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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



My way of preparing the bees for 

 this object was as follows : 1 took 

 some combs out of hives where there 

 were young queens that had not be- 

 gun to lay, and where there was brood 

 hatching, and put them into an empty 

 hive, closed it up, and kept it in a 

 warm place until the drones hatched, 

 then I put the new colony in the tent 

 and inserted a selected queen-cell. 

 My idea was that as the bees were all 

 young, they would know nothing of 

 the outside world, and therefore work 

 as if in the open air, which they did 

 to a great extent. But the worst 

 trouble seemed to be that there was 

 not room for them to fly backward 

 and forward enough to locate, before 

 they would strike the canvas, and 

 therefore some of them would not 

 return to the hive ; but I almost over- 

 came this trouble by leaving the top 

 of the hive open, which did no harm, 

 for it never rained in their little 

 world. 



They worked nicely on honey which 

 I kept in the tent all the time. As I 

 was very busy I experimented with 

 only two queens, both of which proved 

 successful. I expected to try it in a 

 larger tent the coming summer, had 

 my health not failed so that I am 

 obliged to dispose of my apiary and 

 go west. 1 will give any one the 

 privilege to experiment on my plans, 

 and I feel sure success will be at- 

 tained if patience be used. 



I have always been very successful 

 with bees, and my honey was never 

 equaled by the honey of any one in 

 this locality. It has invariably taken 

 the Qrst premium wherever exhibited. 

 I sold in my own vicinitv during the 

 season of 1886, over 5,000 pounds of 

 coQib honey, at 123^ cents per pound. 



To find sale for honey it is necessary 

 to produce it in the best possible 

 shape, and create a markt't for a good 

 article. I tried shipping to commis- 

 sion men, but it did not prove satis- 

 factory. I shipped a car-load to Chi- 

 cago during 1883, and I had part of it 

 shipped back, which I sold for 16 cents 

 per pound, while it was worth only 8 

 or 10 cents in Chicago. 



Munster,5 Ills. 



Read at the Vermont Convention. 



Marketing onr 'Crop Of Honey, 



MISS M. A. DOUGLAS. 



At the close of our annual honey 

 season, or doubtless before, to the 

 intelligent, enterprising bee-keeper 

 the ever-recurring question, " Shall 

 we sell our honey or give it away V" 

 presents itself in all its different 

 phases, for his careful consideration. 



It the fruits of the apiary are to 

 yield profitably it depends very largely 

 upon the sale of our honey, and we 

 are glad that so many well-developed 

 minds are at work seeking to solve 

 this intricate problem. I am told that 

 in Orwell. Vt., they have what is 

 known as the Fruit-Growers' Associa- 

 tion, for the purpose of disposing of 

 their products. Would it be advis- 

 able or possible for the " many men 

 of many minds" belonging to the 



bee-keeping fraternity to accomplish 

 anything by this method 'i 



In the editorial of a recent copy of 

 the American Apiculturist, I find the 

 following significant suggestions: 

 " The unequal distribution is evident 

 to the observing man, and if the pro- 

 ducer would sell his honey in country 

 villages and to his neighbors at the 

 price the commission man pays him, 

 there would be but little left to ship 

 to the city markets, and we think 

 there would not be honey enough to 

 go around." I should like to give 

 special emphasis to the fact that un- 

 fortunately the producer is too many 

 steps from the consumer. 



Last fall one of my neighbors sent 

 a shipment of honey to a leading com- 

 mission house in Boston, where just 

 the commission was 10 per cent.— $10 

 for every $100 sale— besides freight 

 and cartage. He expressed the opin- 

 ion that that rate was too high, and 

 as the old man said, " Them's just ray 

 sentiments too ;" and they would cer- 

 tainly be endorsed by the commission 

 man himself, if he only realized the 

 amount of expense and labor repre- 

 sented by every crate of honey, to say 

 nothing of the stings and arrows of 

 those outrageous bees— "the heart- 

 ache and the thousand natural shocks 

 that flesh is heir to" — a consumma- 

 tion not devoutly to be wished ! 



The editor above referred to also 

 remarks that " there is not a country 

 market where honey is kept on sale 

 all the year round. If honey were 

 kept prominently before the people as 

 certain lines of pickles or chow-chow, 

 there would be much more sold. The 

 bee-keeping pursuit is away behind 

 everything else in its method of ad- 

 vertising ; even our county fairs— the 

 place above all others for calling peo- 

 ple's attention to our product— are in a 

 great measure neglected. If it pays 

 to advertise every other thing under 

 the sun, it pays to advertise honey. 

 It pays to circulate leaflets. If those 

 already printed by different publishers 

 do not suit the locality, print one that 

 does; distribute fancy cards with 

 your business, and you will sell honey 

 directly under the nose of the bee- 

 keeper who does not advertise. 



" There is at present a great com- 

 plaint about low prices, but 5 cents 

 per pound for extracted, and 10 cents 

 for comb honey ought not to scare the 

 enterprising producer. (I fear it may 

 be conducive to blues I) It will cause 

 it to be put into the hands of thou- 

 sands who never tasted honey before. 

 It will furthermore have a tendency 

 to make it a staple article." But to 

 bring this about I am firmly convinced 

 that one more thing is needful— peo- 

 ple must be more thoroughly enlight- 

 ened upon the subject ! 



During last fall a business man 

 called upon me to purchase some 

 hnney. In our conversation I men- 

 tioned some extracted honey which I 

 had for sale, and to my great aston- 

 ishment, he did not know what it was 

 —had never seen any— so of course I 

 had the pleasure of exhibiting some. 

 It is my custom, as far as possible, to 

 avoid speaking of liquid honey as 

 " strained," because that expression 

 is so suggestive of filth. 



If the consumers were better posted 

 as regards the medicinal properties of 

 honey, it certainly would be used 

 freely, habitually and universally, 

 and quack-doctors would have turned 

 to them a cold shoulder. Speaking 

 from personal experience, I believe it 

 is second to no other medicine for a 

 cold, and its use is reported to have 

 cured lung trouble and warded of 

 diphtheria. Then our dyspeptic 

 friends will be glad to know that it 

 aids digestion, and debilitated per- 

 sons rejoice because it feeds and 

 strengthens the muscles. 



Next let us consider it briefly from 

 an economic point of view. Suppose 

 a pound of honey costs 10 cents, and a 

 pound of butter 20 cents ; since these 

 foods are unlike, they can only be 

 compared by market value ; hence we 

 have two pounds of honey equal to 

 one pound of butter. 



Again, in speaking of the low rates 

 of honey, almost all other lines of 

 goods are proportionally low, and it is 

 not entirely discouraging to the api- 

 arist, unless he be one of those un- 

 fortunate, constitutionally tired crea- 

 tures who is satisfied to rest on the 

 down-hill side of his occupation with- 

 out even a struggle to so much as get 

 a glimpse of the summit from afar ; 

 distress and starvation stare him in 

 the face, and as a final result he will 

 be left behind, and eventually " frozen 

 out." On the other hand, the enthu- 

 siastic honey-man will resort to the 

 "intensive system," and learn to pro- 

 duce more pounds of honey at a cost 

 less than ever before. 



It is asserted that almost every 

 thing is adulterated now-a-days, and 

 this state of affairs should be favor- 

 able to the apiarist, for when once 

 reputation for furnishing pure honey 

 is established, success is almost in- 

 evitable I Buyers that are accus- 

 tomed to flrst-class honey, put up in 

 attractive packages, are not satisfied 

 with any second grades, but we have 

 occasional accounts which give greater 

 stress to the point that the taste of 

 consumers should by some means be 

 cultivated to demand only the A No. 

 1 article. Mrs. Mahala Chaddock, of 

 Illinois, evidently believes in suiting 

 the article to the customer, judging 

 from the following extract from an 

 experience recently given by her un- 

 der the head of " Honey in too much 

 style:" 



" Two or three weeks ago I sold a 

 man a box of honey. I drove up to 

 his grocery and gave him the box and 

 told him I would come back and at- 

 tend to it after I had tied the team. I 

 did not get back quite as soon as I ex- 

 pected, and when I did I heard the 

 conversation in the next room. The 

 man said : ' May be she won't want 

 you to cut it out.' ' I don't care what 

 she wants,' said the woman, ' we buy 

 the honey and pay for it. We can't 

 eat the boards, and we are not going 

 to pay for them. If we have got to 

 eat boards for a living, we can go to 

 the lumber-yard and get some cheaper 

 than these.' 



" Here I went in, hoping to stop the 

 desecration if possible ; but it was too 

 late. I had been very careful to get 

 that nice honey all into good shape. 



