work in the most readily. 



2. One from which the sections can 

 be removed with ease, and that will 

 keep the sections clean. 



These are what 1 claim for my Case. 

 The bees can enter all parts of it as 

 readily as in any Case I know of. The 

 sections can be removed at all times 

 of the year with ease, and without re- 

 versing the Case (as with the Hed- 

 doii Case), and driving them out, 

 thus breaking out some of the honey. 



The Heddon Case has some few 

 points of merit, but they are so few 

 that I would not use it. In the first 

 place there is valuable space taken up 

 with partitions; there is no protec- 

 tion from propolis and wax, to the 

 bottom of the sections, and they are 

 difficult to remove when full. These 

 objections are all overcome in my 

 Case. 



I prefer, for the most of the comb 

 honey, sections 43^x4J4, and 7 to the 

 foot. My Case is to be used without 

 separators, and by using sections 

 with narrow tops and bottoms, the 

 bees will seldom bulge one comb into 

 another. 



In this Case the sections set per- 

 fectly compact, which economizes all 



