372 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



June 17, 



way toward making a sale. As I never allow any but my best 

 honey to go in to the grocery trade, I have to work off all my 

 off grades to families, boarding-houses and bakeries. The 

 dark and strong kinds, if I have any, are used for cooking, 

 and recipes are given away with the honey. — Gleanings. 



Lorain Co., Ohio. 



What About the Use of Leveled-Down Corabs 

 in the Sections ? 



BY S. A. DEACON. 



The man who opposes, by word or deed, the teachings and 

 long practice of such veterans and pastmasters in the art of 

 apiculture as the late Mr. B. Taylor, and unhesitatingly con- 

 tends that a main feature in that gentleman's system of comb 

 honey producing was altogether wrong, must possess a vast 

 and enviable amount of confidence in his own apicultural 

 knowledge and skill ! 



Let such as perused in the Bee Journal for Oct. 8, 1896, 

 Mr. Abbott's condemnation of the use of drawn combs in sec- 

 tions, turn back to page 61-i of the Bee tlournal for 189.5, 

 and there read Mr. B. Taylor's emphatic statements regarding 

 the undoubted advantages accruing from their use, as com- 

 pared with that of starters, or even with full sheets of foun- 

 dation ; they are compared in his essay at the Toronto con- 

 vention. Perhaps Mr. Jewell Taylor will kindly inform us 

 whether he, or his late father, ever experienced the bad con- 

 sequences of using drawn combs upon which Mr. Abbott lays 

 so much stress. Their use is greatly favored, and strongly 

 recommended, too, by that expert English bee-master, Mr. 

 Samuel SImmins. 



If, as Mr. Abbott alfirms to he the case, honey rapidly 

 deposited, as in drawn combs, is liable to either fermentation 

 or granulation, or to both, it would be interesting to know 

 how the Messrs. Dadant overcame the trouble; for their ex-' 

 trading combs not being leveled down, the conditions favor- 

 able to fermentation, and, according to Mr. Abbott, for granu- 

 lation, are, in their case, present in a greatly enhanced de- 

 gree. And this suggests a question which I would very much 

 wish to have answered by those who, unlike Mr. Abbott, siic- 

 eessfuUy use drawn comb, viz.: How mucli should they be 

 leveled down ? Or, in other words, what depth of cell should 

 be left? And what was the late Mr. Taylor's practice in this 

 respect? Here again Mr. Jewell Taylor can come to our aid. 



What with one set of experts strongly advising one mode 

 of procedure, and another set as staunchly opposing it, the 

 intellects of the majority of the lesser fry naturally get be- 

 fogged, perplext, bewildered and confused, and, half his time, 

 the tyro "don't know where he are." And when I hear Mr. 

 Abbott saying that the use of drawn combs causes tlieir too- 

 rapidly-deposited contents to ferment, and, in the same breath, 

 that it causes them to granulate, I feel strongly iuilined to 

 ask him. Do he really know where he are ? Surely, ihe use of 

 drawn combs cannot be productive of two such cliemically 

 opposite results, for the one is due to an excess of moisture, 

 and the other to evaporation of the same. 



It may be that the constantly presented cniiflicting state- 

 ments regarding matters connected with our calling (and upon 

 which one would suppose there could hardly exist two opin- 

 ions) has dulled my intellect, and made me somewhat obtuse ; 

 still, I venture to think I am not the only one Mr. Abbott's 

 remarks have put in a hole, and that others besides myself 

 would be grateful to that gentleman for a little more precise 

 explanation of his views on this rather importantand decidedly 

 Interesting matter. What have experiments at Lapeer, Mich., 

 proved " along this line ?" — to adopt a favorite expression of 

 our good Mr. Doolitlle. 



Come, Mr. Doolittle, tell us what ynu know about it. It 

 would be little use, I suppose, asking Dr. Miller's opinion, be- 

 cause he's sure not to know, you know; that medicineman 

 never do know nullin' — unless, perhaps. It be how to get 10,- 

 000 sections of honey 1 



Then, to " make confusion worse confounded," Mr. Abbott 

 proceeds to tell us that he "had trouble to keep the honey 

 from granulating in the cells." We must assume, then, that 

 he did prevent it from granulating ; ergo, altho under the cir- 

 cumstances the honey is liable to granulate In the cells there 

 Is a means of preventing it, and that, consequently as far at 

 least as m\i Intellectual eyesight carries me, all objection to 

 the use of drawn comb is removed. 



Mr. Abbott doesn't say haw ho prevented it ; perhaps like 

 the canny Scotch engineer who had a plan for relieving the 

 congestion of the vehicular traHic of London, by converting 

 the bed of the Thames into a macadamized road, the modus 



operandi (in the Scotchman's case, of keeping the water o%it, 

 and in Mr. Abbott's case of keeping it i?i) is "a secret he 

 means to keep his ain sel." Did Mr. A. and his hired man sit 

 up all night doing battle with the granulating fiend ? or how 

 was it done ? I never yet heard of any plan, method or pro- 

 cess of checking granulation in comb honey once it had set in ; 

 but then I confess I don't know very much about the matter. 

 When I see extracted honey going that way I call in hot water 

 to my aid, but I doubt if it would be quite advisable to boil " 

 the sections. Quien sahe f we are living in a wonderful age, 

 and are daily finding out something new. 



Mr. Abbott is an old and experienced apiarist, that we al 

 must admit, and his opinions are, as a rule, entitled to respect ; 

 nor can we be otherwise than grateful for the readiness he 

 ever displays to impart the results of his experience to us re- 

 cruits in the bee-keeping ranks; but until an ecumenical 

 council shall have decreed Abbotts to be as infallible as Popes, 

 or, better still, until we shall have governed the opinions of 

 those veterans whose valuable little pars constitute the con- 

 tents of the Question-Box column, I, for one, shall keep " an 

 open mind " on this matter of the use of drawn combs in 

 sections. 



HONEY PKICES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



I have just received a letter from Mr. F. J. Haarhoff, of 

 Pretoria, Transvaal, in reply to one I addrest him in refer- 

 ence to his statement, which appeared in Gleanings, and was 

 reproduced in the American Bee Journal, to the effect that 

 comb honey was worth half a crown a pound in Pretoria, and 

 which inclined me to the opinion that the ramifications of 

 Horrie & Co. extended to South Africa. But Mr. Haarhoff, 

 who, it appears, is a genera! dealer and broker — and, for all 1 

 know to the contrary, a good and trustworthy one — explains 

 that when he and a few neighbors mustered about 50 colonies 

 between them, which they kept in their gardens, or back- 

 yards, they managed to get a few sections from fruit-bloom, 

 and, being then and there somewhat of a rarity, they fetcht 

 fancy prices. "But now," to quote from Mr. H.'s letter, 

 "competition has appeared in the field, and already the price 

 has greatly receded ; and very little above the present supply 

 would bring prices still lower." Yes, seeing that Pretoria and 

 Johannesburg together have a population of only about -40,000 

 whites, I fear a consignment of say 2,000 pounds would make 

 honey a drug in the market. So I trust that no hastener after 

 riches on your side of the big pond, will be induced, on the 

 strength of that " half crown a pound " statement, to send 

 their product across the deep blue sea ; for what with freight, 

 duty, brokerage, land carriage and smash, I don't think he 

 would see very much change out of that half crown. 



South Africa. 



No-w for Ne-w Subscribers for the rest of 1897 : 

 We would like to have each of our present readers send us at 

 least one new subscriber for the Bee Journal before July 1, 

 1897. That surely will not be hard to do, when they will 

 need to pay only 50 cents for the rest of this year. That is 

 about 7 months, or only 7 cents a month for the weekly 

 American Bee Journal. Any one with only a colony or two 

 of bees should jump at such an offer as that. 



Now, we don't ask you to work for us for nothing, but 

 will say that for each new 50-cent subscriber you send us, we 

 will mail you your choice of one of the following list : 



Wood Binder for the Bee Journal 



50 copies of leaflet on " Why Eat Honey y" ... 



50 " '■ on •' How to Keep Honey " 



50 •' " on " Alsike Clover " 



6 copies "Honey as Food and Medicine" 



1 copyeach " Preparation of Honey for the Market "(10c.) 



and Doollttle's " Hive T Use " (5o.) 



1 copy each Dadants' "Handling Bees" (8c.)and " Bee- 

 Pasturage a Necessity " (10c.) 



Dr. Howard's book on "Foul Brood" 



Kohnke's " Foul Broi-d" book 



Cheshire's " Foul Brood " boob llOc.) and Dadants' " Hand- 

 ling Bees" [So ] 



Dr. Foote's Hand-Bookof Health 



Rural Life Book 



Our Poultry Doctor, by Fanny Felld 



Poultry for Market and Profit, by Fanny Field 



C^apons and Caponizlug 



Turkeys for Market and Profit 



Green s Four Books on Frult-G rowing 



Kopp Commercial Calculator No. 1 



Silo and Silage, by Prof. Cook 



Bicuen-Kultur (German] 



Kendall's Ilorse-Book [Eaglieh or German] 



1 Pound White Clover Seed 



1 " Sweet " " 



m " Aleike " " 



1!4 '• Alfalfa " " 



1^ *' Crimson " " 



Queen-CUpplng Device 



The Horse— How to Break and Handle 



20c. 

 20c. 

 20c. 

 20c. 

 20c. 



ISO. 



18o. 

 2oc. 

 250. 



18c. 

 25c. 

 25e. 

 25c. 

 250. 

 25c. 

 25c. 

 25c. 

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 40o. 

 25c. 

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 260. 

 250. 

 25e. 

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 20c. 



