230 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mai:. 15. 



as well under the caption. And if you would 

 only place it there, you would confer a special 

 favor upon every busy reader of Gleanings 

 who can afford to waste no precious moments 

 of his limited reading-time; and you would re- 

 ceive the heartiest thanks of thousands of such 

 busy readers. Also, please give plenty of catch- 

 line's. They are always helpful. And whatev- 

 er you have to leave out, please don"t leave out 

 any foot-notes. Do you fully realize that, with 

 the exception of a few of the ablest articles, 

 they are the most valuable and helijlul pait of 

 Gleanings'? And that is quite right, for so 

 they ought to be. By the aid of caption and 

 name, catch-lines and foot-notes, the experienc- 

 ed and busy apiarist will often be able to catch, 

 in a minute the gist of the ai'ticie, or be able to 

 decide whether it will pay to read the whole of 

 it, or how much of it he can afford to read. 



THE QUESTION-BOX. 



This is a very valuable addition, and even 

 Gleanings seems a little more spicy when tak- 

 en with a Straw in it. J. W. Murray. 



Excelsior, Minn., Feb. 17. 



[The "cap-knife" is shorter and just as good. 

 Accepted usag.\ however (and this is some- 

 thing we can't very well change if we would), 

 compels the use of the longer name, " uncap- 

 ping-knife.''] 



EVAPORATING HONEY. 



SUN HEAT, A I>A BOARDMAN, WON T DO. SO 

 SAYS A CALIFORNIAN. 



On page 50 Mr. Boardman asks whether the 

 sun evaporator is uoi the secret of some of the 

 California honey not candying. I think if he 

 would travel around among California apiaries, 

 as Mr. Root did, he would come to the conclu- 

 sion that it is not the secret, because he would 

 find very few if any sun evaporators. I admit 

 that honey exposed in a sun evaporator foi' sev- 

 eral days will not candy, at least for a long 

 time; but oiu' sage honey will often lemain 

 liquid several years without candying. On the 

 other hand, some of our spring honey will some- 

 times candy in a week or two after extracting. 



The carload of honey which 1 sold to Mr. 

 Root ran directly from the extractor into laige 

 tanks, from which it was drawn into new live- 

 gallon cans: and I do not think you will find 

 any of it candied yet. My exiK'jience with sun 

 evaporators has not been very satisfactory. 

 They make the honey darker, and change tlic 

 flavor, and do not evajmrate fast enough. I 

 should like to ask Mr.Boaidman wlietherhecan 

 take this iioney. extracted befoi i' any of it is cap- 

 ped over, and evapoiate it thick, without chang- 

 ing the color or flavor: and if he can. how many 

 of his evaporators would it take to reduce 2500 

 lbs. in one day? We all know it would be a 

 great saving of time and labor to ourselves and 

 the bees if we could extract all of our honey be- 

 fore it is capped; but the jjoint is. whether we 

 can evaporate it artificially, without injuring 

 the color or flavor, as economically as the bees 

 can. I say, no. not by the suu"s heat. It is too 

 unreliable, even in California. When your hon- 

 ey is thinnest, the weather is olten cloudy or 

 foggy. My only hope now is in "vacuum- 

 pans." 1 think honey should not be healed io 

 over l,50°Fah., and it will not evaporate very 

 fast at that teraperaluie unless in a vacuum. I 

 wish some one living near a condensed-milk oi' 

 sugar factory would. get them to condense some 

 of their honey, and see whether it att'ects the 

 color or flavor; and it not, find what it will cost 

 to reduce a ton of honey to l.oOO lbs. Perhaps it 



will pay to have small vacuum-pans, and work 

 the air-pumps by hand or horse power. This is 

 extracting the water from honey by power in- 

 stead of h(;at. ,1. F. McIntyre. 

 Fillmore, Cal., Feb. 1(5. 



[Friend M., I want to thank you for having 

 given m(i my first clear idea of what is meant 

 by " vacuum-pans." We second your request. 

 Perhaps somebody w ho has used the arrange- 

 ment will tell us more about it.l 



DISCOURAGEMENTS OF BEE-KEEPING. 



AN OLD veteran RECOUNTS THEM. 



[Keart at the State Bee-Keepers' Association, Mad- 

 ison, Wis.] 



As the bright side of bee-keeping is the one 

 generally presented to the public, some items 

 from the other, or discouraging side, ought to 

 be in order. When I commenced keeping bees 

 34 years ago. we had no bee-literature of any 

 account to aid us. but we had plenty of good 

 pasturage, any amount of basswood timber, 

 wild flowers, buckwheat, and but few bee-keep- 

 ers, and nearly every season seemed to be a 

 good one for honey. Honey bore a good price, 

 foul brood was unknown, and even the moth- 

 miller had not found us out. The prejudice 

 against bee-keepers by farmers, fruit-gi'owers, 

 and others, of late years existing, was then 

 never mentioned: but those good old times are 

 past, and the favorable conditions then existing 

 can not again be enjoyed. This thought dis- 

 courages one. The improvements and the ad- 

 vance made in bee-keeping since I began have 

 been marvelous. The movable frame, the ex- 

 tractor, comb-foundation mills, sections, cases, 

 smokers, veils, different races of bees, large fac- 

 tories for the manufacture of supplies, and the 

 excellent literature pertaining to bee-keeping, 

 now available, have booiued bee-keeping. All 

 items relating to big honey-yields and rapid 

 increase have been given, copied in agricultu- 

 ral and other papei's. These have advertised 

 the business till the result has been that we 

 harvested a countless ihrong of bee-keepers. 

 As the saying is. the woods are full of tiiem, 

 and. we might also add, the open ground too. 



Of the thousands who have comnnuiced bee- 

 keeping in the last few years. 1 am satisfied 

 that, had they kuown fully the chances and 

 the actual conditions as they e\i^ted. half would 

 have turned tlieir attention to something else; 

 but. being captivated by the big reports of some 

 of the few most favorably situated, to achieve 

 success they embarked in the ventnr<>, not con- 

 sidering the much larger number who had 

 made a failure of the business. 



This big ciop of lx>e-keepers is discouraging 

 to me. It may speak well for the advancement 

 of the pursuit and the cheapening of honey for 

 the masses: but every accession to our ranks is 

 one moie i-ival in the field to lower piiccs and 

 share with us the pasturage. A larg(> pa)'tof 

 the beginners are inclined to cut prices, which 

 ari! already low enough. 



Another discouraging feature: While bee- 

 keepers are increasing, pasturage is not. Bass- 

 wood is fast disappearing; buckwheat is not 

 I'aised nearly as mueli as lormeiiy: wild flowers 

 ai'e disappearing befoic the plow, sheep, and 

 cattle. One honey source, white clover, is on 

 the increase, but is an uncejtain honey-plant 

 in our climate. 



Filtcin years ago I had, including the home 

 yard, bees in six places, the furthest yard be- 

 ing ten miles from home, with scarcely a rival 

 yard tliat would lessen my crop; but for sever- 



