1896. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



55 



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Liquefying Honey In Fackag'es. 



R. C. Aikin says in Progressive : " My experiments have 

 proven that honey can very easily and successfully be liquefied 

 by dry heat, and without any very complicated fixtures. Jelly- 

 glasses, jars, bottles, pails, or any kind of vessel, labels and 

 all, may be put into an oven or hot chamber and liquefied 

 without damage. I see no reason why we may not have a 

 cheap sealing retail package, the honey put into it from the 

 extractor, and never again opened till it is wanted for the 

 table. The hot chamber can be used by large producers and 

 by commission-houses to melt for those who so desire it ; but 

 I see no reason why the near future may not see the consumer 

 doing his own liquefiying, having printed instructions with 

 each can. With such a plan, the honey could be put into 

 shape for the retail trade at once upon extracting, the pack- 

 ages put into a hot-air chamber if desired to be kept liquid, or 

 there restored again to liquid state when marketed." 



New Weed Process of Sheeting Wax for Foundation. 



This is proving to be a great success. Yes, the new 

 machine feeds a continuous sheet of wax, any thickness, from 

 between a set of dies or parallel bars to any desired length — a 

 mile long — without stopping, if need be. In practice, how- 

 ever, the wax is rolled up upon bobbins holding about 25 

 pounds. These bobbins are then set in a set of bearings (in a 

 vat of warm water), just back of the foundation-machine. 

 The free end of the sheet is fed into the rolls, and, presto ! 

 the whole bobbin of sheeted wax can be reeled off without 

 stopping the mill. In practice, however, again, the founda- 

 tion-mill reels off a length, and stops where the sheet is cut 

 off. A pressure of the foot applies the power, starts the mill, 

 and more is reeled off, and cut to the desired length. We have 

 our plans laid, however, to run the wax through the mill, the 

 whole 25 pounds, without stopping. An automatic cutting- 

 off device will then in the meantime cut the sheets up into the 

 required lengths. 



This is not all. A new and better product is secured. 

 The wax, besides being of an absolutely even thickness, is 

 much more beautiful and transparent. Indeed, some of it, 

 even before it is milled, looks almost as transparent and 

 beautiful as rock candy. Nor is this all — it is tougher and 

 yet more pliable. — Gleanings. 



Bee-Keeping in England. 



My opinion is that bee-keeping will, in a few years' time, 

 resolve itself into a specialty here as in America, rather than 

 in a wide-spread application of modern methods. The trend 

 of things commercial lies in that direction, and honey-pro- 

 ducing will follow suit. Trade demands are also engendering 

 the output of a uniform article. In the past, producers of a 

 few pounds of honey had a difficulty in selling, whereas larger 

 quantities have been salable when a regular supply of uniform 

 quality can be depended on by the trader. This has been my 

 experience. — Wm. Woodley, in British Bee Journal. 



Fixing Prices in the Home SEarket. 



G. M. Doolittle gives some excellent advice about market- 

 ing honey, among other things advising to sell in the home 

 market if you can get within a cent a pound of what it will 

 bring you when shipped, on commission. For the benefit of 

 some, it may be well to mention the exceptional cases that 

 sometimes occur when ihere is a failure of the crop in your 

 own locality. Suppose your home market requires 5,00U 

 pounds, and you have secured only 2,000 pounds, and no 

 other is to be had nearer than the city market. Looking at 

 the market reports you find it quoted at 14 cents. Deducting 

 freight and commission you find you will have less than 13 

 cents left ; considering all risks as to breakage, etc., you will 

 do well to count that a cent less ; or 12 cents in your home 

 market will be as well as, or better, than to ship to the city. 

 So you sell your 2,000 pounds at home for §240. The 



merchants of your town must send to the city for an ad- 

 ditional 3,000 pounds, and freight and risk is such that it 

 costs them, besides the 14 cents paid in the city, an additional 

 cent or more. Indeed, they would rather pay 15 cents cash, 

 delivered at the store, than to send to the city. Is there any 

 justice in paying 15 cents tor the 3,000 pounds, and giving 

 you only 12 for the 2,000? I don't see any reason why you 

 should not have the 15 cents, and thus put $60 more in your 

 pocket. So when the crop is such that your home market 

 must be partly supplied from the city market, you should get 

 in your home market at least the full amount of the price 

 quoted in the city market. — Dr. C. C. Miller, in Gleanings. 



It Pays to Use Plenty of Foundation. 



In the honey season, and in the same day, if you take the 

 three first swarms, each weighing about six pounds, and put 

 one in an empty hive, another in a hive filled with foundation, 

 and the third in a hive filled with nice, bright combs, to which 

 a half story of choice combs is to be added, about how much 

 extracted honey would you get from each colony in the first 

 12 days, if the season was a good one? This question can be 

 answered better after some fair testing has been done. In 

 the meantime I will make a guess and say, nothing from the 

 colony that had all its own combs to make; 20 pounds from 

 the one that had its hive filled with foundation, and 45 pounds 

 from the colony furnished with plenty of combs. The colony 

 with its combs made out of foundation would be worth .^1.25 

 more for real business every year than one that made its own 

 sort of combs. — Wm. McEvoy, in Canadian Bee Journal. 



Upward Ventilation Not Needed. 



F. A. Gemmill, in Canadian Bee Journal, after speaking 

 of the usual wintering plans says: "The above arrangement 

 was for some years practiced by myself, until by degrees the 

 clean or new quilt was abandoned and the old propolized one 

 allowed to remain ; it being composed of thick cotton-duck, 

 and as a general thing completely coated with propolis to the 

 extent that it might be considered water-proof. 



"Gradually, however, even those quilts were becoming 

 less and less used, especially on colonies worked for comb 

 honey, and the flat wood cover with the bee-space underneath 

 used in their stead. The packing being spread over and above 

 this cover in the same manner as above the quilts. 



" Fearing that a solid sealed cover (as near as the bees 

 could make it so) would be a detriment, I in some instances 

 loosened them, and also left a 'g-inch space at the back end, 

 so that the moisture could find exit through the leaves above. 



"Experimenting in the direction indicated, I soon found 

 that a clean quilt was not a necessity, nor was anything at all 

 required but the wood cover, and that did not have to be dis- 

 turbed, as if upward ventilation was actually necessary, that 

 such a cover with 10 inches of forest leaves on top permitted 

 all that appeared requisite. 



Artificial Bee-Pasture. 



When the drought seasons began, farmers tried to supply 

 their bees with pasture by sowing Alsike clover and buck- 

 wheat. While Alsike and red clover have helped the bee- 

 business along to a large extent, until the severe drought of 

 1893-94 had finished up this business, buckwheat has not 

 secreted nectar in Iowa for the last four years, as 1 have made 

 examination; in fact, 1 have made this a study in Pennsylva- 

 nia, where the writer was born and kept bees. Buckwheat 

 was the main fall crop for bees, while Iowa soil and buck- 

 wheat are no good. My first experience was made in good 

 faith by furnishing a lot of seed to a farmer not far from my 

 apiary; he was to have the crop of buckwheat, and I was to 

 take or have the honey the bees might gather from it. Of 

 course I was very anxious for the farmer to sow every foot of 

 ground he could prepare and felt very enthusiastic of my pros- 

 pects, as I had full confidence of a large honey crop, but my 

 hopes were blasted— not a pound was gathered. Other tests 

 have 1 made with much the same result. I do not know of 

 anything, nor would I recommend anything, that could be 

 profitably planted for bees, unless alfalfa or lucerne. This 

 might in some localities, but I doubt whether it would prove 

 profitable in Iowa. Sweet clover is a good honey-secreting 

 plant, and will stand the drought and cold weather in Iowa, 

 and were it of much use for anything but honey, perhaps it 

 might be profitably cultivated in almost any State. What 

 may spring up we do not know, but the bee-business is not 

 now on the booming side of a livelihood. — J. W. Bitten- 

 BENDBR, in Agricultural Epitomist. 



See " Bee-Keeper's Guide" offer on page 64. 



