332 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



July 



sides, the 1-lb. sections find a more ready sale. 

 When honey is scarce, these_differoncc3 are often 

 set aside, and thus it happens that 1!4 iind 3 Ih. sec- 

 tions bring the same price as 1-Ib. ; for it is the duty 

 of the commission merchants to take advantaffe of 

 such a state of the marliet for the benefit of his con- 

 sijrnee. 



Comb honey must be g-rarted all throughout the 

 crate of uniform color, and the sections well filled. 

 Showing the best only on the outside, and filling the 

 interior with a lower grade, works disa'^trously to 

 the shipper, aiid is not even policy. The more at- 

 tractive in appearance the hon^v is, the quicker the 

 sale and the better the price. Honest grading tells 

 very quickly, purchasers usually leaving orders for 

 the whole of the next consignment of the brand 

 which has pleased them in this respect. Thus it will 

 he seen, that while the market may be tilled with a 

 fair quality, these special brands find ready sale on 

 arrival, whilst others drag, causing returns to come 

 in slowly. 



Another cans'! of slow returns, for which cotn- 

 mission merchants are often un.iustly blamed, is the 

 failure on the part of shippers to have the tare of 

 the cases marked on each pacljage. In such in- 

 stances, when sales are made the tare of the ca<!es 

 must remain unsettled until they are returned for 

 settlement, which often takes weeks and months. 



Glass jars wc would recommend only for the home 

 market, not for shipping. 



Nice new crates, made to hold a single tier of sec- 

 tions, and cheap enough to give away, will be the 

 most desirable package for all concerned. . 



A. C. Kenoel. 



As will be seen from the above, the requirements of 

 the different markets vary considerably, and ship- 

 pers in packing will have to consult the t.aste of the 

 market they propose to sell in. We might go on to 

 considerable length and point out the differences, 

 but it would make this already long article much 

 longer, and it is not necessary, as every intelligent 

 reader can easily see them for himself. 



The friends will notice that a half-pound 

 section is mentioned and asked for in one of 

 the above letters. We have made such, and 

 had honey stored in them, but I am inclined 

 to think it will not pay, unless we could 

 have almost as much for a i-lb. section as we 

 get for a pound, as the bees are so loth to 

 use these very small receptacles. As the 

 matter comes up, I can not but revert to 

 what I said many years ago, that if a plan 

 could be devised for dividing np large sheets 

 of honey into nice little squares, Avithout any 

 dripping or waste, bee-keepers could aiford 

 to pay thousands of dollars for stich a pro- 

 cess. Will it ever be done V The 1-lb. sec- 

 tion grew out of an attempt to solve this 

 problem, and is as near it as any thing yet 

 furnished, probably. Who will start the 

 thing with a suggestion? 



^ — I ^ 



FRIEND ATCHIiEY IN 1882. 



280 FINISHED SECTIONS FROM A HIVE ALREADY. 



M FEW words for friends James Bannon, of 

 >^ Archie, Pa., and It. C. Taylor, of Wilmington, 

 ~ N. C. My friends, it seems a little like mak- 



ing fun of my report for last year; but I don't 

 know how you term It, from your letters in 

 Gleanings. Friend Bannon says he would give 

 $35.00 for a hive of bees that would make 580 lbs. of 

 honey in 24 days, or in a whole season. So would 

 almost anybody; but the queen from that hive 

 alone can't be bought for $25.00, even if she is only 

 a daughter of a dollar queen. 



Friend Taylor, I am going to watch for that big 

 snake story from that little bunch of bees that re- 

 turned to you. If you both will come down, I will 



show you how Texas bees are managed, but I won't 

 have much time to talk with you, except after dark 

 and before daylight, for I have more than one big 

 booming colony this season, or fifty-one either. 



I am running that liig colony this season, and sev- 

 eral others, for coml) honey, and the big one has al- 

 ready turned off 280 finished one-pound sections, or 

 5 Simplicity cap fulls, and 113 more read}' to seal up, 

 and some more colonics not far behind; and if mint 

 continues to bloom all through this month, as it 

 usually does when it rains enough, God knows how 

 much they will make, for I don't. I have often 

 heard of bees becoming lazy or disgusted after gath- 

 ering so much honey, or so much being fed to them; 

 but none of my colonies have made a flinch yet. 



Now, friends, T know this all looks big to some; 

 but if you want it proven, it can be done by four 

 other persons besides myself, and one of them a 

 preacher. We have bee-keepers all around us, but 

 they don't seem to get anything but ordinary yields; 

 the reason why, I can not tell. Friends, if you could 

 see my two little boys Willie and Charlie, aged 5 and 

 7 years, with bee faces on, smokers in hand, caging 

 and introducing queens, and hiving swarms, and 

 telling what such and such hives needed, I think you 

 would wonder whether we wore not going to get all 

 the honey there was in the fields, saying nothing 

 about pa and ma as bee-keepers, who often stop to 

 get breath a minutt', and thank God, while the 

 children are at the other end of the apiary examin- 

 ing from hive to hive to see what is needed. 



Dallas, Tex., June 10, 1883. E. J. Atchlev. 



EXPIjANATION. 



HOW DOOLITTE GETS HONEY EVERY YEAR. 



^njg^Y referring to page 75 of present volume of 

 Wm Gleanings, it will be seen that J. A. Buchan- 

 an draws some conclusions, after which friend 

 Root makes some comments, the e.vplanation of 

 which is the purpose of this article. When I first 

 commenced bee-keeping I was greatly benefited by 

 the writings of E. Gallup, M. Quinby, A. I. Koot, 

 Adam Grimm, and many others; for by their writ- 

 ings I learned my A B C in bee culture. My first 

 year of bee-keeping resulted in 13 lbs. of surplus 

 box honey, and one swarm from the two I had 

 bought to commence with. The next season I ob- 

 tained about 25 lbs. surplus from each hive I had 

 In the spring, on an average. At the end of the 

 fourth season I chronicled an average of 80 lbs. box 

 honey as the average surplus for each stock in the 

 spring. During these four years I had studied, read, 

 and practiced all my wakeful hours, about the bees, 

 for I never spent an hour in my life in work pertain- 

 ing to bee culture without its being a real pleasure 

 to me. Many a night have I lain awake from one to 

 three hours, planning how to accomplish some re- 

 sult I desired to achieve in regard to the practical 

 part of apiculture. Although no scholar, and hav- 

 ing scarcely the advantage of a common-school edu- 

 cation, I felt that I ought to write for publication, 

 thereby adding the little I might discover from time 

 to time, to the general fund of knowledge, thus help- 

 ing others what I could to pay in a small measure 

 the debt of gratitude I owed for the instruction I 

 had gained from the writings of others. Hence I 

 began to write; and as the editors kindly fixed up 

 my articles so as to make them presentable, I had 

 the lightest part of the job in jotting down my dis- 



