THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



55 



er ones who persist in retailing honey 

 at wholesale prices and who fail to 

 consider that it costs time or money 

 to put honey up in small packages 

 and to sell it to individual consumers. 

 In working out the cost of distri- 

 bution the following should be con- 

 sidered: 



Cost of packages, including freight. 



Cost of labels and labeling. 



Cost of liquifying and putting up. 



Postage, express or freight charges. 



Boxing and packing. 



Advertising or 



Canvassing and delivering. 



If one performs his own labor it is, 

 nevertheless, worth money and should 

 be counted in the cost. Of course, if 

 honey is drawn directly from the ex- 

 tractor into small cans or pails and 

 sold while granulated, the cost can 

 be considerably reduced, but proba- 

 bly nine people out of ten prefer 

 honey in liquid form and the demand 

 for this will be greater. Some of the 

 above items of expense can be omit- 

 ted when selling in one's home town 

 or city. 



Experience in putting up and dis- 

 posing of many tons of honey in small 

 packages would indicate that about 

 three cents a pound should be allow- 

 ed for labels, pails, freight, boxing, 

 and labor. To this must be added 

 the wholesale price, the postage, ex- 

 press or freight charges, advertising, 

 or canvassing and delivery, amount- 

 ing to not less than 1.5 or 20 cents 

 per pound in all when sold in single 

 5 lb. and 10 lb. packages or 20 to 25 

 cents in one pound jars. 



"Valparaiso, Ind., Nov. 7, 1914. 

 I have read with intei'est the "Lazy 

 Man's Way" of transferring, given by 

 E. G. B. in the November number 

 of the Review. Permit me to say 

 that while this plan may work occa- 

 sionally, it will prove a failure in 

 most cases. Ordinarily, the bees will 

 pass up through the excluder to the 

 brood, leaving the queen below to 

 perish, unless some brood is also 

 placed below. Whether the queen 

 survives or not, queen cells will be 

 stai'ted above if sufficient nectar is 

 coming in, and, if weather conditions 

 are favorable, swarming will follow 

 when they hatch. 



In using the Demaree plan of man- 

 ipulating colonies, I find that in some 

 seasons swarming accompanies the 

 capping of the cells, and it nearly 



always follows the hatching of the 

 cells above the excluder. The virgin 

 queens often manage to squeeze 

 through the excluder and get away 

 with most of the bees, leaving the 

 old clipped queen behind. I am aware 

 that there are many beemen who claim 

 that the removal of cells above the 

 screen is not necessary and that the 

 young queens will be killed by the 

 bees, or, at least, they will not be 

 able to induce many bees to swarm 

 out, but such does not coincide with 

 my observation during years of ex- 

 perience with hundreds of colonies. 

 The fellow who works his bees on the 

 "Let Alone" plan really doesn't know 

 how many bees he loses nor how much 

 honey. 



E. S. MILLER." 



In an interesting letter just cited 

 from Mr. Eugene S. Miller, of Val- 

 paraiso, Ind., relative to the "Lazy 

 Man's Way" of transferring bees, 

 given in the November issue of the 

 Review, Mr. Miller says the method 

 will not work every time, that the 

 bees will, in fact, desert the queen, 

 in the majority of cases, and go to 

 their brood; and adds, that queen cells 

 will be started above, anyhow, and 

 swarming result before the second 

 driving of the bees from the old box. 

 Well, "many men of many minds," 

 and so on. but we can only repeat, 

 that nothing succeeds like success, 

 and as we have not had a failure, 

 with the method as described, we nat- 

 urally trust a bridge that carries us 

 safely over. Mind, we do not advo- 

 cate this as the best for all time and 

 all places. Usually we do the act in 

 the conventional way, but for a sort 

 of short-cut, when time is scarce, this 

 is worth trying. We shall be glad to 

 hear reports from any others. We 

 also thank Mr. Miller for so frankly 

 stating his side of the case, and hope 

 that he will give it further trial again 

 and repoi-t, if he will, in the Review. 

 We might add that our trials of the 

 method were made in only a moderate 

 flow, rather less, than above, the av- 

 erage, no swarming on hand in the 

 apparently, above the excluder. At 

 least, no swarms issued, nor did any 

 virgins make their appearance. We 

 worked over the hives, whenever we 

 tried it, only the two times, the first, 

 to transfer, as described, the second, 

 to finish the driving out of all bees 

 that had hatched subsequently. That 

 last time we also disposed of the old 

 hive and contents. (E. G. B.) 



