952 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 15 



anti-bee fellows will make capital of that, 

 and say you are claiming- that bees aid the 

 growth of the green leaves. Of course, you 

 mean that a crop of seed can not be grown 

 so well without bees, and thus the hay crop 

 will be indirectly injured; but the presence 

 or absence of bees can have nothing what- 

 ever to do with the growth of the hay itself. 

 [Technically speaking, your point is well 

 taken; but in the aggregate, taking- one 

 season with another, my statement is cor- 

 rect. Without good seed — seed that will 

 germinate — the plants will be scattered 

 here and there, a good many missing-, and 

 the field will be correspondingly poor for 

 many years to come, or so long as the old 

 roots are allowed to grow hay. — Ed.] 



"Automatic selp-hiving " is a head- 

 ing, presumably the editor's, p. 929. Now, 

 Mr. Editor, please tell us what kind of 

 self-hiving you could have that wasn't au- 

 tomatic, or what kind of automatic hiving 

 you could have that wasn't self-hiving. 

 Next time you overload an item with that 

 kind of a heading, please cross out part of 

 it in the copy mailed to me. I wouldn't 

 have said any thing about it if you hadn't 

 stabbed me in my " eagle eye, " page 927. 

 [Yes, surely that was a slip. Self-hiving 

 and automatic hiving mean the same thing, 

 and are, therefore, an unnecessary repeti- 

 tion of words. Oh how I wish that you were 

 editor of a bee-paper! Was it not Job who 

 said, "Oh that mine adversary had written 

 a book! " ? Some day, when I am laid up, 

 and get so old I can not do any more jour- 

 nal work, I will call on a young friend like 

 you to take my place, and then won't I 

 "rub it in"? Our proof-reader, however, 

 says he is very sure I wrote it " automatic 

 or self-hiving. " He isthe stenographer who 

 took down my dictation, and ought to 

 know. We both of us in the proof-reading 

 missed the error. But, say; once in a while 

 we catch a slip in your copj^ and fix it. — 

 Ed.] 



Quotations of the Chicago market, page 

 907, show that a case of sections weighing 

 16 oz. each will bring no more than a case 

 of those weighing 15 oz. each, if as much. 

 It is hardly possible that a consumer would 

 prefer a 15-oz. section to one weighing 16 oz. 

 Isn't there something a little rotten about 

 the Chicago grocery trade? [Not if the 

 public has lost or is losing sight of an even 

 pound package. I have contended for some 

 time that consumers, when they pay 15 or 

 16 cents, pay that amount for a cake or box 

 of honey, and not for a pound of it — nothing 

 rotten, nothing wrong about this whole 

 business if this is the case. Then how 

 much more convenient for the retailer to 

 sell a cake of honey for an even figure at 

 even change without weighing and figuring 

 up the price! If 15 ounces of honey are 

 worth 18 cents (whatever the retail price 

 may be), what is the harm of selling it for 

 18 cents? The scheme of selling honey by 

 the piece is corning more and more into 

 vogue. There is no more objection to sell- 



ing honey that way than to sell eggs by the 

 dozen. Leghorn eggs will bring just as 

 much in the market as any of the larger 

 eggs of Asiatic fowls; and as long as they 

 are not rotten there is nothing rotten in the 

 transaction. Well-graded honey averages 

 about the same weight per box in a case. 

 W^e will say one box weighs 14, one 14 '2, 

 and another one 15 ounces. The customer 

 can have his choice out of any of the boxes 

 if there is a choice; but as a rule he will 

 take whatever is given him, without any 

 questions. Here is some poor dark honey. 

 It brings a less price per box; but it will 

 all average up about the same. Is there 

 any thing rotten in that kind of business? 

 To my way of thinking, there is not. You 

 possibly assume that the growing tendency 

 for selling honey by the piece is based on 

 deception to the consumer — making him 

 think he is getting 16 ounces when he is 

 getting only 15 for his money. In this I 

 think you are wrong. The practice has 

 come about because of closer grading and 

 the convenience of the S3-stem — no waiting; 

 no weighing; no figuring, and no mistakes. 

 Why, don't you know that now there is 

 less and less of buying of groceries by 

 weight? Neat pretty packages of food 

 stuffs already put up, ready to hand out 

 to the customer without wrapping, are be- 

 coming more and more popular. If jou buy 

 a package of Pettijohn's or of Force you 

 don't know the weight, and don't ask. If 

 you are charged too much, a competing 

 manufacturer will cut the price. Well, 

 why shouldn't comb honey follow the gen- 

 eral trend of custom? — Ed.] 



Ye editor, p. 927, thinks he has the joke 

 on me because my " eagle eye " didn't dis- 

 cover his slip in arithmetic. Must have 

 been that I shut my " eagle eye " and look- 

 ed at his " sum " w^ith the other eye. Now 

 that I've got both eyes upon it, Mr. Editor, 

 I must say that both 3'ou and Mr. Clarke 

 are a little off when you say that a bee- 

 keeper whose honey nets him 10 cents a 

 pound loses money if he doesn't get 10 cents 

 a pound for sections that cost him more than 

 that. Why don't j'ou say that he loses 

 money if he doesn't get back any thing for 

 the can in which he ships extracted honey? 

 [But Mr. Clarke and I were talking about 

 the question whether sections at $10 a thou- 

 sand could be sold, when honey nets 10 cts. 

 per lb., so that the purchaser of the sections 

 in selling to the purchaser of the honey 

 would lose no money on the sections when 

 they were sold again. I originally ad- 

 vanced the proposition that one could pay 

 even as high as $10 a thousand for his sec- 

 tions; and at a net price of 10 cts. for hon- 

 ey a?id the section, he would get back his 

 money on the section. In this I was mis- 

 taken. But it is true, as you partly sug- 

 gest, that a bee-beeper could afford to pay 

 $10 a thousand for his sections, and he 

 would be paying no more for his package, 

 if as much, as the extracted-honey man who 

 puts up his honey in glass and tin for re- 



