466 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Aug. 1 



get. Critical times indeed, these, when bees 

 are gathering ten pounds or more per day! 

 I should be glad to have the observations of 

 practical bee-men. I could probably arrange 

 a public demonstration at the San Antonio 

 International Fair this fall. 

 Atascosa, Tex. 



[There are some mechanical difficulties to 

 be overcome yet before this plan of extract- 

 ing honey can be regarded as a complete 

 success, and we have some doubts whether 

 Mr. Avant will ever be able to do it on a 

 working commercial basis. It is not our pur- 

 pose to throw cold water upon this invention ; 

 nay, rather, Mr. Avant should be encourag- 

 ed. But in the meantime, in view of the 

 failure of so many promising inventions we 

 feel that we owe a duty to the bee-keeping 

 public by taking a conservative attitude. 



Honey can be extracted by the old-fashion- 

 ed way, with the power-driven extractors, 

 using an uncapping-knife, at a mere fraction 

 of a cent a pound. Even if Mr. Avant can 

 bring his method to a state of perfection, the 

 relative saving, if any, will be very small. 

 Furthermore, one can get only half as many 

 combs of the Avant type in a given hive ca- 

 pacity as he can get or the ordinary combs. 

 This will require the use of twice as many 

 hive-bodies with special slotted ends, and 

 combs that will cost anywhere from three to 

 four times as much as the regular combs. 

 Moreover, these special combs will be built 

 against the hive-ends, making their removal 

 impracticable. Again, the extracting-out- 

 fit would have to be shifted for each hive, 

 and a suction pump like this would be no 

 light affair. These items of extra expense 

 would make the cost of the Avant method of 

 extracting, in our judgment, exceed the cost 

 of the present plan. 



The only way that Mr. Avant can possibly 

 make it work would be to extract green 

 honey, as he proposes in his article above. 

 Whether he can keep this in hermetically 

 sealed cans remains to be proven. It is well 

 known that green honey will sour very quick- 

 ly. It will be something of a problem, if one 

 takes out several thousand pounds of nectar 

 in a day, how to keep this hermetically seal- 

 ed until it is time to feed it back. Just sup- 

 pose that the sealing should break in the 

 meantime. Very shortly the nectar would 

 begin to ferment and sour. But suppose it 

 does not sour, it is doubtful if feeding back 

 in this way can be made profitable. Feed- 

 ing back on any basis is a doubtful proposition. 



On the other hand, inventions with more 

 obstacles in the way than this, apparently, 

 have beaten their way to a brilliant success. 

 We marvel that Mr. Avant has succeeded as 

 well as he has. Any man who has originali- 

 ty enough to strike out on entirely new lines, 

 as he has in spite of all discouragements, 

 and go as far as he has done, has our un- 

 qualilied admiration. We are entirely sin- 

 cere when we say we wish him success; and 

 \\' there is any thmg we can do to help along 

 this invention, in a reasonable and proper 

 manner, we shall be glad to do it.— F]d.] 



A CONE-SHAPED HONEY - STRAINER 

 MADE OF PERFORATED METAL. 



BY JOHN BAILEY, SR. 



I am sending you a photograph of my hon- 

 ey-strainer, thinking it may be of interest or 

 benefit to some of the readers of Gleanings. 

 This strainer is of my own contrivance. I 

 use it in many different ways, both for hon- 

 ey and wax, and I like it better than any I 

 ever tried before. It can be used with or 

 without cheese-cloth, either inside or outside 

 the strainer. It will strain the honey per- 

 fectly, faster than any extractor can extract 

 it. If it gets clogged with cappings it is sim- 

 ply turned upside down over the capping-tin, 

 and tapped lightly, when all the cappings 

 will fall out. I use a large wire-cloth dish, 

 about the shape of a saucer, on top to catch 

 any large substance or bees. 



I find this form of strainer very handy for 

 straining beeswax. I simply hang it over the 

 dish I want the wax to run into; put inside a 

 piece of cheese-cloth, and pour in the melted 

 wax till the dish is full enough. The strain- 

 er is 12 inches in diameter at the top and 14 

 deep to the tip of the point. The tin rim on 

 top is four inches wide; the rest is of fine 

 perforated metal. 



Bracebridge, Out. 



[This device looks as if it might give good 

 results. It could not, however, be used to 

 strain honey into the bunghole of a barrel 

 without an additional funnel; but a large one 

 can be obtained at almost any hardware 



BAILEY'S CONE-SHAPED HONEY-STRAINER MADE 



OF PERFORATED METAL. 



This strainer may be used with or.without cheese- 

 cloth. 



