1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



99 



would be offered that the hired man, or some of the boys, had 

 packed some. This "some" is usually an unknown, or at 

 least indefinite, quantity. After finding a few cases that were 

 not as represented, the dealer loses confidence, and will not 

 purchase except at a low price. 



In closing, I will say that marketing honey is very much 

 like marketing any other commodity — give people good goods, 

 honestly and neatly put up, and delivered in good condition, 

 and you will have no difficulty in realizing the best figures the 

 market will warrant. 



I omitted to state that the same care should be taken in 

 handling your amber and dark honey that is taken with the 

 white. L. H. Ayers. 



In reply to a quesition, Mr. Ayers said that extracted 

 honey was hard to handle. He probably sold twenty-five times 

 as much comb honey as extracted. There was a lack of con- 

 fidence in extracted honey, and when it candied, people thought 

 it was impure. California extracted honey had given the best 

 satisfaction of any extracted honey that they had handled. It 

 was put up in uniform packages, (the 60-pound tin), was 

 always white, and could be bought at a low price. 



Mr. Aspinwall — I presume that you have had some expe- 

 rience in selling honey to manufacturers, such as tobacconists, 

 bakers, etc. 



Mr. Ayers — I have tried selling it to tobacco men, and 

 have sold them some, but the trouble is that the retail dealers 

 will keep their tobacco where it is damp, so that it will " hold 

 out in weight," and the result is that the honey ferments and 

 spoils the tobacco. Candy-makers use very little honey. 

 Bakers use some, but they scour the whole country to find 

 honey that can be bought way down, down, below what we 

 can sell it for. Brewers will not admit that they use it at all. 

 I must relate one little incident of my trying to deal with a 

 druggist. I received a lot of broken comb honey, and the only 

 way to use it was to melt it up, take off the cake of wax that 

 rises to the top and sell the balance as extracted honey. I did 

 this myself and put the honey into a wooden firkin. Soon 

 after, a drug clerk came in and asked if we had any extracted 

 honey. I took him back and showed him this honey and gave 

 him a sample. Later I called at the store, but was told that 

 the honey was not wanted as it was adulterated. I told them 

 that I took the honey from the combs myself and knew what I 

 was talking about, and that it was pure honey if ever there 

 was any. That made no difference, they said that their chem- 

 ist had tested it and found it impure, besides, he had applied 

 the cold test and it failed to granulate (?). I told them that 

 they need not buy the honey, but it was pure and I knew it. 

 In a few weeks another customer came in and inquired for 

 extracted honey and I took him back to show him this lot of 

 honey, when, lo and behold, it had candied solid ! I tell you, I 

 have mighty little faith in these chemists and food commis- 

 sioners. Down in Ohio the food commissioner pronounced 

 some buckwheat flour, that came from one of the largest man- 

 ufacturers in the world, as adulterated. The manufacturer 

 brought suit for .$20,000 damages, and then the food commis- 

 sioner took it all back, and said that " the boys " in the office 

 did the work while he was away. Now the manufacturer is 

 sending out circulars broadcast with this "retraction." The 

 influence of such food commissioner must have considerable 

 weight!?) 



Mr. Koeppen — Did you ever try having shippers put paper 

 in the bottoms of the cases to keep the houey from dripping 

 through if it should leak from the sections ? 



Mr. Ayers — I don't know as I have, but I should think it 

 might be a good thing, if the paper would absorb all of the 

 honey. The trouble is that the honey leaks out of the case 

 and daubs the one below it. 



Mr. Hutchinson — Some have used heavy manilla paper 

 that will hold the honey, and have folded it in the shape of a 

 shallow tray that would just cover the bottom of the case. 



Mr. Ayers — I should think that that might be a good 

 scheme. 



Mr. Aspinwall next gave a talk upon the 



PREVENTION OF SWARMING. 



Some of the readers of the American Bee Journal may 

 remember that several years ago, Mr. Aspinwall invented 

 machinery for the making of wooden combs, and expected that 

 their use would prevent the rearing of drones, and in this way 

 swarming would be prevented. For several reasons the use of 

 wooden combs and the results that had been hoped for were 

 not successes, but their use led to an arrangement that prom- 

 ises to prevent swarming. Mr. Aspinwall had upon exhibition 

 a hive arranged for the prevention of swarming. In the 

 spaces between the combs are placed half-inch boards perfo- 

 rated with holes large enough for the bees to pass through ; in 



fact, these boards are really halves of the wooden combs, but 

 with no septum. The theory is that swarming results from a 

 crowded condition of the brood-nest, and the introduction of 

 these wooden combs, or half combs, doubles the standing-room 

 in the brood-nest. Besides this, it has been claimed that bees 

 do not swarm when there is storage-room in the brood-nest, 

 and it is possible that the bees look upon the half, wooden 

 combs as unfilled cells, but no honey is stored in them because 

 the cells have no bottoms. It matters not whether these theo- 

 ries are corrector not ; at least, we are not so much interested 

 in them as we are in knowing that seven colonies treated in 

 this manner last year did not swarm, and stored an average of 

 30 pounds of surplus to the colony, while seven other colonies 

 by their side all swarmed and stored almost no surplus at all. 

 These separating boards are not put in until just before the 

 swarming season and are taken out again after it is past. 

 Mr. Aspinwall has patented his invention. Next year it will 

 be tried by a few well-known bee-keepers, and also at the 

 Michigan Experiment Apiary. 



Next came an essay from Mr. James Heddon, which was 

 read by the Secretary, on 



Apicultural Literature. 



I was so very anxious to attend this meeting, and conse- 

 quently determined to do so, I thought nothing would stop me 

 except sickness ; but in that I was mistaken. I have two 

 offices down town ; the lease for one of them expired, and un- 

 expectedly I was compelled to move, and to reasonably oblige 

 my successor, I found it impossible to leave home. 



I hope I may read in the report of your cogitations, that 

 you have honestly, earnestly, fearlessly, conscientiously and 

 JaithfuUy considered the subject given me — a subject which I 

 believe demands the immediate and serious consideration of 

 honey-producers. While it is a fact that the apicultural lit- 

 erature you purchase costs very little, compared to your in- 

 come and out-go, at the same time its influence upon your 

 success or failure, is vnvmense. Any business can be correctly 

 judged by its literature. 



Were I looking toward no interests except that of supply 

 dealers and professors connected with our business, I would 

 have no fault to find, for the present condition into which our 

 literature has degenerated, answers their purposes very well ; 

 but when we come to consider the financial interest of the 

 spinal column of our business — the honey-producers — he is 

 getting fearfully little besides that which is misleading, as 

 compared with our literature of years ago. We had but little 

 in quantity then, but the quality of it, considering the status 

 of apiculture at that time, was certainly infinitely superior to 

 what we have now. It seems to me that the good old Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal has fallen into nothing but an echo of Glean- 

 ings. We all know that its editor is not a bee-keeper, having 

 no practical knowledge of the business, and that Gleanings' 

 editor (a bee-keeper of over 20 years ago) has so exchanged 

 the practical for the theoretical, that it would be just as well 

 for us had he never produced a pound of honey. It is impos- 

 sible for these men to either write or select first-class articles. 

 On page 658, of current American Bee Journal, is an 

 article by C. Davenport, and while we cannot endorse all of it, 

 we have no doubt but that it is really the best article appear- 

 ing in that journal for the year 1894. Perhaps not the best 

 article, either, but surely one of the very best, and the whole 

 tone of it bears positive evidence of the honest, practical, bee- 

 keeper, and that is saying a great deal. Any literarian would 

 know, after reading that article, that C. Davenport will suc- 

 ceed as a honey-producer, anywhere, and that he prints facts, 

 and not falsehoods or fancies, in every line. Now, the editor 

 of the American Bee Journal, no doubt, headed the article, 

 which is as follows : " Something from a Big Bee-Man." In 

 the second line it is stated by Mr. Davenport, that his apiaries 

 contain 367 colonies, and those figures account for the adjec- 

 tive in the heading. Further than that, Bro. York did not 

 go, because he did not see. In his closing paragraph, Mr. D. 

 says that some time he will tell us all about the kind of hive 

 he uses, how he controls swarming, about different varieties 

 of bees and their improvement, together with how they are 

 degenerated under some of the popular plans for the suppres- 

 sion of swarming. Not a word of comment by the editor. No 

 invitation to come on with the articles ; nota public invitation 

 to encourage such a writer; aud all because Bro. York didn't 

 know ; he isn't a honey-producer. [See editorials on page 

 104, beginning, "Mr. C. Davenport's Article," and "My 

 Bees and Honey." — Editor.] 



On page 932, of Gleanings (1894) begins an article un- 

 der the caption, "Locating and Managing Out-Apiaries." 

 Then the sub-head, evidently filled in by Bro. Root, reads as 

 follows : " A valuable and practical treatment of the subject, 

 from a practical man." This article is by E. France, and in 



