THE AMERICAJM BEK JOURNAL. 



135 



is not for war. I think we may just 

 as well accept the situation first as 

 last. It will cause considerable 

 trouble and loss to many bee-keepers, 

 but in the long run I do not think 

 that it will be disastrous to the in- 

 terests of apiculture. Those who 

 have disapproved of any but special- 

 ists going into bee-keeping, should 

 hail the new regime, for it will cut out 

 all the ■' small fry " at one fell stroke. 

 It will go far to settle the '• priority of 

 location " dispute. Bees will be kept 

 on " bee-farms " instead of on small 

 lots. There will be less exposure to 

 robber bees, foul brood, mixing of 

 swarms, and other evils born of con- 

 tiguity. Dr. Miller will now see that 

 there is another phase to legal pro- 

 tection, viz : protection against bee- 

 keepers, as well as protection among 

 them. 



Our friend J. B. Hall has long flat- 

 tered himself that a special Act of 

 Parliament would be necessary before 

 municipalities could pass by-laws or- 

 dering the removal of apiaries outside 

 corporation limits, lie now finds 

 another of life's illusions rudely dis- 

 pelled. Alas ! 



Guelph, Ont. 



Tor tbe American Bee JoHmaL 



That Honey-Proicers' Conyention. 



JAMES HEDDON. 



I have read the different articles 

 upon the subject, and pondered many 

 an hour upon the feasibility of a 

 special North American Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Convention, to be held, say early 

 next May. For years I have written 

 about subjects relative to such a work, 

 and hopefully dreamed of the time 

 when something might be done 

 directly in the interest of the honey 

 producer. Let us hold a meeting 

 without a sample of or a word about 

 apiarian supplies, or how to produce 

 more honey. It is a grand thing to 

 know how to obtain a maximum yield 

 at a minimum outlay of capital and 

 labor, but as it is also a most welcome 

 state of affairs to know where and 

 how to exchange this crop into that 

 medium of all exchanges — money ; 

 and further, that we have held hun- 

 dreds of conventions, nearly all of 

 which have ignored this subject, let 

 us hold one tnree-day convention in 

 which we will exclude discussions 

 directly relating to production. Let 

 this convention be devoted to the 

 weeding out of our pursuit many 

 fallacies whicli have clogged our 

 wheels of progress. 



I have had to smile at the miscon- 

 ception on the part of many. 



Mrs. Harrison mentions the "Pope's 

 bull against the comet," and others 

 talk as though we were proposing to 

 meet for the purpose of " bucking the 

 inevitable," and uprooting all the 

 natural channels of trade. But all we 

 can hope to do is to somewhat 

 strtlighten some of them ! When we 

 read that Smith is readily getting 18 

 cents per pound for his comb honey, 

 and Jones is sellinghis (equally good) 

 for 10 cents, we know something is 



wrong with the "channels." Our 

 map shows us that these gentlemen 

 are not transportation-cost of one 

 cent per pound apart. We know that 

 these " channels " have been fingered 

 by some one, either producer through 

 ignorance,or buyers through mischief, 

 and we would like to "finger" it a 

 little ourselves. 



Mr. C. W. Dayton, on page 38, has 

 presented arguments, many of which 

 are contrary to my experience. He 

 says that when we have produced 

 more honey than will be consumed as 

 a luxury, it must supersede other 

 sweets. I say that whoever builds 

 upon that foundation must be willing 

 to sell extracted honey at 3 cents per 



Cound, and I am not;. I well remem- 

 er years ago telling some of my 

 friends that if they did not stop 

 " gushing " and exciting everybody 

 about the great profits of the bee- 

 business, they would yet see extracted 

 honey sell at less than 10 cents per 

 pound ; they laughed at that and said 

 it would never be so low ; that I was 

 " scared," and that they were " work- 

 ing in the interest of honey produc- 

 tion." Well, now it is down there, 

 and they tell us they are delighted 

 that consumers can obtain it at so 

 low a price, and that the children of 

 the poor can have more of it to eat. 

 It seems they are working for con- 

 sumers, and as they have had some- 

 thing to sell to bee-keepers all this 

 time, it is strangely possible that in 

 these arguments some of them were 

 working for themselves. 



True, honey production was once a 

 profitable business. Its followers were 

 well paid, and a well paid class of 

 customers and subscribers (even 

 though not so many of them) are bet- 

 ter for supply-dealers and bee-papers 

 than a large number of failing ones. 



A truth can be told so many times 

 that it becomes a falsehood ; so may a 

 falsehood be told so many times that 

 it becomes true. Let me illustrate 

 how these truths have affected our 

 business : Certain apicultural writers 

 said that honey production was a good 

 paying business ; that a man could 

 become rich at it; they told this 

 truth so many times that it has be- 

 come false ! Again, certain honey- 

 dealers said that the price of honey 

 was down in their city, and they told 

 that falsehood so many times that it 

 became a truth ! If you could to-day 

 make all the manufacturers, pro- 

 ducers and consumers in this country 

 believe that hard times was close 

 upon us, they would come at once 1 



It has been intimated many times 

 in this paper. that many local markets 

 have been ruined by some bee-dabbler 

 who had no means of knowing how 

 much his little crop cost him, opening 

 the market at a price below cost of 

 production. The specialist can pro- 

 duce honey cheaper than any one else, 

 and he alone can tell just what it 

 costs, because he is not backing up 

 this class of production by any other. 



Do you not think, if we hold a con- 

 vention in which we discuss the 

 " average cost of production," until 

 we settle on a figure, that a report of 

 this discussion and settlement will 

 have a tendency at least to lessen the 



number of cases where local markets 

 are ruined as before mentioned V I 

 think it will ; and if that is all we 

 shall accomplish, it would be many 

 fold more than was ever done at any 

 previous convention. We can shake 

 hands and get acquainted, and talk 

 about producing honey and wintering 

 bees, in the lobbies, the same as at 

 other conventions ; but I have not and 

 will not mention one-tenth part of 

 the advantage of such meeting. 



We overstock our field and produce 

 two pounds of extracted honey to get 

 the price of one pound of comb ; as 

 Mr. Baldridge says, we sell this two 

 pounds to a family that consumes one 

 pound a week, and wait two weeks 

 instead of one before we can make 

 another sale. Exclusive production 

 of gilt-edged comb honey is one 

 among dozens of the ways out of our 

 trouble. 



I have scarcely touched the subject 

 at the head of this article, and there 

 are some very good reasons which 

 will be brought up at that convention 

 that will not be presented before. 

 Depend upon it, we shall have the 

 most intensely interesting meeting 

 ever held by bee-keepers; one un- 

 paralleled in its promotion of the 

 " dollar and cent" interests of honey- 

 producers ; one whose report will be 

 eagerly sought, and of lasting benefit 

 to our pursuit. 



Dowagiac. ? Mich. 



For tno American Bee Journal. 



Necessity of Pollen for Bees. 



SAMUEL CUSHMAN. 



In response to Prof. Cook's article 

 on page 742 of the Bee Journal for 

 1886, 1 would say that in my article 

 on page 711 of the same volume, my 

 quotations are his exact words, as 

 any one can see by turning to " Pollen 

 Theory," on page 2-5 of the same vol- 

 ume, except that the printer put 

 " nitrogen " where I wrote nutrition. 

 I ask an interested to read the Pro- 

 fessor's essay. 



I am willing to admit that I used, 

 on page 616, the term nitrogen (" ele- 

 mentary nitrogen exists only in the one 

 form of gas") where I should have 

 used nitrogenoiis (but this was not in 

 the quotation), and that mineral salts 

 should not have been called by me 

 organic food. I do not question the 

 correctness of the analysis quoted by 

 Prof. Cook, and admit that muscle is 

 not the greater part of it nitrogen. 

 As the definition of nitrogenous is 

 " Pertaining to nitrogen or containing 

 nitrogen," the real question at issue 

 is the same. 



Albuminous or nitrogenous mater- 

 ial is found in white of eggs and milk 

 as albumen ; in cheese,caseine ; in lean 

 meat, fibrin, and ingrains as gluten. 

 The ideas given by Prof. Cook were 

 that the excreta of bee-diarrhea is 

 almost always— if not always— com- 

 posed of pollen -grains, while bees 

 that had no pollen in the hive showed 

 none in their excreta, therefore by 

 removing pollen we could prevent 

 diarrhea! That if bees were kept in 



