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THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



can in educating the public to use honey 

 and pay a good price for it. Let us keep 

 the price just as high as we can; let us 

 teach the public regarding the whole- 

 someness, healthfulness, deliciousness and 



economic food value of honey. It is all 

 right to see how cheaply we can produce 

 it, but there is the other end of the pro- 

 blem that needs looking after — selling it 

 at as high a price as possible. — Editor.] 



Some Advantages of Systematic 

 Requeening". 



A. C. MILLER. 



^N the September issue of the Review 

 were two articles, one from Mr. Tay- 

 lor and one from Mr. Townsend, both of 

 which bore on the policy of queen super- 

 sedure. The articles are interesting and 

 instructive, but I believe that both gentle- 

 men are losing money by leaving the su- 

 persedure to the bees. I base my belief 

 on actual tests and practice extending 

 over many years, and I have in the 

 American Bee-Keeper advocated and 

 urged bee-keepers to regularly requeen 

 their colonies each year. 



One little sentence in Mr. Taylor's arti- 

 cle, particularly amused me, for it shows 

 the distrust the solely practical man has 

 of the experimenter. It is this: "Which 

 pays the better, financially; for the matter 

 must be considered with reference not to 

 those keeping a few bees from sentimen- 

 tal or experimental reasons, but to those 

 keeping them for direct net cash results." 

 Now the man keeping them for "experi- 

 mental reasons" may be keeping them to 

 experiment on "direct, net, cash results," 

 and, furthermore, some experimenters, 

 the result of whose labors have been of 

 direct cash benefit to me, have to keep 

 the "net cash results," in view or else 

 give up their experiments. 



Mr. Taylor truly says "The most im- 

 portant item of expense in the production 

 of honey is labor," and then he proceeds 

 to show, to his own satisfaction that 

 yaiMy r3:ia33-i'nj is laborious, hence ex- 



pensive, also that it costs in cash or its 

 equivalent, labor, for the queens used. 

 He takes the basis of 100 colonies, places 

 the cost of queens at $50.00, and labor, 

 called under paid, at $25.00. Run on the 

 plan of leaving the requeening to the bees, 

 he estimates the queenless, or, rather, 

 lost colonies from queenlessness, to be 

 five per cent. How does that figure out 

 on a basis of net cash results ? Call a 

 colony to be a cash value of $5.00. (We 

 must include value of hive and combs, 

 because when not occupied with bees it is 

 idle capital.)"" 



And the returns from a colony to be 

 only fifty pounds of saleable honey at a 

 net price of ten cents per pound, and we 

 have a cash loss of $25.00 or 100 per 

 cent, on the idle capital (part idle and 

 part lost.) That is, giving Mr. Taylor 

 every advantage of a low estimated yield 

 and low price, a net saving of $50.00. 

 But how about the grades of the surviv- 

 ing colonies ? If 1 remember his writings, 

 he has had more or less to say about 

 overhauling and evening up his colonies 

 before the harvest. That all costs heavi- 

 ly in labor, and he has forgotten to count 

 it in. He says: "If the bees have wintered 

 badly the queens will keep perishing in 

 the spring just as the rejected ones would 

 have done in the same circumstances." 

 whereby he admits that he has to do 



* All empty hives and combs are almost certain 

 to b3 used long bsfora ciia seison is over. — Edttor 



