190U 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



129 



If more of onr ladies, instead of seeking 

 the office chair, or the position of the 

 school desk — all of which shut out fresh 

 air and sunshine, until pallor and 

 languor point sadly to departing health 

 and vigor — would seek apiculture as an 

 avocation, we might have, instead of 

 pale, wan cheeks, roses and blooming 

 health. — Miss Ada L. Pickard. 



From Tfic Progressive Bee-keejjcr. 



We can sell extracted honey candied if 

 we will. Do not tell me the people will 

 not have it so — they will have it so, if we 

 just put it up that way and keep it in 

 the markets. The main trouble is intro- 

 ducing it where the idea is new; but 

 that is easy, for it is so much easier for 

 the grocer that he becomes our voluntary 

 agent in showing and explaining, and 

 just get a customer to try a pail or two, 

 and the thing is done. * * * If my trade 

 increases year by year as it has in the 

 past five years, it will soon take carloads 

 to supply it annually. — R. C. Aikin. 



Brother Aikin says we can sell candied 

 if we will. Amen to that! In fact, the 

 call for extracted honey about here has 

 changed from liquid to that of candled, 

 during the last ten years. * * * Yes, 

 there is no trouble in selling extracted 

 honey in the candied form, "if we will." 

 — G. M. Doolittle. 



There are four points that I have 

 come to consider important in working 

 my apiaries: First, pushing the bees in 

 spring, by keeping plenty of feed; 

 second, clipping every queen; third, 

 weeding out the old queens and supply- 

 ing young ones; fourth, keeping an 

 assistant in the apiary every day that I 

 am not there myself. — Mrs. A. J. Barber. 



I am a large hive man. I believe in 

 strong colonies at all times of the year. 

 Large colonies not only gather large 

 quantities of honey, but require much 

 less work and attention. Now, right in 

 line with strong colonies comes the im- 

 portance of good queens to. fill the largo 

 hives, or " barns," as some call them. 



I want queens reared by the best 

 methods from industrious stock, queens 

 that have been well fed in their larval 

 state, queens that are large and able. I 

 want no queen that cannot, in this 

 locality (Texas), have twelve frames of 

 brood by the commencement of <fche 

 honey flow, April 2.")th, and the more 

 brood and the stronger the colony the 

 better I like her.— H. H. Hyde. 



A comb solid sealed contains more 

 honey than the same comb unsealed, so 

 that if the fully sealed requires more 

 time to uncap we get more honey for 

 our time spent. Nor is this all yet, the 

 wax obtained from the cappings is no 

 mean profit. One hundred pounds of 

 honey uncapped will give near one 

 pound of wax, so if I am correct, that 

 the wax costs us nothing in the first 

 place, we clear about one dollar's worth 

 of wax from each 500 pounds of honey 

 uncapped. Give me the wax of the cap- 

 pings as my wages and I will uncap by 

 the year and make more money than the 

 owner of the honey. Give me fully seal- 

 ed honey to extract and I will extract it, 

 uncap and all, for the wax, and make 

 good wages. — R. C. Aikin. 



Even with a double-walled tank for 

 liquefying honey, care is needed to pre- 

 vent the honey from being colored. Some 

 cans which I liquefied by setting them 

 on the bottom of the tank, poured out 

 light honey at first and dark honey from 

 the bottom, showing that the heat from 

 the boiling water between the two bot- 

 toms of the tank was transmitted direct- 

 ly to the cans, without being modified 

 sufficiently by the water around the 

 cans in the tank. Hence, it is necessary 

 to place strips of wood under the cans. 

 In bottling honey, it should be of a cer- 

 tain temperature — ^no more and no less 

 — to avoid incorporating bubbles of air. 

 If too thick, the down-flowing stream of 

 honey will waver from one side to the 

 other, lapping over itself when it reaches 

 the honey in the vessel, thus enclosing 

 streaks of air. If too thin, it will pierce 



