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TBE BEE-KEEPERS ..^ 



can take their time, and thinning out is 

 done fairly well with the exception of the 

 base of the side wall. Bat when there is a 

 rush, a strong swarm and a heavy honey 

 flow, the bees storing crowd the comb 

 builders and instead of the gatherers re- 

 maining idle, the comb builders build in the 

 quickest way, they leave the base untouched, 

 the side wall largely untouched, and they 

 add wax of their own secretion and deepen 

 the cell. I therefore say, and have said, we 

 must provide for the most unfavorable con- 

 ditions for thinning out base and side wall, 

 as when foundation is put in we rarely know 

 under what condition it will be drawn out. 

 I know there are a few good bee-keepers 

 who put rather heavy foundation in sections, 

 but let them allow me to test their section 

 honey after it is finished, and if the result 

 is not as stated in the above, I will pay five 

 times market value for every section I try. 

 Fish bone as generally known, comes from 

 orginally heavy base or side wall of founda- 

 tion and not from texture of wax. Mr. 

 Hutchinson in the Review says. ' Once snow 

 is melted, it never can be restored to its 

 state. It mRy be frozen agrtin, but it will be 

 hard and solid, it will be ice. Of coarse, 

 nature can evaporate the water, and form it 

 into snow again, but man can not restore it 

 to snow. ' 



This is an unfortunate instance. Brother 

 Hutchinson, but man can melt it and with 

 the necessary artificial appliances have it 

 fall in beautiful flakes of snow as before. 

 No scientist doubts this for a moment, and 

 many others know this to be a fact. Again 

 he professes to give us another clincher and 

 not two years aeo I could have said nothing 

 in reply. Hutchinson quotes Mr. Bingham 

 and says. 'Butter is butter, butmeltpd but- 

 ter is grease: ' let me whisper to Mr. Hutch- 

 inson this is all wrong, there is a new and 

 secret process by means of which poor but- 

 ter is taken, melted, cleansed, churned 

 again in milk, turning out a beautifully 

 grained article, which I would defy Mr. 

 Hutchinson to distinguish from than which 

 has not been melted. 



When new and valuable discoveries are 

 made no matter how good, we must expect 

 opposition, even honest opposition, but 

 these men nevertheless hinder progress. If 

 we can get a comb with base and side wall 

 as thin as natural, the fish bone trouble we 

 have had in the past, will, I know, trouble 

 us no more. This will be an advantage 

 over the many other advantages already 

 enumerated. Some may say how do I know? 

 Because I have had comb honey stored in 

 just such comb. I o- ly wish we could feel 

 surer that such comb will be withi" the reach 

 of bee-keepers during 1898. 1 believe as the 

 editor of Gleanings has said, such comb 

 will enable us to produce almost or perhaps 

 quite as much comb as extracted honey and 

 more comb will be used. It does seem a 

 little strantre: a while ago Mr. Hutchinson 

 saw something new and wonderful and the 

 other Bee -lournals have not been able to see 

 it. Now the other Bee Journals see the 

 possibility of a Revolution and Mr. Hutch- 

 inson fails to see it. " 



Of course, I did not know that man by 

 artificial means could manufacture a mina- j 

 turesnow storm, but, upon thinking it over, '\ 

 I see that it might possibly be do"e, but, 

 even if it can, I do not see that it destroys 

 my illustration. Scientists with complica- 

 ted aparatus can do many things that the 

 ordinary mortal cannot do. We all know 

 the light, friable character of snow, and 

 the hard character of ice, and this illus- | 

 trates in a certain degree, the difference be- 

 tween comb and wax: and the fact that 

 with great skill and the necessary appliances 

 man may produce an artificial snow storm 

 does not destroy the illustration. But I 

 did not know that butter could be melted 

 and churned over as Bro. Holterman says, 

 but that does not destroy the illustration. 

 Any one who has eaten or tasted butter after 

 it has been melted, knows that there is a 

 great change — that it has a greasy insiped 

 taste. The fact that it can be churned over 

 again and brought back to its orginal gran- 

 ular character does not detract from the 

 illustration. 1 say I know that this can be 

 done. Perhaps I better say that I have 

 heard it talked of at Dairymen's meetings, 

 and that is all I know about it. Bro. Hol- 

 terman is very sharp in picking up these 

 technical points, but evades the main issue. 

 He also talks about the thinness of the new 

 artificial comb as compared with the nat- 

 ural comb, as though it would be essentially 

 the same if it were of the same thickness. 

 The whole point of this matter is that the 

 light, friable, brittle character of comb is 

 lost when the comb is melted. There is no 

 use in disputing this. All bee-keeper know 

 it. In working over this wax, in drawing 

 out foundation, bees do, to a certain extent, 

 liven up the wax, and make it more like its 

 orginal character. 



I see the " possibility of a revolution " if 

 the product that results from the use of the 

 artificial comb is not debased thereby, other- 

 wise I see a step backward. I suppose 

 that my editorial brother refers to sugar 

 honey when he says that I could see some- 

 thing wonderful awhile ago that the other 

 journals could not see. I will say this 

 much. The production of sugar honey 

 would not have debased the ffuality of the 

 product — whether the new artificial comb 

 will do so or not remains to be seen. When 

 I am satisfied that it will not, I shall then 

 be ready to join in the ' Revolution. " 



