370 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



June 11, 



ing-fever again so as to thwart the plans we have made. 

 Where a person has a continuous honey harvest, then it is 

 well to rear bees in abundance all of the season, but if I am 

 well-informed, very few have such a locality. 



All agree that it is a waste of time, honey and vitality, for 

 bees to rear a lot of non-producing drones, and many articles 

 have been given showing how this may be avoided, and I be- 

 lieve it is equally as absurd to rear a host of consuming work- 

 ers out of season, and I have given in the above some of the 

 things which give me this belief. Borodino, N. Y. 



Bee-Keepers Not Sufferiag from Over-Produc- 

 tiou of the Honey Product. 



BY H. P. COLEMAN. 



I have read with much interest the article of Mr. Doo- 

 little on page 163, with reference to over-production, but I 

 cannot say that I was greatly surprised at the range of prices 

 of honey from the year 1874 to the present — a period of 22 

 years. It is true that the difference between 28 to 30 cents 

 per pound obtained in 1874, and 13 to 15 cents per pound 

 obtained at present, is very large, but in my opinion the 

 trouble is not in the over-production of honey, but in the in- 

 creased production of other luxuries and necessaries of life, 

 combined with a contraction of the currency of the country. 

 It is perhaps true that there is more honey produced now than 

 in the year 1874, but not to a greater extent than the in- 

 crease in the population of the country, and this being true, 

 everything else being equal, there should be no very great 

 difference in the prices or demand for honey. But everything 

 else is not equal. There has been a great increase in the pro- 

 duction of the fruits and sugars, and these combined, at their 

 present low prices, to a great extent, have supplanted honey, 

 and form the principal table-luxuries of the people. 



It is a rule, founded in economy, that the human family 

 will use and subsist upon the cheaper commodities, if the 

 cheaper commodities will meet the ends in view. And this 

 rule applies with unusual force at a time like this, when 

 there is a stringency in money matters. 



If Mr. Doolittle will reflect for a moment, he will remem- 

 ber that there has been a gradual decline in prices, of nearly 

 all kinds of products, since 1874. Wheat, corn, pork, beef, 

 potatoes and other farm products have declined to an extent 

 that is almost alarming, and we should not be surprised to see 

 honey in the wake. 



And there is still another rule, founded in econony, that 

 has its influence on the prices of honey. Honey is a luxury, 

 and when men are in the straits, financially, they curtail ex- 

 penses, and the luxuries are the first to be dispensed with. 



It is not my purpose in this article to say anything with 

 reference to my views as to the causes of the present financial 

 depression, but we can see that it is very desirable to bee- 

 keepers that we have an era of prosperity — an era that will 

 place within the reach of all the real luxuries of life. When 

 this time comes, honey will again be sought after as an article 

 of consumption, and the good old days of the long ago will in 

 a measure be restored. I say in a measure, for I do not be- 

 lieve with the increased production of sugar and fruits, which 

 are so easily turned into marmalades, jellies, and other lux- 

 uries, that honey will ever again be in as good demand for 

 table use as in days gone by. 



I usually sell my honey at home and in neighboring towns, 

 and the demand is always graded by the supply of fruit, and 

 the ability of my friends to buy. A few years ago (188.5) my 

 crop was the largest I ever had, but the fruit crop in my sec- 

 tion was a failure, and the entire honey crop went off at fine 

 prices before cold weather. 



Last year my crop was medium, but the fruit crop was 



large, and the result is, I have several hundred pounds of nice 

 white honey still on hand. 



Notwithstanding the low prices and comparatively small 

 demand for honey, I do not mean to give up bee-keeping! 

 Neither do I believe that Mr. Doolittle will give it up. The 

 value of a product is not measured alone by the dollars and 

 cents it will bring, but by the buying capacity of what it does 

 bring. Twenty years ago, when we were getting fancy prices 

 for our honey, we were paying the same kind of prices for 

 what we bought. At that time we paid at least one dollar per 

 bushel for wheat, and other things in proportion, and now it 

 will not take a greater number of pounds of honey to buy a 

 bushel of wheat than then. Of course, I mean generally 

 speaking. 



From what has been seen (from the above), we as bee. 

 keepers should not bemoan our fate alone, as to low prices, 

 but should exercise that broad sympathy that will extend to 

 all classes suffering from the same cause. 



Sneedville, Tenn. 



Wax Experiments — Methods of Rendering: 

 Quantity and Quality. 



Br R. C. AIKIN. 



How shall we render wax ? How much can I get from a 

 given number of combs, and what will be the quality? We 

 do stick to old methods with wonderful tenacity, even when 

 there are ways that are better. I have rendered wax with 

 wat^ and with steam, using several different ways of apply- 

 ing the heat. I have also used the solar way for 10 or 15 

 years. I have made at least five solar extractors, ranging in 

 size from 18x30 inches to 6x6 feet. I have made them mov- 

 able and stationary ; built two of brick, the last one of which 

 is built against the south side of my shop, and is 6x6 feet, all 

 openings into it being in the shop. A furnace is also beneath 

 to apply fire when needed. 



Last year I had occasion to melt a lot of extracting- 

 combs. I thought this a good opportunity to test the yield 

 of wax from a given number of combs. I remember reading 

 years ago (I think in Kretchmer's " Bee-Eeepers' Guide") 

 that an ordinary brood-chamber required about two pounds 

 of wax to build the comb to fill it. The combs I had to melt 

 were in part almost new, both natural base and foundation 

 combs. Part had been used for brood, some quite black. I 

 first put 100 bright combs into the solar, average Langstroth 

 size combs, and got 20 pounds of wax. Two other lots of 100 

 each were melted separately, the least yield being 17 pounds. 



The 100 brighter combs yielded 20 pounds after having 

 been extracted from a few times ; I would expect almost as 

 good a yield from strictly new combs — probably a little less 

 wax but a little whiter. The dark combs, I am sure, have as 

 much wax in them, but the mass of cocoons carry with them 

 probably about 1/10. The grade of wax from these three 

 lots was almost the same, being a bright yellow. The wax 

 left with the refuse is not entirely lost, for it makes fine fuel 

 and kindling, thus making the dark combs almost if not quite 

 as valuable as the brighter ones. 



Some seem to think there is no better way to render than 

 the submerged-sack method ; but all things considered, the 

 solar is far ahead of this method. The first saving is in time. 

 I save all odds and ends, burr-combs, hive-scrapings and bot- 

 tom-board litter, and put all in the solar. The very blackest 

 old comb you may have — though not yielding as much wax as 

 the meltings before-mentioned — will give a bright wax from 

 the solar ; but if put through water it will be very dark. 



Of the afore-mentioned meltings I took about a half- 

 bushel of the refuse and put it into a sack and submerged it 

 in a can of water, boiled, stirred, punched and twisted the 

 stuff, and yet I could not get enough wax to rise to make a 



