1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1147 



queens; but even under these very unusual 

 conditions the vast majority of colonies re- 

 fuse to have more than one queen; and if it 

 were at all natural for them to have all of 

 these queens, I am positive that, during the 

 many years bees have been handled by in- 

 telligent men, there would have been many 

 colonies found having a plurality of queens, 

 thus indicating that such was a primary in- 

 stinct of bee nature. No one need come for- 

 ward telling me that such has been the case 

 when queens were failing, for I am perfectly 

 aware of the fact; but I am speaking of per- 

 fectly normal conditions. 



I have been using two queens to build col- 

 onies up faster than was possible with one, 

 especially when a flow was near at hand and 

 the time not sufficiently long for the best 

 success under the old practice; but as I said 

 before, I have had no success in the way 

 Mr. Alexander mentions. Some colonies 

 operated in this way last year gave 180 lbs. 

 of honey during fourteen days of sumac 

 bloom, while the ones not handled in this 

 way gave an average of only 50 lbs. I am 

 not trying to take away any of the credit 

 that belongs to Mr. Alexander; but, while a 

 very great bee-keeper, he is fallible just as 

 common men, and it is no more a mistake 

 for him to be mistaken than for any other 

 man. All but fools make mistakes; and while 

 entirely successful in his own locality and 

 practice, I think Mr. Alexander is away off 

 for most of us, and I am basing my conclu- 

 sions on several years' experiments on or 

 along this very line. I am no novice in such 

 experiments, I can assure you. 



Vigo, Texa«. 



[Mr. Chambers finds it "entirely practic- 

 able to use two queens in each hive in order 

 to get colonies strong enough for a given 

 honey-flow when otherwise it would not be 

 possible to bring them up to the desired 

 strength; but so far I have found it impossible 

 to do so withotit the use of means to keep 

 them .sej)ara^e "—italics ours. Keep what 

 separate — queens or bees? "Means to keep 

 them separate." Does the word "means" 

 refer to perforated zinc or wire cloth? Even 

 if we have to use perforated zinc between 

 the two queens, both in one colony, if we can 

 thereby get colonies stronger for the harvest 

 we have gained much. What we desii'e to 

 know is, can two queens be used under some 

 conditions? and, if so, what are those condi- 

 tions? See article by Mr. Alexander in this 

 issue. — Ed.] 



— t m 



A SEASON'S WORK WITH SECTIONAL 

 HIVES. 



Swarra Control and Comb-honey Produc- 

 tion; Disposing of the Honey Crop. 



BY J. E. HAND. 



Having secured a nice crop of fancy hon- 

 ey, the next thing to be considered is how to 

 turn it into cash to the best advantage. This 

 is the business end of honey-production, and 

 our success will depend in a great measure 



upon our ability to dispose of our product to 

 good advantage. 



WHEN TO SELL HONEY. 



It is said that the best time to set a hen is 

 when she wants to sit; so the time to sell 

 honey is just as soon as you have some to 

 sell. Many bee-keepers make a mistake in 

 holding their honey too long. As a rule it 

 is far Ijetter for the honej'^-producer of the 

 Middle and Eastern States to market their 

 honey early before the heavy carload ship- 

 ments of Western honey arrive to glut the 

 Eastern markets. After the close of the ber- 

 ry season there is always a good demand for 

 comb honey at a good price; and this is the 

 time that we rush our honey to market. 



HOW SHALL WE DISPOSE OF OUR CHOP? 



There are several ways of disposing of the 

 honey crop. One way is to send it to a re- 

 liable commission house to be sold on com- 

 mission, and this is, perhaps, the easiest way 

 of all, providing you are in no hurry for 

 your money, for some of the commission 

 houses have a habit of holding on to the 

 money as long as possible, and very often 

 the returns from such sales are far from sat- 

 isfactory to the bee-keeper. 



Another way of disposing of the honey 

 crop is to develop the home market by plac- 

 ing our product in the groceries in near-by 

 towns and villages instead of sending it to 

 the cities to come into competition with the 

 carload shipments of Western honey. 



We strongly favor selling outright instead 

 of consigning our hard-earned honey crop 

 to the tender mercies of the commission man; 

 but whether or not it will pay us to develop 

 the home market will depend in a great 

 measure upon how much our time is worth. 

 If we have to neglect our business to go out 

 and drum up a trade or build up a market, 

 and in so doing spend five dollars' worth of 

 time for every ten or fifteen dollars' worth 

 of honey we sell, we should prefer sending 

 our product to a market that is already de- 

 veloped, and let the other fellow, whose time 

 is not so fully taken up, have the glory of 

 developing the home market. 



We have tried this idea of developing the 

 home mai-ket, and it has been a losing game 

 with us; hence our fancy honey usually goes 

 to the cities, and is sold outright to a respon- 

 sible firm that handles large quantities^ of 

 honey. We do not come into competition 

 with the heavy shipments of Western honey, 

 for the reason that, by selling early, before 

 the Western honey arrives, and at a time 

 when there is usually a lively demand for a 

 fancy article, we have found, as a rule, that 

 we get better prices for our honey than by 

 selling later in the season. We have found 

 some difficulty in placing honey as late in 

 the season as December, and this past season 

 our honey was cleaned up in August. 



HOW CAN WE REACH THE LARGE BUYERS 

 OF HONEY? 



There are different ways of reaching the 

 large buyers in the cities. One way is by 

 personal correspondence through the mails, 



