8 



(CLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



at the close of my article on page 931. If Bro. Hed- 

 don conveyed the idea at Chicago, which you attrib- 

 ute to him, he must at that time have laclied that 

 clear-headedness which he generallj' exhibits. All 

 know that candied honey in cold weather has a ca- 

 pacity of resistance almost equal to wood, and one 

 of these bo.xes of honey is little if any more easily 

 broken during- the months I named than is a solid 

 block of wood of the same size, being about as solid 

 as bricks, except at the top. To make this more se- 

 cure I use heavier lumber for the cover. Then 

 about the leakage. Surely liro. Heddon couldn't 

 get so far off the track as to talk of honey, candied 

 solid during December and JMnuary, leaking, even 

 were it possible to break the boxes. Why! even 

 A. I. Root used to tell us of cutting such honey up 

 in square chunks and selling it in this shape as 

 Slick candy. Bear in mind, I do not recommend 

 these bo.xes, and never iliil, e.vcept for the purpose 

 set forth; viz , for liolding and shipping so? id honey 

 during the cold months of the year. The sleigh is 

 used as convenient for carting or carrying truck in 

 winter, when snow is on the ground, but it is nearly 

 worthless at all other times, as a means of carriage, 

 and it.iwould be about as consistent to condemn 

 sleighs entirely as it was for Bro. Heddon to con- 

 demn a box for solid honey. No man could ever 

 become more disgusted with wooden packages for 

 liquid honey than I have been, and I have not used 

 them for that purpose in ten years, much prefer- 

 ring tins and glass; but after the honey has been 

 stored in tin tanks till it is candied so it will scarce- 

 ly run, it can then be put in wooden bo.xes, and, aft- 

 er becoming solid, handledduring the cold months 

 to good advantage. Solid honey is conveniently 

 gotten out of a box, while it is a nuisance to try to 

 get the same out of the bung-hole of a keg or barrel, 

 or from the screw top of a can, as many consumers 

 try to do. We made a good point years ago, when 

 the candying of honey was placed before the pub- 

 lic, as a test of its purity; and upon that decision I 

 saw the way clear to get pure honey in a solid shape 

 to said public, and I still believe that whoever tries 

 the plan unprejudiced will like it. 

 Borodino, N. Y., Dec, 1887. G. M. Doolittle. 



Friend D., I am greatly interested in that 

 bee-cave of yours, not only for wintering 

 bees, but it comes the nearest to cold stor- 

 age without ice of any tiling that has ever 

 been given us. Your plan of making the 

 snow drift over the cave is a wonderfully 

 bright thought, and I never heard it men- 

 tioned before in any of pur papers devoted 

 to cold storage and cellars for farmers. 

 The Prairie Farmer recently described a 

 root-cellar that was much like yours in some 

 respects. In our soil, I agree with you ex- 

 actly in preparing a good roof over the dirt, 

 to keep the rain out. You did not mention 

 having a ventilator at the west end of the 

 cellar, where it is deepest in the ground. 

 For fruit or for roots this would be quite an 

 item. By opening these ventilators at the 

 proper time, so as to let dry air go through 

 the cellar, all moisture can be dried out 

 of the whole cellar and its contents. It 

 seems to me tliat (H feet wide inside is very 

 narrow, is it not V If you put your hives on 

 shelves one aliove another, perhaps it is as 

 wide as you need. This would allow a two- 

 toot shelf on each side, anda2i-foot pass- 

 ageway. For a root-cellar you would not 



need more than two outside doors— may be 

 only one. If on level ground, the outer 

 door could be made like an ordinary cellar- 

 hatchway, with steps to go down. Of 

 course, you w^ant such perfect drainage that 

 no water can ever show itself, even dui'ing 

 the heaviest rains of spring. 



I think friend Heddon himself had bet- 

 ter tell us his experience, in print, with 

 those boxes for candied honey. No doubt 

 they will answer very well wliere the honey 

 is candied solid and hard ; but the honey we 

 get will not always candy so as to make 

 solid blocks ; and. again, suppose you have 

 to hold your honey over, or prefer to hold it 

 over, would it not melt during the summer 

 time, so as to make trouble ? Perhaps, if 

 stored in that bee-cellar, the even tempera- 

 ture might prevent candying. AVho can tell 

 us about that V I am leaning pretty strong- 

 ly toward that wooden packtige for extract- 

 eil honey, even if I did And some fault with 

 it. Let us have the experience of every one 

 who has ever used them. It is true, the 

 Chicago ciuvention rather "sat down " on 

 the arrangement ; but may be there were 

 not many there w^ho had tried it very much, 

 except friend Heddon. 



HONEY-TUMBLERS. 



DR. MILLER PROPOSES TO SHAKE US, NOT BY 

 THE HAND, BUT BY THE SHOULDERS. 



fRlEND ROOT:— On page 938, friend Bugbee 

 gives you some plain talk, at the close of 

 which you want to get hold of him to shake 

 him by the hand. Now, I'd just like to get 

 hold of both of you, and shake you by the 

 —shoulders! You both need a good shaking. 



You admit there is trouble about honey-tumblers, 

 and say, " If there is no other way out of it, we will 

 goto the expense of having dies and tools made to 

 make a tumbler holding a full pound of honey— no 

 more, no less." Now, you ought to see that any 

 attempt in that direction would only make matters 

 worse. I have some tumblers of two sizes— No. 803 

 and No. 804. 1 bought them of you a few years 

 ago, and, as neai-ly as I can make out the stencil 

 on one of the boxes, they were made by Wallace 

 & Co., Pittsburgh. You first sent the smaller size, 

 and as that was too small I got the larger. I have 

 just weighed one of these filled with honey, audit 

 holds a trifle more than IV ounces of honey. But it 

 is filled just as full as it will hold, and I should not 

 like to be so exact in filling a large number, so I 

 like the size very well for holding a pound. But I 

 suspect that much extracted honey is thinner, and 

 possibly some of it is so. much lighter that this 

 tumbler filled with it would weigh hardly a pound. 

 Suppose, now, you go to the expense of getting up 

 a new tumbler " that shall hold a pound— no more, 

 no less." It will hold just one pound of a certain 

 specific gravity, and will not hold just a pound of 

 any other. So all you have gained is the throwing 

 on the market another size of tumbler to make still 

 greater confusion. Is it not possible that some who 

 have used this tumbler, and found it too small, 

 have filled it with rather thin honey? If so, the 

 obvious thing is to evaporate the honey till it goes 

 la the tumbler, rather than to stretch the tumbler 

 to hold a pound of thin honey. You see, this is a 



