THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



129 



Third : we want a good strong 

 upright gearing with a strong crank 

 at side of can and a brake to be 

 operated by the left hand and to 

 act on a smooth pulley on centre 

 shaft and powerful enough so that 

 we can stop the motion from full 

 speed to a dead standstill at one 

 revolution of the crank. 



Fourth : we want the can made 

 of heavy tin or galvanized iron (we 

 prefer tin) and all the inside work 

 strong enough so that we can carry 

 forty lbs. of honey in combs with- 

 out danger of anything giving out 

 and the can sliould be from twenty- 

 six to thirty-six inches in diameter 

 so that it will need no fastening 

 down to hold it still. 



In short, we want a machine tliat 

 will go through tlie process of re- 

 ceiving four heavy combs, partly 

 extracting one side, then reversing 

 and extracting the other side and 

 again reversing and finishing the 

 side first extracted from ; then com- 

 ino- to a standstill when the combs 

 are removed. We are sorry to say 

 that American beekeepers want to 

 do all of this work in just sixty 

 seconds ; but sucli is the case, and 

 they want this machine all for $ 2U 

 or less. Can they get it? Yes. 



Friend Heddon says "we think 

 that automatically reversing the 

 combs in a practical manner is per- 

 haps impossible, but consider that 

 point of far less importance than 

 the one of automatically extracting 

 the honey by momentum by way 

 of the slip gearing." 



Now, if friend Heddon will step 

 into our shop some morning, one of 

 the girls will convince him that 

 15 



" automatically reversing the comb 

 in a practical manner" is not " im- 

 possible, " but that the process is 

 very simple. 



We can see no great advantage 

 in the matter of a slip gear that 

 friend Heddon describes by which 

 he starts the motion and then 

 throws the machine out of gear and 

 leaves it to extract the honey while 

 he uncaps more combs. 



First, because if the machine is 

 made as it should be with a large 

 reel giving a strong direct centrif- 

 ugal force to the combs he will not 

 have time to pick up his honey 

 knife and comb before the honey 

 will be out of the combs in the ex- 

 tractor, if the honey be new ; and if 

 it be old and thick the motion will 

 run down before the hone^^ is all 

 out, so that he must lay down knife 

 aiid comb and again throw the ma- 

 chine in gear and start up and get 

 out the honey from the bottom 

 of the cells as this honey sticks 

 much firmer to the comb than does 

 that near the outside of the cell. 

 Would it not be better for him to 

 have three or four of his students 

 busy all the time uncapping, and 

 he spend all his time putting in, ex- 

 tracting and reversing combs, than 

 for one man to do all the work of 

 uncapping and depend on perpet- 

 ual motion retarded by friction and 

 centrifugal strain, to do the ex- 

 tracting? 



Again, if any of the combs to be 

 extracted contain any young brood 

 with the large reel that his machine 

 will take, and at the high rate of 

 speed that he must give to get the 

 motion after he has thrown off the 



