THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



tiful white comb of honey, to set upon 

 the table in a form to tempt some in- 

 \ited friends we may chance to have at 

 dinner, or tea. I was not a second in 

 deciding which section that one was; but 

 for fear I might look through a distort- 

 ed vision, I passed the picture to Mrs. 

 Doolittle and asked her which would be 

 //,■■/■ choice out of those eight sections; 

 providing all were alike as to quality and 

 whiteness of capping. Without a mo- 

 ment's hesitation, she chose the same 

 one I did; which was the second one from 

 the right in the top tier. I asked her 'why 

 she chose that section in preference to any 

 of those on the lower tier, or row. Her 

 reply was that it could be cut from the 

 section without marring the comb con- 

 taining the honey, except a very few cells 

 at the bottom, and, when the section was 

 lifted off, instead of having all the cells 

 on the sides "dauby" with running 

 honey, these side cells would show 

 the honey through them in such a 

 transparent way that it would set the 

 mouth of any person to ' ' watering ' ' for 

 a taste of it. "Then" she continued, 

 " after cutting the honey out of any one 

 of the sections on the lower tier, there 

 would be a troublesome scraping of the 

 section to save all the honey; or else there 

 would be a dauby, dripping thing to dis- 

 pose of in some way; liable to take another 

 plate, which must be washed, yes, and 

 steps used to get it, or else run the risk of 

 having honey dripped or daubed on tlie 

 tablecloth, floor, or somewhere which 

 would tend to ruffle the feelings of an\- 

 person who cared how their house look- 

 ed. Then, by the time the company was 

 i-ead}' for the honey, the nice comb of hon- 

 ey would be ' swimming, ' so to speak, in 

 the drip from the broken cells at the sides; 

 thus giving it much the appearance of a 

 little comb honey swimming in glucose, 

 as seen in cans of honey on the market." 

 This might be enlarged upon, but it is 

 enough to show, that there are some at 

 least who do not agree that fullness of 

 section is the great desideratum some 

 would have us believe; and this fullness 



of section, and a consequent theory that 

 it looks better and vAW sell better on that 

 account, is the chief argument advanced 

 in its favor, by its advocates. As I con- 

 sider this fallacious, and as I realize to 

 .some extent what a general change from 

 the " fixings " now in use, to those nec- 

 essary to use with the plain sections will 

 co.st, I feel that I must add my testimony 

 to that of friend Bingham, and call a halt; 

 a halt long enough, at least, so that we 

 might a,sk ourselves " where we are at. " 

 Then, another thing, Mr. Editor, were 

 I a betting man, I would venture a " cook- 

 ie ' ' that the same ' ' strain ' ' of bees which 

 built the comb in the lower tier of sections 

 did not build the comb in the upper ones. 

 .\nd I would wager my old straw hat, 

 pictured in Gleanings, that had the bees 

 which fini.shed up the lower tier, been 

 given the uppper tier, and vice versa, 

 that the bee-way sections would have 

 been the full ones, and the plain sec- 

 tions had the "peep holes" in them. 

 That is, providing that picture is a 

 true representation of the combs which 

 stood before the camera, which I suppose 

 it nmst be. No one at all familiar with 

 the difference in the comb building of 

 different varieties of bees, can look at 

 that picture and think otherwise. The 

 bees building the comb in the lower tier 

 of sections had enough Italian blood in 

 them so that, when they commenced on 

 a section they expected to fill it, without 

 stopping to a.sk, " Will not the honey 

 yield fail before we can complete these 

 .sections?" The bees building the comb 

 in the upper tier of sections had enough 

 black blood in them to cause them to ask 

 each other, " Had we not better go a little 

 slow on this thing for fear the honev-flow 

 may be cut short just when we have a 

 great big job mapped out?" And so the 

 latter hesitated, and went along from 

 " hand to mouth," as it were, in the mat- 

 ter, while the former moved the whole 

 thing out "bodily" to its completion. 

 Do you see the rounded, nearly smooth, 

 cappings to the cells in the upper tier, 

 and the drawing in of the combs at the 



