526 



(JI.KANINGS IN BEE CUI/n HE 



Arcs. 1") 



more; but I want to be on the safe side. 

 The queen will fill three or four frames with 

 brood in the brood-nest, and then go into 

 the super, and the bees will fill the brood- 

 nest full of pollen and a little honey so that, 

 if she should go down again, there would be 

 no place for her to lay. She stays in the 

 super, and the i)ees crowd her out with hon- 

 ey until she has only two or three patches 

 of brood about the size of the palm of one's 

 hand, and when fall comes there are bees 

 enough for only a nucleus, and only a part 

 of a crop of honey secured. Practically all 

 the work is done in one hive-body— the su- 

 per. I would go out of the business if I had 

 to go back to old conditions." 



"Do the same conditions exist in Texas, 

 where you kept bees so long? " 



"Exactly the same." 



"Well, Mr. .Jones, I have used excluders 

 since 19(>1, and my experience coincides 

 with yours exactly. I could not say I would 

 go out of the business if 1 could not have 

 them, but I would have them if they served 

 for only one year and I had to buy new 

 ones each year, for I know I coukl produce 

 enough more honey to pay for them, be- 

 skles saving a whole lot of hard and aggra- 

 vating work. The reason I asked you if 

 conditions were the same in Texas is that 

 Mr. Louis H. Scholl. of New^ Braunfels, 

 wrote an article for ({leanings not long 

 ago in which he stated that queen-exclud- 

 ers were honey-excluders. This was very 

 different from my experience, and I did not 

 know but conditions were different there 

 from those here. Jiut, as you say, they are 

 not, it is difficult to see how such differences 

 of opinion can exist." 



However, Mr. Scholl practically stands 

 alone in the matter of queen-excluders by 

 the older fraternity; but notwithstanding 

 the minority are not always wrong, yet I 

 think in this case, where practical demon- 

 stration by every one is so simi)le, there 

 should be no room for cavil. Won't you 

 please take it back, Mr. Scholl? You have 

 written so many good things you must not 

 lose your prestige on so small a matter as 

 queen-excluders. 



THE FOLLY OF BOOMING HONEY PROSPECTS. 



I want to put in my protest against the 

 booming of big honey prospects. I notice 

 in the American Bee Journal for April that 

 Mr. Kennedy, of Ventura, Cal., has com- 

 menced it; and T am wondering what he 

 would say to-day, April 22. after a two-days' 

 desert wind, with fair i)rospects of more. 

 It reminds me of a man who had been out 

 on a camping-trip, and stopi)ed at my place 

 and asked if I had any baling-wire. Of 

 course I had, and 1 remarked that his wagon- 

 wheel tires were all wired on. " Yes," said 

 he, "them there tires was tight when I 

 started out, but these 'eer desert winds will 

 shrink a six-mule-team government wagon 

 down to a two-wheel cart in two days." 



When 1 went to San Diego last fall to sell 

 or contract for the sale of my hone\- my 

 prospective buyer asked, "How much hon- 

 ey have you this year?" 



I told him only one carload. "What's 

 the matter?" said he; "every one says 

 there is a big croj) of honey this year." 



I asked him if any one had told him that 

 since the honey harvest, and he said no. 



"Well," I said, "there is not more than 

 half a crop." 



He answered, "You are selling and I am 

 buying. All reports are against you. I hear 

 a rban in your neighborhood has six hun- 

 dred cases." 



" r guess that is true," said T; "but he has 

 1400 colonies of bees, which, if he produced 

 all of the <)0() cases, would amount to about 

 ■A pounds per colony — a little more than 

 one- fourth of a croj)." 



Well, to make a long story short, I coukl 

 not convince him that there was not a big 

 crop of honey in this county, and I did not 

 sell until a month later, when he found out 

 the facts, and I got my price. 



To those who are wondering what keeps 

 the i)rice of honey down while every thing 

 else is going skyward, I would say, stop 

 booming the prospects of a big honey crop. 

 Such a course on the part of honey-produc- 

 ers has a tendency to keep the honey-buy- 

 ers from i)urchasing until the fruit-packers, 

 tobacconists, etc., have supplied their needs 

 with sugar, cheap molasses, and glucose, 

 after which honey has to go begging. 



.lamul, Cal. 



» ■ ^ ' ♦ 



A NEW SYSTEM OF WAX-RENDERING. 



Separating Wax from Old Combs, Without Pres- 

 sure, by Rubbing the Refuse with 

 Hot Water on a Screen. 



BY WESLEY FOSTER. 



The rendering of wax from old combs by 

 the wax-press method is thorough if the press 

 is made right and is strong enough; but it is 

 a very slow way in comparison with the 

 method we now use. Then the cost of a 

 good press will run all the way from fifteen 

 to twenty-five dollars, and there is much 

 likelihood that it will not be strong enough. 

 The burlap bag is continually bursting, and 

 new ones have to be made every little while. 



All our wax scrapings from frames and 

 nice clean bits of combs we run in the solar 

 extractor, and the solar refuse is run in the 

 melter described in this article. The great 

 advantages of this method are its speed, 

 economy of effort, and the cheapness of the 

 equii)ment. Fully twice the amount of wax 

 can be run with this outfit in the time that 

 was consumed when working with our press. 

 The strength required is not as great as with 

 the i)ress; still, with our apparatus one needs 

 to work vigorously. The cost for the whole 

 thing, provided one does most of the work 

 himself, will not be over two or three dollars. 



THE FURNACE. 



The furnace is built of brick or brickbats, 

 about a foot high, and with the chimney at 

 the same end where the door to the fire-box 

 is located. A brick partition is run through 



