684 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. • 



OUR XHSlNKSGIVING. 



MRS. J. E. AKERS. 



Oh, give thanks for the Summer and Winter, 



Give thanks for the sunshine and rain, 

 For the flowers, the fruits, and the grasses, 



And the bountiful harvest of grain ; 

 For the winds that sweep over our prairies. 



Distributing vigor and health, 

 Oh, give thanks to our Heavenly Father 



For Nature's abundance of wealth. 



Oh,give thanks for loved friends and relations. 



For sweet converse with those that are dear ; 

 Give thanks for our country's salvation 



From famine and war the past year ; 

 That while kingdoms and empires have fallen, 



Our Government firmly has stood. 

 Oh, give thanks to our Heavenly Father, 



For all this abundance of good. 

 Hamline, Minn. 



Topics qI Iiiterest. 



Honey Yield of tlieDnM states, 



W. J. DAVIS, 1st. 



The Ameeican Bee Journal of Nov. 

 12 is just at hand, and is as interesting 

 as ever. I wish to correct an article on 

 page 624, which I consider very mis- 

 leading, the more to be deplored as it 

 was written for publication In Germany. 



The statement which is at such vari- 

 ance with truth is found near the bottom 

 of first column, page 624, as follows: 

 " For In ordinary seasons It Is no un- 

 common thing to harvest from 140 to 

 200 pounds of honey per colony, and 

 experts who have their colonies ready 

 for the honey-flow, have produced as 

 much as 300 pounds per colony." 



No Industry is permanently benefited 

 by misrepresentation. That 300 pounds, 

 and possibly more of extracted-honey, 

 may have been produced in an excep- 

 tionally favorable season, and in an 

 exceptionally good locality where there 

 were forests of basswood, I do not deny. 

 But for an ordinary season to produce 

 140 to 200 pounds per colony "is no 

 uncommon thing" is not true, and if 

 there be 300,000 bee-keepers In the 

 United States 299,999 will agree with 

 me. 



I have kept bees for nearly 50 years. 

 Have not been slow to adopt all the 

 improvements that promised to be of 

 value, and in all that time my largest 

 yield from a single colony was 110 



pounds of comb-honey. I have my bees 

 in 4 or 5 apiaries a few miles apart, and 

 rarely allow them to get beyond 300 

 colonies in all. 



I do not think that anybody knows 

 how many bee-keepers there are In the 

 United States. Some one has said that 

 there are 300,000. If these average 

 20 colonies each, it gives us 6,000,000 

 colonies of bees. 



The amount of honey actually pro- 

 duced is largely guess work ; but it is a 

 fact that the largest yields (east of the 

 Rockies) came from the basswood forests 

 of New York and Michigan, which do 

 not yleM honey every year, and laterly 

 from the alfalfa fields of the West. 



From quite an extensive correspon- 

 dence, I am satisfied that Penlisylvania 

 bee-keepers have not realized for the 

 past five years an average of 10 pounds 

 per colony per year. 



I have not the least desire to "belittle" 

 the pursuit of apiculture, for I am a 

 specialist. But if I lived in Germany, I 

 would make my way to America by the 

 shortest and quickest route if I saw and 

 believed the statements of Mr. Roese, 

 that, notwithstanding the enormous 

 yields, "more honey goes to waste In 

 the United States for lack of bees to 

 gather it, than Is in reality gathered.". 



Pennsylvania has vast manufacturing 

 Interests, the earth p(?urs out its treas- 

 ures of oil and gas ; unexhaustible mines 

 of iron and coal add to her wealth, but 

 if the glowing picture of Mr. Roese were 

 true, how soon the wealth of this grand 

 old commonwealth would be in the bee- 

 keepers. But I will say to the rraders 

 of the Bienenzeitung, and to the rest of 

 the world, that the bee-keepers of the 

 United States are not the "bondholders " 

 of the nation. 



Youngsvllle, Pa., Nov. 13, 1891. 



[We Intended to have added a foot- 

 note to Mr. Roese's article, and toned 

 down the figures in question, but it was 

 forgotten until too late. 



Mr. Roese was justly indignant, and 

 somewhat excited, and evidently got the 

 extraordinary yields of honey mixed up 

 with the ordinary ones. 



If he had used the word "some" 

 instead of ordinary in the third line 

 from the bottom of the first column of 

 page 624, no fault would have been 

 found with his defense of American 

 honey-producers. 



From the connection it Is evident that 



