1«96 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



259 



starts. Every one should start them the same 

 way. But I should not be afraid to venture 

 the assertion that there are about as many 

 started one way as the other. 



Last, summer — or, rather, fall — I called on 

 quite a number of bee-keepers, a few of whom 

 were using these frames. Some had started 

 them one way and some the other, and only 

 two of them had thought any thing about there 

 being two ways to start them that would give 

 the same results until I called their attention 

 to the matter. 



Southern, Minn. 



[When we put out Hoffman frames several 

 years ago with those V edges we anticipated 

 just the point you raise. And to forestall any 

 trouble we had an engraving made that shows 

 just how the V's should be placed. For con- 

 venience I reproduce the cut and the paragraph 

 following it from our catalog: 



In putting these frames together, be sure to have 

 the Vd edges on the end-bars come on the diagonal- 

 ly opposite sides, and always put them together tlie 

 same way. The cut above shows a section ('4 size) 

 of each end of the frames with end-bars as they 

 should be always. 



If one reads this carefully, especially the last 

 sentence, he will have his V edges nailed like 

 ours, or so that, when the frame is held in the 

 hands, the V edge will touch the left thumb 

 and the square edge the right thumb. — Ed.] 



CHEAP HONEY IN CALIFORNIA, AGAIN. 



By Wnt. O. Hewes. 



I was pleased to see, by Gleanings for Feb. 

 15, that the A. I. Root Co. had investigated, and 

 found untrue, the report that our best Califor- 

 nia honey was selling here at .3 cents per lb. 

 There has been no honey sold at Newhall for 

 less than 3>.2 cts. per lb., and that was a small 

 lot of dark honey which had candied solid. The 

 rest of the honey which has been sold here has 

 brought from 4 to 5 cts. in carload lots. Some 

 buyers have had the impudence to offer 3 cts.; 

 but as their offers were always refused, it could 

 never be truthfully said that 3 cts. was the price 

 of our honey. 



I see that our enthusiastic brother. Rambler, 

 has, by a peculiar method of figuring, reached 

 the conclusion that the honey crop of Central 

 and Southern California amounted in 1895 to 



the enormous sum of ten and a half million 

 pounds. I wish there were some way of getting 

 at the exact figures in this matter. Rambler's, 

 I am sure, are much too big, not only for this 

 year, but for any year in our history. In look- 

 ing over back numbers of Gleanings, trying 

 to find something that would bear on this sub- 

 ject as regards past years, I found that the 

 number of bee-keepers in Ventura Co. was ,58, 

 and it does not differ materially from that num- 

 ber to-day. If Ventura Co., one of the leading 

 bee-sections of the State, has but 58 bee-keep- 

 ers, I think Rambler will find it hard to fill out 

 his list to 1000 in the remainder of the district — 

 especially 1000 owning an average of 90 hives 

 each. 



I also found an article from the pen of Ram- 

 bler, giving the crop of 1893 as seven million 

 pounds throughout the State. Assuming these 

 figures to be correct, it is at once apparent that 

 the ten and a half million ijounds for 1895 can't 

 be right, as 1893 was in most sections the better 

 season. 



In this locality there was about a third more 

 honey produced in 1893 than in 1895. Not only 

 was the honey-flow better, but there were more 

 bees in the country; as, during the dry season 

 of 1894, many colonies perished of starvation. 



I do not think bee-keepers should assist in 

 any way in exaggerating the size of our honey 

 crop. The buyers work industriously enough at 

 that. Whenever we have a crop here, in order 

 to beat down our prices greatly exaggerated re- 

 ports are circulated as to the yield in San Die- 

 go, San Bernardino, and elsewhere ; and I sup- 

 pose exaggerated stories of our yield is the club 

 with which they try to beat down prices in 

 those places. 



Another club which the bee-keeper cuts for 

 buyers to pound his head with is this talk of 

 " water-white " honey; for of water- white hon- 

 ey there is none. Let any one who thinks he 

 has such honey half fill a one-quart Mason 

 fruit-jar with honey, then pour water on top of 

 that, and he will see that his honey is red in 

 comparison. Skylark is the latest to be guilty 

 of this boast.' When next he gets a honey crop 

 (too dry to expect one this year) he must not get 

 mad and want to blow up people if the buyer, 

 not finding his best honey as "clear and beauti- 

 ful as any water from a living spring," pro- 

 nounces it second grade and wants to pay for it 

 accordingly. 



A common trick for bee-keepers who exhibit 

 at fairs is to fill their bottles with honey taken 

 entirely from new comb, thus making an ex- 

 hibit of honey which they can not duplicate in 

 commercial quantities, as we all know that 

 black combs darken the honey, and in large 

 apiaries there must necessarily be many such. 

 If any one doubts this, let him fill with water 

 the cells of an old black brood-comb; and when 

 he shakes it out a day or two later he will have 



