1074 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1 



are good enough " for this year. It is these same 

 people who will cobble up a shipping-case of 

 their own, out of drygoods-boxes. Oh, no! they 

 can not afford to send away and get good cases; 

 but they can afford to lose several cents per pound 

 on their honey. No, they will sell at any old 

 price simply because they are not keeping posted 

 as to the markets. 



We have almost a mind to have this article of 

 Dr. Miller's set up in the form of a leaflet, and 

 send it out with each package of sections and 

 shipping-cases. Shall we do it.? — Ed.] 



GRADING AND PACKING COMB 

 HONEY. 



The Importance of Having all Honey a 



Little Above Grade; Ho^v to Tell 



Whether the Grading is 



Properly Done. 



BY WESLEY FOSTER. 



The honey-producer who is going to make a 

 success of his business in the future will be im- 

 bued with the spirit of mutual benefit. He will 

 be filled with the knowledge and feeling that he 

 is giving more value than he is paid for. It may 

 be foolish to put No. 1 honey on the market as 

 No. 2, but that is a deal more honorable than to 

 have the honey always just a little below grade. 

 Why not have comb honey just a little above 

 grade, so the buyer will be sure to get the honey 

 at grade, for honey does drip and deterioiate 

 somewhat in shipping.? 



When every case of No. 1 white and No. 1 

 light-amber comb honey is as even in quality 

 and as neatly put up as a box of bon-bons, don't 

 you think the honey-producer will be recognized 

 as a person of quality.? The quality bee keeper 

 makes kindling-wood of his leaky covers and 

 uses the gunny sacks for smoker fuel instead of for 

 blankets on his supers; neither does he allow the 

 mice to scallop his sections. 



The grading-rules do not forbid putting a sec- 

 tion gnawed by mice in a No. 1 or No. 2 case; 

 but it is not good practice. The rules can not 

 mention every catastrophe that would bar a sec- 

 tion from the given grade. I would not care to 

 buy a box of crackers with a mouse-hole in one 

 corner. The rules do not forbid a section with a 

 part broken off or an 

 imperfectly folded sec- 

 tion, or one diamond- 

 shaped; but if the grad- 

 er is not a conscience- 

 juggler he will at least 

 bar these from the No. 

 1 grades. His judg- 

 ment will decide wheth- 

 er sections of this class 

 should be No. 2 or 

 culls. 



At a bee convention, 

 when the subject of 

 grading comb honey 

 was under discussion, 

 I saw illustrated just 

 how a No. 1 section 

 should look to come watering-device 



See Poultry 



well within the grade, and just where the di- 

 viding line between No. 1 and No. 2 is. One 

 bee-keeper who had difficulty in distinguishing 

 between a slight and a pronounced tinge in 

 comb color, and manifested an unwillingness to 

 try to see the difference in light amber and white 

 in the color of the honey, asked an experienced bee- 

 keeper and shipper of comb honey what rules he 

 followed. He said he put himself in the buyer's 

 place and then followed the rules, pushing the 

 faculty of fine discrimination to the limit. One 

 can soon find out whether he has been using 

 fine discrimination by going to a pile of honey if 

 he has some from the best to the poorest, and 

 picking out combs of the whitest honey, then 

 slightly amber, light amber, and amber of a pro- 

 nounced color. If he can mark these and then 

 mix them up and separate them the second time, 

 and get them into the same arrangement as at 

 first, he may be sure he has the discriminating 

 faculty. The greatest trouble comes with me 

 when trying to tell slightly amber from light 

 amber. 



Now, many get the color of the honey and the 

 color of the cappings mixed; or, rather, thiy do 

 not discriminate. Cappings may be wliite over 

 an amber honey, or they may be dark over a 

 white honey. 



The committee on grading-rules for the Colo- 

 rado State Bee-keepers' Association, when they 

 came to describing the color limits for cappings 

 to No. 1 light amber, first wrote it this way: 

 "Comb and cappings white to grayish or light- 

 brown tinge;" but upon consideration they 

 changed it to read, "White to off color, but not 

 dark. " The reason for changing was that some 

 would construe that light-brown tinge to include 

 dark cappings, which would not come up to the 

 name of light-amber comb honey. Now get this 

 firmly fixed in your mind. You must, to do the 

 best grading, carry these two items in mind — 

 color of comb and cappings, and color of honey. 

 They must not be mixed in the grader's mind. 

 He must look for color of honey and color of 

 comb in each section. 



No. 1 white comb honey. The honey must 

 be white or slightly amber, while the comb and 

 cappings must be white with no slightly any 

 thing to it. 



As for No. 1 light-amber comb honey, the 

 honey may be white or light amber, while the 

 comb and cappings may be from white to off 

 color, but not dark. 



The grader who dis- 

 criminates the slightly 

 amber honey of the 

 No. 1 white grade from 

 the light-amber honey 

 of the No. 1 light-am- 

 ber grade is getting his 

 work down to an art. 

 The line between white 

 comb and cappings of 

 the No. 1 white and the 

 " white to off color, 

 but not dark " of the 

 No. 1 light amber is not 

 so difficult. 



Some disagree as to 

 where off color runs 



FOR LITTLE CHICKS. • . j i i ■ u u 1 1 



„ into dark which should 



Department. 



