July 26, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



467 



r 



1 lie 1 laiue Oitiiai itpit LiiajJ-llive. 



Nos. 2 and 4, get rid of their honey-combs, and empty ones 

 for exchange, by simply going to the shop-door. The little 

 time saved in these few steps may seem of little importance, 

 but it saves me daily the cost of one more man. 



Every one as busy and happy as the little pets we are 

 working with, time passes so swiftly that it seems but an 

 hour after our arrival when the alarm is sounded from the 

 house — dinner. 



We all quit work as soon as possible and not leave hives 

 open. These boys are active and hearty eaters, but even 

 this laborious task is done in order. Nos. 1 and 2 feed the 

 team ; No. 3 gets a pail of fresh spring-water ; No. 4 takes 

 the baskets of dinner to a shady spot near by ; No. 5 spreads 

 the cloth and sets the table — picnic style. No. 6 cuts the 

 loaves of bread and carves the meat. Dinner over, each 

 has a duty in packing up and getting to work. The same 

 is true at the close of the day's work, which comes when the 

 entire apiary of 100 to ISO colonies have been treated. 



The light-covered wagon with the boys in arrives at 

 home in time for them to do the few chores common around 

 a farm-house ; so they are ready, as the freight-wagon backs 

 up to the warehouse, to roll the barrels in the house, the 

 floor being on a level with the wagon-bed, carefully weigh 

 each barrel, and mark its gross and net weight on the label. 



The honey is stored in these barrels until sold, without 

 any other care— except afew dozen cases of 60-pound square 

 cans for farmer trade. If barrels are made of a good quality 

 of staves, kiln-dried and iron-hoopt, the barrels then stored 

 a short time in a dry, airy room, and the hoops driven the 

 day the barrel is filled, they will never leak. That is our 

 experience for the past 20 years ; sending barrels thousands 

 of miles, and to nearly every State east of the Rockies. We 

 must use such packages for extracted honey as our markets 

 demand. The next best package is the 60-pound tin can, 

 cased; and where good cooperage can not be had, and at 

 cheap figures, the boxt tin can package is perhaps as good 

 as any. Our home market consumes about 10,000 to 12,000 

 pounds of extracted honey, and 500 pounds of comb honey 

 per year. 



The extracted honey is .sold in common tin pails, hold- 

 ing three, five and ten pounds each. We furnish every 

 grocery-store with the honey in these pails ; and, to catcti 

 some customers that do not want to buy the pails, they are 

 allowed to pay for pail and honey, and when the pail is 

 eraptj' and clean, they can return it to the store and get 

 pay for it, the same as it cost. 



Almost all kinds of gummed labels will 

 not stick to new tin cans or pails, but they 

 will stick for all time and not wash off if 

 put on with a paste made of demar varnish 

 reduced with alcohol. — Bee-Keepers' Review. 

 Grant Co., Wis. 



What to Do With Unfinisht Sections. 



BY S. A. DE.^CON. 



T has often been remarkt in print that 

 " bee-keeping is a business of details." It 

 is all that ; and the many little operations 

 to be performed in the economic production 

 of honey, and in fitting it for sale, are con- 

 siderably eased and expedited by the numer- 

 ous little dodges and devices which we owe 

 to the skill and inventive genius of members 

 of our fraternity ; nor can we have too many 

 of these aids. 



The late Mr. Allen Pringle, in his enter- 

 taining essay on " Bee-Keepers' Mistakes," 

 said a good deal to discourage us from giving 

 rein to our inventive faculties, asserting 

 that, as a rule, we shall find that we have 

 only been wasting valuable time going over 

 old ground — "digging up that which has 

 been dug up before." But with all due re- 

 spect to the memory of the author of this 

 doubtfully sage advice, I rather think we 

 should go on delving, and tho we may not 

 strike a bonanza, there is no reason why we 

 should not turn up a valuable little nugget or 

 two that have not hitherto seen the light of 

 day. So much for the preamble ; now to the 

 point. 



Few questions have been more frequently 

 askt and answered in the columns of this 

 journal than that heading these remarks, 

 viz.: " What shall we do with unfinisht sec- 

 tions?" and somewhat varied have been the replies. 

 Emerson T. Abbott says, "Throw 'em in the sty " — to the 

 little piggy. But I think very few of us can afford to " cast 

 our pearls before swine;" I, for one, can not, and have to 

 exert my ingenuity to fit them for use ag-ain. To that end 

 I have just been looking over, and " fettling up," some 

 2,000 such sections, in readiness for another expected flow. 

 They were a disheartening sight, a hopeless looking lot, 

 nearly all the bottom starters nibbled away, combs all sorts 

 of odd shapes and patterns, like the bits of a child's puzzle- 

 map, and in many cases the sections so stained and dirty 

 that I was more than once inclined to the opinion that Mr. 

 Abbott's advice was about right after all. But " Needs 

 must," says the proverb, "when a certain old gentleman 

 drives," and the necessity for exercising strict economy in 

 our very precarious pursuit, urged me to try what I could 

 do to fit them for another campaign. 



In the majority of cases I found it best to boldly whip 

 out the whole comb — after having first leveled them down 

 with a Taylor comb-leveler. Then, with a little tact and 

 economic carving, with here and there a little artistic 

 patching and joining, I got them into shape. The eye soon 

 learns to see where the knife must go, and with a little 

 practice it all goes very quickly. Of course, it takes time 

 and patience ; and tho I have no doubt but that manj', like 

 Mr. Abbott, will ridicule the idea as entailing a waste of 

 time, there are, on the other hand, many who will find it 

 anything but a tedious or unpleasant occupation during the 

 long winter evenings ; and it is a work in which the help 

 of the juniors of both sexes can be enlisted. I find that, 

 unaided, I can get thru about 250 a day ; and seeing that in 

 this shape they are almost, if not quite, equal to full sheets 

 of the new drawn foundation, I consider the time and labor 

 expended on them amply repaid. 



And now for the modus operandi : The only tools re- 

 quired are a small " straight edge " (or a little square piece 

 of '-i -inch stuff 4x4 inches), and an old thin-bladed table- 

 knife — if the point be broken off square and this square top 

 sharpened a bit, all the better, for it facilitates cutting out 

 the corners and pop-holes. At the operator's right hand 

 must be placed a lamp on a chair, so that he can easily hold 

 the blade just over the chimney. After holding it so for a 

 second or two, he passes it rapidly between the wood and 

 the comb wherever they are connected, when out falls the 

 latter unharmed. Hethen passes the empty sections to his 

 assistant, if he has one, who scrapes off the wax still adher 



