168 THE BEEKEEPERS' REVIEW 



usually secure about 40 cents per gallon, wholesale, for their best 

 honey. This year, we understand, the prices are only about one- 

 half that, and very slow sale even then. Cuba, like South America, 

 suffers more than the U. S. from the war depression, because they 

 sent more honey abroad. We, here in the States, are consumers of 

 our own honey for the most part, and our prices are affected largely 

 from our own business stagnation, not from the lessened exporta- 

 tions so much. As we have said before, however, it is the man 

 who "means business" and who hangs on, that will win out; the 

 half-hearted will become discouraged at the untoward conditions 

 and quit. — E. G. B. 



Ceiba Mocha, Cuba 



Prov. de Matanzas, 



February 7, 1915. 

 Mr. E. G. Baldwin, 

 Dear Sir: 



Your letter reached me as I was going to Havana, and not 

 being able to send you any honey I delayed answering until now, 

 so as to be more at leisure. 



In Cuba we have had a difficult year with the bees, this season. 



Usually a season which starts without a temporal, violent 

 wind and rain — in November or October — gives us an abundant 

 crop and offsets any ordinary drop in prices. 



This year, however, in spite of a splendid preliminary flow, 

 a long spell of wet, chilly weather has prevented our two main 

 crop flowers from secreting any honey, and we are left with some- 

 thing less than half our usual amount of honey. We have an 

 early flow which begins in August, from various wild-flowers; the 

 bell-flower starts in October and lasts until into January, and should 

 furnish about one-third of a normal crop; the romerillo, our other 

 main honey plant, begins flowering in December, and is now going 

 by. It is a high, branching plant, with a yellow, daisy-like flower, 

 and should give us rather more honey than the bell-flower. 



This year, owing to bad weather, the bell-flower gave us only 

 one fair extraction, the honey being mixed with that of other 

 flowers; and only those where apiaries are in the midst of espe- 

 cially good romerillo pasture have had an extracting from it. 



On top of all this we have had to endure the effects of the 

 war — our prices being twenty odd cents a gallon instead of the 

 usual forty and fifty. 



Beekeeping is more difficult here than formerly, as the island 

 is now so stocked with animals, and cultivated, that much of the 

 former pasturage is now lost to us. 



