1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



723 



eight or ten colonies who had the time to fuss 

 with fixing them in the shipping-cases so 

 that they would not be broken. His reason 

 for this was that the surface of the comb is 

 so near the edge of the section that there is 

 great danger of mutilating it on account of 

 there being no protecting corners. After a 

 grocer cleans up several times after handling 

 sections with gouged combs, he is pretty apt 

 to declare that he does not want to bother 

 with any more comb honey of any descrip- 

 tion. Grocers, he further said, do not al- 

 ways handle honey as carefully as they might, 

 ana they are often to blame for breakage, 

 but, at the same time, if they are disgusted 

 with comb honey they won't take any more 

 at any price. For this reason our friend be- 

 lieves that comb honey should be given all 

 the protection possible, hence his preference 

 for the beeway sections. 



OUR GRADING-RULES CRITICISED. 



In the matter of grading, he thought the 

 rules now in force are drawn too fine. If 

 we would cut out about half of the subject- 

 matter, and not attempt to go better than a 

 No. 1 , it would be much better. When asked 

 to what grading-rules he referred he said he 

 had in mind particularly the eastern rules; 

 but, as for that matter, the Colorado gradings 

 are only a little better. He would make 

 both sets of rules simpler, leaving more to 

 the individual judgment of the one who is 

 doing the grading. He referred approving- 

 ly to the suggestion of some one who said 

 tnat all No. 1 combs Should comprise the best 

 of the lot, the No. 2 should take in the next 

 best, and so on down to No. 3. But we sug- 

 gested that would make a grading which 

 would vary according to locality and one in- 

 dividual's crop; that it was possible that Mr. 

 A's grading would be higher or lower than 

 Mr. B's; or that a Nevada grading would be 

 lower or higher than a Colorado. He admit- 

 ted the force of this, but said we must de- 

 pend very largely upon the honesty of the 

 producer; if he did not grade honestly and 

 Tairly, cut him out. 



In speaking of the Colorado grading-rules 

 he said they virtually made it necessary to 

 sell the honey by the piece and not by the 

 weight. He could see no objection to sell- 

 ing honey actually by weight, and then the 

 seller and the buyer would make a deal on 

 the actual quantity of honey bought and sold. 



COLOR OF ALFALFA HONEY. 



We asked him if the alfalfa in his locality 

 was a light honey like that in Colorado. He 

 replied that it was. We then inquired if he 

 knew of any reason why Arizona alfalfa was 

 darker in color than that of Nevada or Colo- 

 rado. He did not share the opinion that the 

 color of a pure alfalfa was dependent upon 

 locality; that the difference in shade was due, 

 he thought, to a slight admixture of another 

 source of honey darker in color. In Arizona, 

 for example, there were other sources on 

 which the bees began working, and would 

 be working about the time the alfalfa open- 

 ed up. The bees would be gathering i^rom 

 both sources; and the result would be that, 



while the honey was largely alfalfa, almost 

 entirely so, there would be a slight amount 

 of some other darker honey in it, affecting 

 its color slightly, but not its flavor, for he 

 was free to admit that the quality of Arizona 

 alfalfa is excellent. 



In this connection he mentioned the fact 

 that in and about the territory near Reno 

 there is considerable clover, and, strangely 

 enough, the honey from that source is a dis- 

 tinct amber and not a white honey such as 

 we have here. So far as clover was concern- 

 ed he admitted that locality did affect the 

 color, for no other sources were in bloom at 

 the same time. 



EAKLY OR LATE CUT ALFALFA. 



We asked him if, in his locality, the ranch- 

 ers were cutting their alfalfa before it was 

 in bloom. "Not to any considerable extent." 

 Then we inquired if, in his opinion, an early- 

 cut alfalfa made a better hay than that which 

 was cut while in bloom. That depended, he 

 said; but for dairy purposes the early cut 

 is doubtless better; but for stock-feeding 

 the other is superior. Apparently the cut- 

 bef ore-bloom did not worry him very much; 

 and in this connection he admitted that, even 

 if the early cut made a better hay, the large 

 ranchers are not able to get to it just in the 

 nick of time, and, as a natural consequence, 

 much of it will be cut when it is well in bloom. 



STRAWBOARD SHIPPING-CASES. 



Just before he took his car we passed some 

 corrugated strawboard shipping cases. Di- 

 recting his attention to these we asked him 

 if he had had any experience. No, he had 

 not; he thought they were too fragile for car- 

 load-shipment work. In this connection we 

 asked if he was using corrugated paper to 

 put under the sections in his wooden cases 

 in lieu of drip-sticks. He was not. The only 

 merit of the corrugated paper, in his opinion, 

 might be in the Fact that it would absorb 

 drip honey where the wooden cleats would 

 not. In this connection he explained that he 

 was using pasteboard drip-cleats for this rea- 

 son, and because they would stay in place 

 better than the wooden cleats. 



Not all of our readers, perhaps, will sub- 

 scribe to his opinions; but we must remem- 

 ber that Mr. Trickey is an extensive honey- 

 producer, one who owns and operates five 

 hundred colonies. While he is a man of pro- 

 nounced convictions, somewhat conserva- 

 tive perhaps, he is successful. He did not 

 place very much value upon the opinion of 

 the man who owned only a few colonies. 

 He thought that many or all of them were 

 inclined to rush into print before they had 

 tested their ideas on a sufficiently large scale 

 to determine whether they are of any value. 



If our forefathers had followed this policy 

 of exclusion we might never have had a 

 Langstroth or a Huoer, and many others 

 who, though their interests in bees have 

 been small, have given us some of the best 

 things the bee world has ever known. Per^ 

 haps we do admit too many of the little chaps 

 in our ranks; if so, it is because the "woods 

 are full of 'em." When the big ones won't 

 write we have to do the best we can. 



