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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



unately, I did not let him know when 

 I was coming, and, consequently, he 

 was unable to get any bee-keepers to 

 meet me, but he was most hospitable, 

 taking me for a five hours' drive 

 through the city, and showing me all 

 the " lions " of the place. 



From there T went to see Mr. Da- 

 dant. He is a Frenchman, who set- 

 tled in America some years ago, and 

 with his son carries on the business 

 of bee-keeping. They also make a 

 large quantity of comb foundation. 

 Last year they turned out 70,000 

 pounds of foundation, but this year 

 not more than 50,000 pounds, as the 

 season had been such a bad one. It 

 is the best natural-based foundation 

 I have seen in America. They melt 

 about 3.000 pounds of wax at a time, 

 and in this way are able to get the 

 color uniform. The foundation most 

 in demand in America is the natural- 

 base foundation made on the Vander- 

 voort machine. They also produce a 

 large quantity of extracted honey, 

 and a little comb honey. They work 

 for extracted honey just as we do, by 

 storifying or putting one hive on 

 another. Their hive is a little larger 

 than the Langstroth hive, with supers 

 about 6 inches deep. These frames 

 are used for extracting. They have 

 400 colonies now. This year has been 

 a very bad year, they having obtained 

 only 9,000 pounds of honey. I think 

 the bad season is demonstrated by the 

 fact that their issue of foundation 

 this year has been 20,000 pounds less 

 than last year's. 



From the Dadants' I went back to 

 Chicago, and also spent a little more 

 time at Lansing. From there we 

 traveled on to Toledo to see Dr. 

 Mason. He was out, but he visited 

 me in the evening, and we had a chat 

 about bees and other matters. I found 

 him a very nice, agreeable gentleman, 

 quite well up in bee-matters. 



Mr. Cutting, Secretary of the Mich- 

 igan Association, who is a very smart 

 and energetic worker in our cause, 

 accompanied him, and I regretted 

 time did not permit me to stay longer 

 to visit them. 



From Toledo we passed on to 

 Medina, where we saw Mr. Root and 

 his son Ernest. Mr. Root is the edi- 

 tor of Oleanings, and he and his son 

 made our stay there most pleasant. 

 They are both very intelligent and 

 anxious to pick up information. We 

 spent a very agreeable time at Medina. 

 Mr. Root is a very different kind of 

 man from what I had pictured him. 

 He is short, thin, and seems quite 

 worn out with work. He has worked 

 extremely hard, and has succeeded 

 better than any one else on that side 

 of the ocean in popularizing bee-keep- 

 ing, and creating a demand for appli- 

 ances. He employs 150 hands, mak- 

 ing nothing but hives and appliances. 

 Everything is turned out on a large 

 scale. He has machinery for doing 

 almost everything, and it was quite a 

 treat going over his large factory and 

 his yard. I met one or two English- 

 men employed there, who seemed well 

 satisfied with their lot. I found men 

 hard at work when I visited the 

 manufactory, one making the metal 

 corners for the frames was stamping 



them out by a very ingenious machine 

 for the purpose. 



At Mr. Root's, as I had my micro- 

 scope with me, I was enabled to clear 

 up some points respecting foul brood. 

 He knew all about foul brood practi- 

 cally, but had not been able to make 

 any close investigation of it micro- 

 scopically. I must tell you that 

 wherever I went I found the micro- 

 scopes in use inferior to that I had 

 with me. Even Prof. Cook had not 

 seen the germs themselves, although 

 he had a mounted slide containing 

 specimens. When I showed him the 

 bacillus under my microscope with a 

 one-twelfth Powell's oil immersion, 

 he was much interested. There was 

 no instrument in the college with such 

 magnifying power. Mr. Root told 

 me he had never before seen foul 

 brood in its different stages The 

 disease over there is exactly similar 

 to what our bees have here. 



From Mr. Root's we went to several 

 other places, Niagara among the 

 number, and afterwards met by invi- 

 tation the Canadian bee-keepers at a 

 large meeting and exhibition of hives 

 and honey in Toronto. The exact 

 quantity of honey exhibited I cannot 

 remember. The exhibits of two hive- 

 manufacturers, the D. A. Jones Com- 

 pany and Messrs. Gould, occupied a 

 great deal of space, but the honey 

 was rather crowded, like the Canadian 

 exhibit here, which militated against 

 the attractiveness of the show. The 

 clover and lime honeys were excel- 

 lent. As regards the lime honey I 

 think it is superior to ours, the Cana- 

 dian climate being better suited for 

 its production, but clover honey is as 

 good here as over there. 



They had an extraordinary, but, to 

 my mind, somewhat objectionable 

 way of selling honey at the show. A 

 section was cut into four pieces, and 

 each piece offered for sale separately, 

 5 cents being charged for a quarter. 

 You would see people distributed all 

 over the show biting at these pieces 

 of comb, and eating it as they walked 

 along. By this method a large quan- 

 tity of honey was got rid of, but it 

 was not pleasant to see the people 

 pushing about in a crowd and mess- 

 ing each other with the sticky sub- 

 stance. I expressed my opinion at 

 the time to some of the bee-keepers, 

 but they assured me it would be im- 

 possible to sell the honey at that ex- 

 hibition on any other plan ; and as 

 the all-important object at these 

 shows is to sell the honey, I suppose 

 the custom is likely to continue. 



At this meeting I had the oppor- 

 tunity of seeing a large number of the 

 Canadian bee-keepers. They came 

 from districts far and wide. Mr. 

 Young, editor of the Norwegian Bee 

 Journal, was there at the time, and 

 we were both very hospitably enter- 

 tained by our Canadian friends. We 

 also met' Mr. Holtermann, our Cana- 

 dian correspondent, Messrs. Pringle, 

 Emigh, Alpaugh, Hall, Rev. W. F. 

 Clarke, Mr. McPherson, Mr. Mc- 

 Knight, Mr. Cornell, and others. I 

 was honored by the presentation from 

 the bee-keepers of Ontario, of an ad- 

 dress, and also a walking-stick with 

 a gold top, which lies here for your 



inspection on the table. The address 

 has appeared in the columns of the 

 Journal, where the walking-stick can- 

 not be inserted. 



I am glad to say that everywhere 

 we went in Canada and the United 

 States we met with a most hospitable 

 reception. We became on good terms 

 at once, our co-workers over the 

 water doing their best to make our 

 time agreeable ; they showed us every 

 thing, and our difiiculty was to find 

 sutBcient time to see all there was to 

 be seen. We might have stayed sev- 

 eral days longer at each place, and 

 been made most comfortable and wel- 

 come, but it was not practical under 

 the circumstances. 



At the Toronto meeting of course I 

 was asked to say something about the 

 British Bee-Keepers' Association, and 

 I made a special point of describing 

 briefly the working and organization 

 of the association. They were very 

 much interested to hear the record of 

 our work and system, as they have 

 nothing of the kind over there. Their 

 associations are merely associations 

 of bee-keepers in certain districts, 

 who meet for the purpose of talking 

 over matters connected with their 

 work. 



After the pleasant time spent at the 

 Toronto exhibition, we went to see 

 Mr. Hall, of Woodstock, Vice-Presi- 

 dent of the Ontario association, one 

 of the largest Canadian honey-pro- 

 ducers. He has 400 colonies, and has 

 produced as much as 200 pounds per 

 colony. Of course he is not able to 

 do that regularly, 80 to 100 pounds 

 being a good average. He makes bee- 

 keeping his sole business, and de- 

 pends upon it entirely for a living, as 

 many others do in America : Capt. 

 Hetherington is one, for instance ; he 

 was a captain in the army during the 

 rebellion. He started bee-keeping, 

 and being fond of it, made so great a 

 success that he has managed to rive 

 sufficiently well and bring up a family 

 on the proceeds of the business. 



Mr. Heddon has made bee-keeping 

 his only means of subsistence, besides 

 lately the editing of a local paper. 

 He had very little money at starting. 

 Mr. Hall was obliged to give up the 

 business he was in owing to bad 

 health, and took to bee-keeping as a 

 livelihood. He is bringing up his 

 family upon it. As a business, 

 speaking generally, it answers very 

 well in America. 



At Mr. Hall's I picked up a great 

 many ideas, but L cannot describe 

 everything on the spur of the moment, 

 having seen so many different things : 

 I shall, however, be able to enter 

 more into detail in the Bee Journal. 

 From Mr. Hall's 1 went with him to 

 see Mr. Pettit, President of the On- 

 tario Bee-Keepers' Association. As 

 he was not able to be present at the 

 Toronto meeting, I thought it was 

 only right I should go and see him, 

 and I stayed with him from Saturday 

 to Monday, and spent a very pleasant 

 time there. His hives are very simi- 

 lar to ours, and he has adopted a 

 frame almost the size of our stan- 

 dard, which he finds answers quite as 

 well as the deep frame he had been 



