344 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



It does me good to find occasionally a 

 bee-keeping brother who thinks as I do 

 on this subject, and has the courage to 

 say so in public. I am pretty well satis- 

 fied that it pays to use full sheets in sec- 

 tions in order to get the combs well at- 

 tached to the wood, and sealed all aroimd, 

 and also to get a larger yield generally; 

 but it seems to me that the one thing of 

 greatest importance in the production of 

 section honey is not so much to have the 

 combs solidly attached and sealed all 

 around as to produce an article possessing 

 the finest edible qualities possible. 



The ardent writer who, some time ago, 

 told his brother bee-keepers who produce 

 such honey as was pictured on page 12S, 

 Feb. 15, top tier of plate, "they had better 

 soak their heads and brimstone their bees, " 

 has shot far over the mark, and I very 

 much doubt that his honey is anywhere 

 near the fine quality that I like so well in 

 the comb honey for my table. I consider 

 it immaterial whether the comb is attach- 

 ed to the wood or not, if the kind and the 

 quality are right, the comb delicate and 

 of a melting character. Once in a while 

 I have had whole supers filled with fancy 

 honey, sections all well filled, combs 

 built out separately into the corners, and 

 still not attached to the wood except 

 along the top, and perhaps a brace or two 

 at each corner. A cake of such honey is 

 indeed a beauty when it appears on the 

 table, for it need not be mutilated by the 

 knife in cutting it out^ I do not imply 

 that it would be prudent to aim to pro- 

 duce such honey, because it would not 

 carry well; but 1 believe it would attract 

 just as many buyers if we could get it in- 

 to the market. 



It has not occurred to Bro. .\ikin that 

 worker comb in the fini.shed product looks 

 any better than drone comb till he was told 

 by some one, and now, he confesses, he 

 does not know it yet. That, of course, 

 is a matter of taste; but to the great ma- 

 jority of bee-keepers and honey consum- 

 ers, worker-comb honey looks nnich the 

 prettier. I can detect but little difference 

 in the edible qualities of the two. No, I 

 have not measured the thickness of drone 

 comb and compared it with that of the 

 worker-comb; but I have eaten both kinds 

 often; and when they were built out un- 

 der the same conditions the difference 

 has appeared to me infinitely .small. How- 

 ever this may be, I .should be glad if I 

 could induce my bees to build more work- 

 er comb in the sections. So many bee- 

 keepers use full sheets of foundation, 

 and their product is so very uniform and 

 well built out, that I have been tempted 

 many a time to do likewise. This year I 



filled all my sections about half full of 

 extra-light section foundation, but with a 

 result that I am anything but pleased 

 with. I am sorry enough to have used so 

 much foundation. I have gained the 

 point of more uniformity, but the gobbi- 

 ness of the upper half of each comb ife be- 

 yond endurance. Wife saj^s, "Don't 

 bring any more such fishbone honey up to 

 the house." No more foundation forme! 

 However, this does not include the new 

 drawn foundation, which I have not yet 

 fully tested. From its fragility and deli- 

 cateness, I think it has a promising future 

 providing the price is not prohibitory. 



Aside from having our sections filled 

 with all worker comb, they may be made 

 more attractive by glassing and trimming 

 with colored paper. Before we adopted 

 the one-piece section, which is not well 

 suited for glassing, we did a great deal 

 such work; and when we wanted to do a 

 very fancy job we used paper lace in con- 

 nection with the colored paper, as shown 

 in the accompanying drawing. We al- 



most always obtained a higher price for 

 such "fixed-up" honey; and the glass, 

 being sold as honey, paid for the work. 

 The glassing itself was a very simple 

 operation. I would .say the sections we 

 used were four-piece nailed, the glass fit- 

 ting in between top and bottom pieces, 

 which projected over the sides "g inch on 

 each side, or about the thickness of the 

 glass. We used connnon glue to fasten 

 on the glass. After being cleaned from 

 propolis the section was placed on the 

 table flat, dropping just a little glue on 

 the edge near each corner of the narrow 

 sides; the glass was adjusted, and the sec- 

 tion turned over. However, it had to be 

 laid on two little sticks a trifle shorter 

 than the glass was wide, and about % inch 

 thick. The object of this was to have the 



