THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



57 



For tlie American Bco Journal. 



Glassed and UnElassed Honey Sections. 



C. JI. CRANDALL. 



The market quotation from Kan- 

 sas City, >[o., casts reflections on 

 what the commission tirm terms 

 " home bee-keepers." 1 am so fortu- 

 nate as to be one of the " home bee- 

 keepers " referred to, and liad a good 

 percentage of that 70,000 pounds of 

 honey tliat was said to be kept out of 

 the Kansas City market until late. 

 The assertion that the " home bee- 

 keepers " held their honey till about 

 Dec. 1, or until that report was made, 

 was untrue. I have had honey in the 

 Kansas City market every hour since 

 July l,188t>; I also had glassed and 

 unglassed, side by side, in not less 

 than three commission houses ; and 

 so have Messrs. L. W., A. A. and P. 

 Baldwin, J. H. Jones, C. K. Ormsby, 

 A. R. Matthews, John Conser, and 

 others. More than 60 per cent, of our 

 crop sold by Oct. 15, and fully 90 per 

 cent, of it was glassed ; but it was not 

 as bad a case of " glassing " as the 

 commission Arm would have the vast 

 army of intelligent readers believe. 



They say that 160 pounds of honey 

 has 60 pounds of glass on it ; while the 

 truth is that when we glass both sides 

 there is less than 36 pounds of glass 

 on 160 pounds of honey. While they 

 have been selling honey consigned to 

 them for 11 to 13 cents per pound un- 

 glassed, the "home beekeepers" 

 have been selling their honey (not a 

 whit better) through other commis- 

 sion houses for 14 and 15 cents per 

 pound, and both sides glassed. 



While the commission Brm in ques- 

 tion has been lighting glassed honey, 

 and denouncing it as a fraud, our cus- 

 tomers have demanded glassed honey, 

 and if that commission firm would 

 read the Bee Journal they would 

 see in the New York quotations 

 glassed honey quoted at 1 cent per 

 pound higher than unglas.sed, and 

 that, too, in a market where 70,000 

 pounds would cut a small figure. 



I will say for the benefit of all com- 

 mission firms, that as long as our cus- 

 tomers demand honey glassed, the 

 " home beekeepers " will furnish it, 

 and they will not " hold back till 

 late," and then throw it on the mar- 

 ket and reduce the prices, but will do 

 as we did this year, and for the last 

 twelve years, namely, stock the Kan- 

 sas City market early in July, and try 

 to keep the honey market up, and not 

 try to run it down, as that commis- 

 sion house has tried to do for the last 

 two years. If they had staid with the 

 " home bee-keepers " and held the 

 market up, we could have obtained 15 

 cents for our " home bee-keepers' " 

 70,000 pounds, as well as the hundreds 

 of thousands of pounds shipped to 

 Kansas City from other points. 



In conclusion I wish to say this to 

 bee-keepers who ship honey to the 

 Kansas City market : When you send 

 a fine article, limit the commission 

 merchant to some price. I have seen 

 thousands of pounds of honey in Kan- 

 sas City shipped from Iowa. Wiscon- 

 sin, Michigan. Illinois and other 



points— as nice an article and in as 

 find condition as any— sent here with- 

 out a price set on it, and I have seen 

 that honey sold this year for 11 cents 

 per pound, when, if we had all held 

 for 14 or 15 cents, it would have 

 brought that. The bee-keepers of 

 western Missouri and eastern Kansas 

 have always tried to hold the market 

 up, and have always succeeded, until 

 honey from other points was thrown 

 on the market and sold at the first otter. 

 Independence, +o Mo. 



[This illustrates one of the evils 

 complained of concerning the "Honey 

 Market Reports." It is one that never 

 should have existed— that of wedging 

 free advertising into market quotations. 

 Hereafter we shall omit all such mat- 

 ter, and confine the reports to the 

 figures without remarks, except to 

 express the state of the market — such 

 as active, dull, lively, quiet, etc. We 

 hope that all other bee-periodicals 

 will do likewise ; and thus do away 

 with one abuse of the privileges here- 

 tofore granted. — Ed.] 



For the American Bee Jonmal. 



Leiislation for Bee-Keepers. 



J. E. POND. 



The question of priority of location 

 of an apiary is one on which my views 

 are so well known, that I need not, 

 neither do I care, to discuss it ; but 

 the question of legislation on that 

 subject is one on which more light is 

 needed, and for that reason may well 

 have a small share of attention. 



Special legislation has at all times, 

 in civilized nations, been a matter of 

 serious thought, and one that has 

 been severely criticised. It is simply 

 making laws for the protection of a 

 certain class against all others, and as 

 a consequence the means of creating 

 monopolies. The importance and 

 gravity of the question is such, that 

 only for the strongest possible logical 

 reasons, or perhaps (unfortunately) 

 for the bribe of a large sum of money, 

 has any special law affecting the re- 

 lations of business ever been passed. 



So far as apiculture is concerned, 

 the Congress of the United States has 

 no power to legislate in the matter ; 

 each and every State alone having the 

 right under the federal compact to 

 make laws that will govern or control. 

 Now the question arises, can any 

 State make any law whatever, that 

 will give any one man more rights 

 than another to keep bees in a c,ertain 

 locality, that will work fairly and im- 

 partially ? If so. what? In the first 

 place, bees are foragers, and do not 

 confine their predatory visits to any 

 given field ; neither can they be so 

 confined ; hence the illustration of 

 breeders on the plains has no force 

 here. 



Originally, society in a crude state 

 had no boundaries' ; there was land 

 enough for all. Soon, however, in- 

 crease of population made such 



boundaries necessary, and the land 

 tenure obtained. Apply this to bees : 

 If a certain man owns all the land for 

 a radius of Wse: or six miles from a 

 given centre, and keeps his bees at 

 that centre, he may well claim that no 

 one else siiall keep a colony on his 

 land ; but how about the case, should 

 he place his apiary directly on the 

 boundary between himself and his 

 neighbor ? Again, suppose the neigh- 

 bor owns all the land save one-fourth 

 of an acre ; can any equitable law be 

 framed that would say the owner of 

 the one-fourth of an acre may keep 

 bees, while the owner of the rest of a 

 large township shall keep none V 



In my opinion, the whole question 

 resolves itself to this : Bee-keeping, 

 like every other occupation, should be 

 governed by the same general laws, 

 competition alone being allowed to 

 control. The man who is the best 

 qualified by study and experience, 

 and who by the application of his 

 mental powers can produce honey the 

 cheapest, will be the winner in the 

 race. In other words, the " survival 

 of the fittest " is the only law that 

 can be made that will prove just and 

 equitable. 



If the state of things were such that 

 a certain person was obliged by law 

 to keep bees, then perhaps equitable 

 laws could be framed to protect him ; 

 but so long as we all in common have 

 the legal right to labor in a certain 

 field or not, the choice being our own, 

 it certainly is cowardly on our part to 

 ask for any protection that is not 

 given equally to any other branch of 

 business. As a lawyer, I might as 

 well ask that no bee-specialist should 

 attempt to occupy my field, as for 

 him to ask that I should not be al- 

 lowed to keep bees, simply on the 

 question of priority. 



Foxboro,o* Mass. 



For tue American Bee JoumaL 



DisturMng Bees in Winter, 



p. M. PUHL. 



In regard to disturbing bees in win- 

 ter, my experience has been the re- 

 verse of Dr. Mason's, as described on 

 page 8. In November, 1883, 1 put 149 

 colonies into a cellar under a kitchen, 

 the hives being placed 5 tiers high, 

 about 3 inches from the ceiling. The 

 kitchen was 1-5x23 feet, and was the 

 children's play-room, when not in use. 

 When they were in it, I would go into 

 the cellar to hear what effect it would 

 have on the bees, and it seemed like 

 being in a boiler-shop with all hands 

 at work. I would give the children a 

 signal to stop playing, so I could hear 

 if it bothered the bees. But they 

 were as still as could be. 



I swept the floor once a week, and 

 five times during the winter I scraped 

 the dead bees from the bottom-boards 

 with a wire hook. I had one colony 

 that I could get at conveniently, and 

 I uncovered it every time that I went 

 into the cellar ; at least a dozen times 

 I took out combs to see what they 

 were doing. 



On April 14, 1884, 1 took out of the 

 cellar 148 colonies, and I never before. 



