Dec. 10, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



791 



much skill and as fine a prade of honey as it does for sec- 

 tion honey. I also assure you that the consumers are be- 

 hind this move, and that it is only a question of time when 

 the production of section honey will have almost disappeared. 



Let me quote Editor Root as follows : 



" Chunk comb honey is somewhat in disrepute, it is 

 true, from the fact that it used to represent the product of 

 the old box-hive, and was a mixture of everythinjf — old 

 combs, dead bees, pollen, propolis, wax-worms, li>;ht and 

 dark honey — in fact, a little of everything that may come 

 from an old-fashioned boxhive. Bulk comb honey, as Mr. 

 Hyde would have us call it, represents an entirely different 

 product — the very best table honey, being a mixture of the 

 best extracted and the whitest comb honey. Some of my 

 chance acquaintances have spoken in glowing terms of the 

 ' real honey ' of ' father's table,' as if that in sections were 

 manufactured. To argue with them that the latter is just 

 as pure is almost a hopeless task. Sometimes I think we 

 might just as well satisfy their whims by giving them what 

 they will accept, and I do not know of anything very much 

 nicer than clean, sparkling extracted honey, of good quality, 

 having chunks of delicious comb honey mixed in it of the 

 same grade and quality. When such goods can be dis- 

 played to the consumer, and he itiows it is all honey, he 

 very likelj' would take it in preference to either comb or 

 extracted separate. 



"A correspondent near Oakland, Calif., once went out 

 and peddled some of his very white comb honey in tall sec- 

 tions among the wealthy class. They would have none of 

 it. Some of them were from ' Down East.' What did he 

 do? He went home and cut that honey out of the sections, 

 and mixed in it a nice grade of extracted, and sent another 

 man around with the goods. The same people accepted 

 that at once. Why, that was honey, just like that used 

 years ago on 'father's table.' Of course, they could easily 

 sample it — something they could not do with the pearly- 

 white comb honey in sections ; and the mere taste of it was 

 enough to assure them that it was all right." 



Now, friends, I have told you about all that I can think 

 of on the subject, and if there is anything further you would 

 like to know, kindly ask me, and I will answer to the best of 

 my ability. H. H. Hyde. 



Mr. Dadant could not be present at this session, and 

 had no paper in response, but authorized Secretary York to 

 state for him that Mr. Hyde's paper had been read by him, 

 and that he agreed most wholly with what Mr. Hyde had 

 said ; that he had been very busy, had not had time to re- 

 ply, and that he was almost fully in sympathy with Mr. 

 Hyde's views. 



W. R. Woods — In shipping wiih these cans, do you find 

 any difficulty with the covers flying off? In case the goods 

 should be shipped bottom side up, what holds the cover on ? 



Mr. Hyde — This is known as the " friction top " can. It 

 goes on tight ; the covers of the cases go squarely on top of 

 these, and upside down, or any other way, the shipment 

 goes through in perfect order. We have shipped something 

 like 5000 pounds of honey in 3, 6, and 12 pound cans, and 

 have not had a single complaint of honey not arriving in 

 perfect order. 



L. S. Emerson — I would like to ask if you use a queen- 

 excluder, and where ? 



Mr. Hyde — We have not used a queen-excluder for the 

 last five or six years, from the fact that we do not have on 

 the comb-honey supers until we have the best honey-flow. 

 When the main harvest comes, the flow is so rapid the 

 queen has no opportunity to lay in the cells. 



Mr. Carter — I have had 25 or 30 years' experience. I wish 

 to say I am not a member of the Association, have not been 

 an extensive bee-handler, yet I have had experience since I 

 was about 16 years old. Some 25 or 30 years ago I took a 

 notion I would like to get a few colonies of bees, and the 

 next year I found myself with about 15 or 20, and one of the 

 best yields of honey I ever witnessed. It came abundantly. 

 I had no extractor, and hardly knew how to handle my 

 honey. At that time foundation was introduced. I put in 

 the foundation, for, as the gentleman indicated, they did 

 not have time to build their comb, and they just filled the 

 foundation in two or three days, the whole of the super. I 

 used no section frames. Then the question was. What to 

 do with my honey ? I bought what are called butter-buck- 

 ets in the East. We had nice, clean, waoden butter-buck- 

 ets which I filled with the comb honey, and put extracted 

 honey in to fill the spaces ; then put the cover on tight, and 

 there was a bail to handle it. I sold the honey at the high- 

 est price for comb honey. It went like hot-cakes. It was 

 something new. Everyone would say, "How beautiful 1" 



The comb honey was quite level with the top of the bucket. 

 Since I came to California I have tried to start in the chunk 

 honey business again, but found it was difficult to get comb, 

 and yet I have gotten some, and have put that into little 

 buckets. You can put your business card on the pail, and 

 it is called " White Mountain Chunk Honey." It is beauti- 

 ful white honey, filled even full. In repard to shipping, 

 you can have (I am telling you from theory rather than 

 practice) tight covers fit so well there is no leak to it, and 

 on top of that another cover. I sell sometimes a little honey 

 to my neighbors ; I do not ship at all. But as soon as a 

 lady looks into the bucket, she says, " I want one of these." 

 It seems to take. She knows when she gets a section of 

 comb honey that she gets 12 to 14 ounces. They do not 

 weigh over 14 ounces at any time, and when she has taken 

 off the wood and everything else, she gets 12 ounces. When 

 short weight, as they frequently are, she gets only 10 

 ounces. But in this way she gets just as beautiful honey as 

 in sections, and gets full weight. The bulk honey sells two 

 to one with me. 



A. I. Root — 25 or 30 years ago there was a big trade on 

 comb honey put up in glass jars — not in Mason jars, but 

 more largely in tumblers. A good deal of it was glucose, 

 and that threw it into disrepute. I trust people have for- 

 gotten about glass-tumbler honey with a little piece of comb 

 and a good deal of glucose in it. There was a law against 

 it passed in New York State, I think. They then put up 

 comb honey — a small piece — and surrounding this was a 

 liquid they called "corn syrup," and when they were taken 

 to task about it they said the honey granulated. The whole 

 matter got into disrepute. I remember distinctly, as much 

 as 30 or 35 years ago, buying a stock of honey in barrels ; 

 I took it home and put it in Mason jars. I could not get 

 enough of it. But when the cold weather came on, and it 

 began to candy, that set us back. Last February, I think, 

 while I was in Cuba, Mr. W. W. Somerford had quite a 

 fever for bulk comb honey. He was buying 5 gallon cans. 

 He told me he could get more for his honey in 5-gallon cans 

 than for his finest section honey, and he was preparing to 

 fill up his cans with this honey. I did not find out how it 

 turned out, but, since then I find, for some reason or other, 

 his market had "let up." He was doing a " land office " 

 business there last February. There was no " corn syrup " 

 about that. 



Emerson T. Abbott — I wanted to ask Mr. Hyde in re- 

 gard to honey graining in Texas. In our country it grains. 

 It seems to me, in our climate, it would grain put up in 

 that way. 



Mr. Hyde — We do not do anything about that in the 

 spring and summer. It does not grain until winter. How- 

 ever, honey that we put up during the fall, that we do not 

 expect will be immediately consumed, we heat the extracted 

 honey and seal a large amount with sealing wax, and it 

 keeps all winter. 



(Continued next week.) 





Contributed Articles 





" Getting Both Increase and Honey." 



BY \V. W. M'NEAI,. 



WRITING from Knox Co., Ills., August 8, on page 

 600, Mr. J. E. Johnson tells of his success at getting 

 both increase and honey. He says that he began the 

 season with 12 weak colonies in a starving condition, but 

 by judicious feeding in early spring he increased them, by 

 natural swarming, to SO strong colonies, secured 1200 pounds 

 of comb honey, 200 pounds of extracted, and — oh, my I there 

 were nearly 1000 pounds more that would soon have to come 

 off the hives I Verily, truth is sometimes stranger than fic- 

 tion, and to write those figures, even in quotations, makes 

 me feel as if ray pen was taking a sheer on me. 



Allowing that his bees finished only 800 pounds of the 

 1000 pound, this would give a total of 2200 pounds, or an 

 average of 183'; pounds to the colony, spring count, pre- 

 vious to the date of his letter. Judging from what he says 

 in the 4th paragraph, we are led to infer that swarming did 

 not begin earlier than June IS, and possibly not so soon as 

 that. This being the case, then practically none of the 



