1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



107 



becomes warm and limp before we can go 

 through with the operation. This gives us 

 trouble. Such does not and can not occur 

 when we practice Mr. House's method. We 

 may leave the sections on their form any 

 length of time. In fact, it is a good idea to 

 use several forms and leave the sections aft- 

 er the starters are put in a little while (long 

 enough for the wax to harden) before taking 

 them off. 



One may also employ inexperienced help. 

 An eight- year child may put the wide frames 

 on the forms and drop the sheets of founda- 

 tion in while the experienced hand attends to 

 the work of fastening the foundation with 

 the hot plates. 



A SOLAR EXTRACTOR WITH A LAMP IN COM- 

 BINATION. 



When visiting my brother, G. C. Greiner, 

 last fall I noticed his solar wax- extractor. It 

 was built on the Doolittle solar plan with 

 some alteration. A fine-meshed screen was 

 supported just over the iron bottom, upon 

 which the comb to be rendered was placed. 

 Under these conditions it was found that old 

 Sol did not have power enough to do a thor- 

 ough job, and so he added a lamp to the out- 

 fit, thus makmg it complete. With this ma- 

 chine he secures good-sized cakes of fine 

 wax which do not need recaking. However, 

 he uses only cappings in the machine, and 

 they are first wabhed free from all honey, 

 and then dried. 



WHAT IS THE NEED OF A HONEY-STRAINER? 



Among other subjects discussed at this 

 meeting was the honey-strainer. I asked 

 him where his honey- strainer was. (I mis- 

 trusted that he had not observed or did not 

 appreciate the great (?) progress that had 

 been made in that line.) Witnout a word he 

 pulled a glass jar of honey from a crate at 

 random and held it up to the light The 

 honey was water-white, and most beautiful. 

 Not a speck nor an air- bubble was in it or on 

 top of the honey. " Has any living man or 

 woman ever produced any thing fmer than 

 this with any strainer that you know of? " 

 he asked. 



"I think not," I answered. 



I had to acknowledge that a great deal of 

 energy seemed to be uselessly expended in 

 building complicated honey-stramers and 

 putting honey through them with no visible 

 effect or the slightest improvement over 

 honey not strained but simply drawn through 

 the faucet from the bottom of the tank. If 

 the tank is narrow and tall, nearly all foreign 

 matter can be easily removed with a spoon 

 when it is full. Some honey will be dipped 

 up at the same time; but if we put the skim- 

 med matter into a pail, after a little time the 

 larger part of the honey may be poured out 

 by holding the pieces of comb, scum, and 

 sealings back with the spoon. A better way 

 would be to use a small tank having a faucet 

 at the t'Ottom. After all the skimmed mat- 

 ter has bt en collected in this, and after giv- 

 ing time, about all the honey could be drawn 

 oif. 



I have strained my honey through a cloth, 



but never obtained a perfect article. Metal 

 sieves can not do better. In fact, it is an im- 

 possibility to free honey quickly from the 

 very fine particles of wax which it always 

 contains. A little time does it. Honey 

 drawn from the faucet at a summer temper- 

 ature flows easily and without even leaving 

 air bubbles on the surface. I fail to under- 

 stand why such men as Mr. Alexander, for 

 instance, recommend straining honey. That 

 portion of honey which is drawn from a tank 

 last, no matter whether a strainer has been 

 used or not, is not fit for bottling. The tail- 

 ings of several tanks may be run into one 

 small tank and given a little time to clear. 

 In the end there will be very little left but 

 what is fit for bottling. 



A BETTER MILLER FEEDER. 



An improvement in the Miller feeder was 

 suggested to me by W. F. Ma-ks. All who 

 have used this feeder have undoubtedly ob- 

 served that there are times, particularly 

 when the hive is not leveled perfectly, when 

 a little of the syrup is inaccessible to the 

 bees. Let the feeder be so made that the 

 bottom inclines to the center just a trifle. 

 The bees can then take out the very last 

 drop. 



FINDING QUEENS IN LATE FALL. 



There seems to be a feeling among quite a 

 number of bee-keepers that purchasing 

 queens in the fall is not advisable. Some 

 expressed themselves in strong terms, say- 

 ing they did not want late queens as a gift. 

 The fact is, it is any thing but a pleasant job 

 to take a colony apart in order to find the 

 old queen. The bees are cross, therefore 

 difficult to keep in subjection. The combs 

 are heavy, and are often set to leaking, thus 

 attracting robbers. Mr. House offers this 

 solution: Drum or drive the bees into an 

 empty hive-body placed on top of the hive 

 containing the colony to be dequeened. 

 When the bees have clustered they are 

 dumped out in front of their hive after ad- 

 justing an entrance-guard. The queen is 

 thus found easily, no honey set to leaking, 

 etc., and the new queen is then introduced 

 or run in as is thought best. 



Naples, N. Y., Dec. 18. 



[We believe it is generally acknowledged 

 that fresh super foundation is more easily 

 worked than that which is a year old. Some 

 dit-cussion a few years ago seemed to show 

 this quite plainly. 



As to whether extracted honey needs a 

 strainer depends on conditions. We have 

 been in quite a number of large extracting- 

 yards where honey was produced by the 

 carload; and many (if not a great majority) 

 of those big producers use honey strainers 

 and settling- tanks both — a strainer to catch 

 the c parser particles, like slices of cappings, 

 brood, and drowned bees, and a settling-tank 

 to remove the fmer particles that can n.it be 

 secured in any way but by the force of grav- 

 ity. The strainers undoubtedly do save 

 time in that they Citch the great bulk of for- 

 eign material that would go in with the hon- 

 ey; and where said honey is conveyed quite 



