146 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. 4. 



more than he would be warranted in laying out. The purpose 

 of the central rendering plant is based on a double saving for 

 the beekeeper: first, by sending his comb for extraction a 

 higher per cent of marketable wax is obtained than it is usu- 

 ally possible to obtain by home rendering processes; second, 

 it is cheaper to pay a nominal fee for the rendering service, 

 and also the transportation charges, than to render the wax in- 

 suflBciently by home processes. Moreover, shipments to buyers 

 of wax or makers of foundation can be made from the central 

 plant in larger quantities and at a cheaper transportation rate 

 than the beekeeper can get for his small shipment. 



The figures obtained as experimental data from rendering 

 these large quantities of raw material should be of ultimate 

 benefit to the beekeeper and wax worker, demonstrating ef- 

 ficiency, shrinkages and the presumed difference in character 

 of raw materials and products. These data it is expected will 

 soon be available in a publication. 



Central Honey Handling Station. — As the central . wax ren- 

 dering service is a demonstrated success, so it may be advis- 

 able to centralize the handling of other crops of beekeepers, 

 as, for instance, their honey. In some States already comb 

 honey is co-operatively graded and marketed. The writer is 

 not aware of any co-operative extracting or bottling. It may 

 readily be forecasted, however, that a co-operative extracting 

 plant, say for a limited district of extracted honey production, 

 might be made eminently successful. This being the case, the 

 development of this phase of honey handling might naturally 

 result in a central bottling establishment. 



The Public and Honey. — In the handling of honey it has 

 become more manifest this year than in the past that the pub- 

 lic is more deeply interested in the utilization of honey than 

 heretofore. To the surprise of all beekeepers, even in this year 

 of large crops, their product has moved more rapidly than in 

 any year previous. Never, as one man has expressed it, in his 

 recollection of beekeeping has honey moved out of the hands 

 of the producer so rapidly. Up to the first of August a prom- 

 inent beekeeper of Illinois having 525 colonies in the spring, as 

 he announced at the several beekeepers' conventions in Massa- 

 chusetts, had harvested 90,000 pounds of extracted honey. It 



