1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



517 



supers this spring to take the place of the sec- 

 tion-holders." 



In the American Bee Journal for June G 

 occurs the question, " Which are better — T 

 supers or wide frames without top-bars, called 

 'section-holders'?" Of the 24 who reply in 

 the Question-box, some don't know; some think 

 both are good; some think neither; one thinks 

 section-holders better, and ten think T supers 

 better. Pringle, Dibbern, and Doolittle prefer 

 wide frames with top-bars. If I were obliged 

 to give up T supers and go back to wide frames 

 I should want top-bars on them; but I think I 

 should want the frames deep enough so the 

 top-bars would be a quarter of an inch above 

 the tops of the sections. 



EUCALYPTUS HONEY. 



Considerable discussion has taken place with 

 regard to the standing of honey from eucalyp- 

 tus, in English and Australian journals. Much 

 honey is obtained from eucalyptus in Australia, 

 and the people of that country do not take it in 

 the most kindly manner because the papers of 

 England think the honey in question not suit- 

 able for the table. A letter from J. D. Ward, 

 of Sydney, gives some light on the matter. He 

 names eleven varieties, and says there are nu- 

 merous others. Among them are a number of 

 gum and box. 



'• Honey from box is generally considered the 

 best, though that from iron-bark, shiny-bark, 

 and some of the gums is excellent." 



''Not a single variety of eucalyptus yields a 

 honey that has what is known as the eucalyp- 

 tus flavor. A few years back some bright 

 genius mixed a small quantity of eucalyptus 

 extract into a quantity of honey, and tried to 

 sell it in England as Australian honey for its 

 medicinal properties. Of course, it was unfit 

 for the table, and of course it gave Australian 

 honey a bad name. It would have been all 

 right if sold as a medicine, and labeled ' Euca- 

 lyptus and Honey.' " 



" I am sending you a sample of honey I ex- 

 tracted last month (February). It is mostly 

 iron-bark, but honey gathered entirely from 

 iron-bark is better." 



" Eucalyptus extract is a volatile oil, double- 

 distilled from, I believe, the blue-gum only, 

 though I have no doubt it could be obtained 

 from other eucalypti. It is used here very 

 largely in the treatment of colds, sore throats, 

 etc. I send you a sample; and when you get it, 

 if you put a few drops into half a teacupful of 

 your clover or basswood honey, and stir it well, 

 you will have eucalyptus honey that is ' not fit 

 for the table.' " 



The bottle of honey Mr. Ward was kind 

 enough to send was, unfortunately, broken on 

 the way, so that I had not a fair chance to test 

 it. From the little I could scrape up to taste, I 

 should say it was somewhat in flavor like a 

 sample of our fall honey, not equal to the best, 

 but by no means unfit for the table. But, as I 



said, I could not judge fairly; and it is possible 

 it may have gained a flavor from the wood of 

 the box into which it ran. The eucalyptus ex- 

 tract, while it might rank high as a medicine, 

 has a very vile flavor for use on the table. 

 Marengo, 111. 



[There. Dr. M., I am glad you have handled 

 me without gloves, because it gives me a 

 chance to " talk back." Well, in the first place 

 I would call you " old fogy," but you are in 

 pretty good company, and I fear I might have 

 a buzzing of bees or something of that sort 

 around my ears. 



Now, then, as you have asked point-blank 

 questions I will try to answer them point- 

 blank. In the first place, in the previous issue 

 I took back the word " booming," so I will ac- 

 knowledge I am knocked out there to start on; 

 but when you raise the question about leaving 

 out the picture, and not saying a word in praise 

 of the T super, praise the section-holder, and 

 then say the T super is better, and that our 

 packers would not know what it was — well, I 

 just won't give in. I will tell you why. You 

 go on the bicycle as I do among bee-keepers, 

 and see how section-holders, modifications of 

 them, are used — that is, topless wide frames, 

 and you would conclude there is a very large 

 following who would have them, no matter 

 what we said of T supers. We are now push- 

 ing self-spacing frames, and recommending 

 them in preference to loose-hanging; but there 

 are thousands of bee-keepers who will not 

 have a self-spacer, no matter what we say in 

 favor of them. According to your reasoning 

 every bee-keeper, nearly, ought to be a user of 

 self-spacers because we say they are better. 



Now, you ask me to name a single feature 

 of the section-holder better than a T super. I 

 will name several of them. 1. In some localities 

 it is desirable to shift the outside row of sec- 

 tions to the center, and vice versa. You can 

 not do that practically with the T super with- 

 out a good deal of picking and fussing. Sec- 

 tion-holders permit of handling the sections in 

 lots of four at a time, with perfect safety. 

 True, you say you can pick up four sections 

 from the T super; but you must pick them up 

 by the adjacent corners — not an easy thing, by 

 the way, when a T super is full or partly full of 

 sections. 



2. Again, loose T tins are more or less of a 

 nuisance, and once in a while get bent; and to 

 have them fixed stationary is not very satisfac- 

 tory. 



3. The T tins take up a little space between 

 each section; and if sections are inclined to be 

 diamond-shape, one set of sections will point 

 toward each other, and another set away from 

 each other, making a difference of from }^ to X 

 inch, depending upon the amount of play in 

 the super. Oh, yes! you say you can and do 

 obviate that by putting in little strips of seoa- 

 rator stuff to fill up the cracks; and here, 

 again, you have three little strips of separator 

 stuff and three loose T tins to handle over 

 every time you handle sections. But the facts 

 prove that the very great majority of T-super 

 users do not use those little strips of separator 

 stuff, or any substitute; hence nearly all sec- 

 tions filled in T supers are more or less dia- 

 mond-shape. As the section-holder does hold 

 the section square, the average run of bee- 

 keepers using such will have square sections 

 that will crate. 



4. But a very important advantage of the 

 section-holder arrangement (not possible prac- 

 tically in th*^ T super) lies in the fact that 

 separators full width may be used, covering 

 section-holder edges and the upright edges, and 



