588 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



ins has come to hand from Ilildreth Bros. 

 & Segelken, of New York, who reply to the 

 questions as follows : 



1. Single-tier cases, holding- from 24 to 30 1-lb. sec- 

 tions, and 12 or 15 2-lb. sections. 

 3. 4,-4 x4.V. 



3. Our trade demands light-weight sections in 

 every style, whether in paper boxes, glassed or un- 

 glassed. 



4. We sell by actual weight; but the retailer gen- 

 erally sells by the piece. 



5. Dark honey, off grades, sections mixed with 

 buckwheat honey, find rather slow sale, and will 

 not bring more than buckwheat, and often not as 

 much. The same may be said of unfilled sections. 

 A straight buckwheat in the comb finds ready sale 

 in our market. 



6. We would say, extract all dark and mixed hon- 

 ey, excepting buckwheat. 



7. We prefer barrels and half-barrels for all kinds 

 of extracted hocey. They are the cheapest pack- 

 age, and we can sell them just as readily as smaller 

 packages. Where barrels or half-barrels can not 

 be obtained to advantage, we would recommend 

 kegs holding about 150 lbs. or more. 



8. Comb honey should be shipped to our market 

 <1uring September and October. Experience teaches 

 13 that the first season, the early season, is the 

 best, regardless of short or large crop. Early in 

 the season every one is in the market, and ready to 

 buy at the prices established; while, later on, the 

 stock accumulates, and buyers shop around more 

 and hesitate in buying. In all our experience we 

 have never seen the prices advance during Novem- 

 ber and December; on the contrary, they generally 

 decline. 



9. We sell the broken-down honey to the best ad- 

 vantage, generally to peddlers and cheap stores, 

 and as quick as possible. In many cases, when the 

 combs are not much damaged, we repack it. We 

 make more or less claims every season against the 

 transportation companies, but as the shipper's re- 

 ceipts are generally signed "Owner's risk," the 

 company will not entertain the claim. We should 

 like to say, always ship honey by freight, and never 

 by express. It comes by freight in just as fine and 

 often much better shape, and the charges are but 

 i-alf. 



10. Most decidedly the producer receives more 

 when consigned than when sold outright. If we 

 buy, we take all the chance of a decline in the 

 market, consequently we want to buy as low as pos- 

 sible, as we expect to make a larger profit on a pur- 

 chase than on a consignment. If consigned, it Is 

 to our interest to get the highest possible prices; 

 the higher the prices, the larger our commission. 



HiLDRETH Bros. & Segelken. 

 New York, N. Y., Aug. (i. 



THE3 SOLAR W^AX-EXTRACTOE. 



DR. MILLER GIVES SOME IMPROA'ED DIRECTIONS 

 FOR USING IT. 



I HAVE made excellent work extracting wax by 

 tearing open one corner of an old dripping-pan, 

 putting it in the oven of the cook-6tove on a slant, 

 and letting the open corner project out, with a ves- 

 sel under to catch the dripping wax. The same 

 pan arranged in a box with a window-sash over it 

 makes a solar extractor, although rather clumsy. 



and not always very close. But I found, as time 

 went on, that a good deal of wax was wasted be- 

 cause not always promptly melted. When such 

 things are left for some future time, that future 

 time doesn't always come. Last spring I thought I 

 would find out whether the Green extractor was as 

 good as represented, so I ordered one. I have 

 found it all my fancy painted it. If it were of no 

 other advantage, the one simple fact that it does 

 its work so nicely that you are tempted all the time 

 to bunt up more bits of wax to throw in is suffi- 

 cient to make it a paying investment. But why 

 don't you send instructions with it, friend Root? 

 True, it is so simple that any one can readily learn 

 how to work it, but he would learn more easily if 

 some things were told him. For instance, the mat- 

 ter of cleaning out the debris after the wax has all 

 drained out. I found that the hardest thing about 

 the whole business. I commenced on a lot of stuff 

 scraped from the top-bars of brood-frames, largely 

 composed of bee-glue. Each morning, before fill- 

 ing up afresh, I scraped out the shallow pan with 

 perforated bottom. It had a layer of bee-glue 

 about half an inch thick, and you can imagine what 

 hard work it was to dig it out with a knife. Then I 

 put it in cold water to make it brittle enough to 

 break by pounding on it, and nearly spoiled the 

 pan. A slip of printed directions would have been 

 worth to me many times its cost. 



For the benefit of some who may hereafter get 

 these extractors, let me give a few suggestions. 

 Set the extractor where it will get the sun through- 

 out the day as much as possible. If you want it to 

 have the least care possible, set it facing south, 

 with the reflector standing perpendicular, and let 

 it thus remain all day long. If you want to get 

 more work out of it, change its position two or 

 three times in the course of the day, placing it 

 each time so it will face the sun an hour or two aft- 

 er you have placed it. By moving the cover con- 

 taining the reflector up and down you will see the 

 bright spot made on your pan of scraps by the re- 

 flected rays of the sun. Set the cover open enough 

 so that this bright spot shall be at the middle of 

 your scrap-pan at the west end. As the sun moves 

 it will work to the east end. 



To make the cover stand at any desired angle, 

 take something like a piece of lath with holes 

 bored half an inch or more apart throughout one 

 end. Drive a nail in one end of the cover near the 

 front edge, and another directly under it in the 

 box, then slip your lath on these nails. Don't at- 

 tempt to clean out your scrap-pan when it is cold. 

 Wait till the sun warms it up melting hot, then 

 take out the pan, and a thin bit of board or shingle 

 will scrape it out easily. During the middle of the 

 day, or later, you will find the wax in the lower pan 

 in a liquid state, or at least part of it. Have stand- 

 ing by the extractor a milk-pan or other vessel 

 with sloping sides, into which you can pour the 

 part that is liquid. Or you may let the lower pan 

 remain without emptying till it is nearly full 

 enough to interfere with the scrape-pan. Then set 

 it in the oven of the cook-stove, and pour out when 

 melted. When the glass becomes daubed with wax, 

 rub it off with dry newspaper when hot. 



There, Bro. Koot, amendments and additions are 

 in order in a foot-note. 



PREVENTION OF BURR-COMBS. 



I haven't made the experiments I desired with 

 different top-bars, partly because at two different 



