189(5 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



17 



party in Chicago put up extracted honey in 

 glass bottles. He is selling to the grocery trade, 

 and we can now say that it is possible for the 

 consumer to procure pure honey in small pack- 

 ages. This is something that we could not say 

 a year ago. 



Adulteration is the enemy of extracted 

 honey; poor package and poor grading is the 

 enemy of comb honey. Overcome these facts, 

 and a much better market will be found for the 

 disposition of the product of the apiary. 



Chicago, 111., Nov. .5. 



[Comb-honey producers make a serious mis- 

 laKe in shipping their honey to market in 

 cheap or poorly made or home-made cases. An- 

 other serious mistake, anl more common than 

 many would suppose, is the lack of grading. 

 As the years go by, we. trade" mtsreaHd more 

 supplies for extracted and comb honey; and 

 many of you would be surpi isyd to see the slip- 

 shod way in which honey is sometimes put up. 

 We very often buy such honey at a low figure, 

 and can afford to recrate andregradexhe entire 

 lot, and then make a fairly good profit besides. 

 Now, what is the use of the honey-producer 

 losing this margin of 3 or 4 cts. a pound when 

 he might just as well save it by .spending 

 a little time himself rainy days, when he could 

 do nothing else? If the producer is not going 

 to take time to grade his honey, and properly 

 crate it, the commission man will have to do it, 

 and absorb the profit, because the trade don't 

 want and won't have poorly graded honey ex- 

 cept at quite a reduction in price. 



Yes, indeed bee^journals ought to "harp on 

 this subject" a good deal. When the proper 

 season comes for its consideration, Gleanings 

 proposes to have a symposium on the subject 

 of shipping and grading honey, made up of ar- 

 ticles from honey-producers and commission 

 men. — Ed.] 



^ I ^ 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



By Mrs. L. C. Axlell. 



Another year has passed, and our bees, 120 

 colonies, have gathered only about 400 lbs. of 

 surplus, but they have filled up heavily for 

 winter, so we had no feeding to do, and the 

 bees look healthy, as if they might winter well. 



BEES don't pay. 



This is the remark I often hear; but as we 

 •do not have to put much time upon them poor 

 years, and I do the most of that work myself, 

 it gives me a good excuse for being out of doors, 

 which is a great benefit to my health, and a 

 ^reat deal of enjoyment besides. 



SPKINU FEEDING. 



llad we not fed heavily last spring I should 

 .not feel that 400 lbs. was small pay for my 

 work. 1 think bees have paid us less this 

 year than for many years, and yet farmers 

 seem to make no large profii on any thing late 

 years. It is only the careful saving of every 

 thing, and selling what we don't use ourselves, 

 that gives any profit in farming. 



Our honey is not so nice-looking as in other 

 years, as the bees did not seem to care to build 

 comb, using only sections already drawn out, 



so that we are asking but 10 cts. wholesale and 

 18 retail. 



WET YEARS ONE IN SEVEN. 



That is what an old gentleman a few days 

 ago said he had observed in his past life— if not 

 a really wet year, yet more rain fell once in 

 seven years. A want of moisture, I think, is 

 the only reason of our honey failure in this 

 locality. The ground is very dry down 20 feet. 

 Nearly every om? owning wells has had to dig 

 deeper, and some have dug broader and deeper. 

 The white clover has been scant and thin for 

 years, and but very little along the roadside 

 that used to be white, but they say it looks 

 better this fall than last. Last year our bees 

 gathered some from red clover, but not much 

 this year. Sweet clover is working in along 

 the roadsides, but the farmers mow it down all 

 they can well get at, seeming to think it a bad 

 weed. I had a small patch of sweet clover In 

 my back yard that I kept trimmed about 2K 

 feet high. It was beautiful with its many 

 white flowers for weeks in blossom, and filled 

 thej:air-with fragrance. n Bees worked on it as 

 long as it was in blossom, which lasted until 

 frost, though not many bees were on it at any 

 time. 



OUR SCARLET CLOVER. 



This, sowed the first of October, covers the 

 ground beautifully where it is out of the reach 

 of the chickens. We sowed some in the orchard 

 twice, and tried to keep the chickens out; but 

 they would steal in one way and another, and 

 pick off every leaf as fast as it appeared, pay- 

 ing no attention to the young oats that were 

 sown at the same time. We also sowed a small 

 patch in our front yard, near the road, for a 

 flower-bed, and to attract attention from 

 passers-by, where we had only small chickens, 

 but they too keep it all picked down, only as I 

 have a part of it covered up with slatted boxes; 

 but as fast as it grows high enough so they can 

 reach it through the slats they take every leaf, 

 showing it would be well to raise it for poultry 

 as well as for bees. 



r.UCK WHEAT NOT RELIABLE. 



Buckwheat failed again as a profitable honey- 

 plant. A few hives of bees near a ten-acre 

 field did not seem to get more honey than bees 

 that could not reach it. Our field was hardly 

 worth cutting for grain. 



WINTERING BEES. 



Since we eave arge entrances at the sides of 

 the combs by raising one side of the hive, and 

 putting under a half-inch block (our hives are 

 not nailed, but clamped at the corners), we 

 have lost no colonies if they were in proper 

 condition when put into the cellar with queens 

 and sufficient honey. From three or four, when 

 being piled up in the cellar, the block came out, 

 letting the sides down, which gave them only 

 their front entrances at the ends of the combs. 

 They all came through in bad condition, and 

 most of them kept dwindling down, and died 



