260 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1. 



very sure that the children, if present, have a 

 taste too. If you don't know already that par- 

 ents' hearts are very easily reached through 

 their children, you will soon learn it. If a 

 servant or child goes to consult the housekeep- 

 er about buying honey, see that the honey- 

 pail and a spoon go too. Twenty-four people 

 out of twenty-five would say " no ! " if asked 

 if they wanted to buy extracted honey. If 

 they taste first, many will buy. Many are 

 prejudiced against extracted honey. Perhaps 

 some time they have had a poor article of ex- 

 tracted or strained honey, or, may be, they 

 think the honey is bogus. I have many times 

 had such people taste my honey and say, in a 

 surprised way, "Why, that is good. That is 

 genuine honey. What is the price? " 



One lady said to me last fall, " I never buy 

 extracted honey. I buy comb, then I know 

 what I am getting." After she had been in- 

 duced to sample the honey she found it good, 

 knew it was genuine, bought some, and asked 

 me to call again. 



Don't annoy people by urging them to buy 

 when they don't want to, and be invariably 

 polite and pleasant whether the}^ buy or not. 

 You can easily make friends who will be glad 

 to see you come again. Follow the same route 

 every year, and your sales will increase each 

 trip. You can go over the same ground as oft- 

 en as once in six weeks to advantage. I have 

 many customers who at first bought lightly, 

 or not at all, who now buy 20 to .50 pounds of 

 my honey every season. One near-by town of 

 about 2000 population has used over 1-500 lbs. 

 of my honey this season up to Feb. 1, and all 

 auttunn honey too. I seldom have any other 

 kind in my present location. But there is lit- 

 tle buckwheat, and the honey is mostly from 

 goldenrod, fireweed, and Spanish needle. One 

 pleased customer will often find others for 

 you. In this way I have this season sent three 

 5-gallon cans of honey to customers in Chi- 

 cago, at 9 cts. per pound net. "Can't buy 

 genuine honey in Chicago ! " they say. A lit- 

 tle ridiculous, isn't it? 



Some one will ask if I have no competition 

 in selling honey. Yes, but that doesn't mat- 

 ter much. There is plenty of room, and cus- 

 tomers for all. Make a reputation for square 

 dealing and selling a good article, and custom- 

 ers will wait for you. If some one undersells 

 you, and gets some of your customers, never 

 mind — there is a very large market almost en- 

 tirely undeveloped. 



Think of this matter, brother bee-keepers. 

 Plan to raise a crop of good extracted honey 

 next season, and then get all there is in it. 

 Don't divide with transportation companies or 

 middlemen. A crop of extracted honey is 

 much surer than a crop of comb, and, in most 

 localities, two or three times as great. Ask a 

 fair price for your honey (all you can get is a 

 fair price), and adhere to it. It is much easier 

 to lower prices in a good year than to raise 

 them in a poor one. If there is a large or 

 small crop of grain or fruit, every one knows 

 it. Not so with honey. 



Covert, Mich., Feb. 8. 



[I wish to place special emphasis on what 



friend Burrell ^,'ays regarding getting prospec- 

 tive customers to taste the honey, and espe- 

 cially the cfiildrxn ; he says very truly that 

 parents are easily reached through the chil- 

 dren; and if you t(.11 the good mamma, while 

 the child is tasting,^, nd teasing her to buy, 

 that honey is far m< e wholesome as a sweet 

 than ordinary S3rup. ^ >x sugars, you may be 

 able to clinch a sale rig^^t then and there. 



Friend Burrell's arti^'i^ will bear careful 

 reading. It not only r;^^ irses some things 

 that we perhaps already ^->w, but tells how 

 to make a success of pedd g, without losing 

 one's dignity or self-respec'^^-ED.] 



THE WAX-PREf^X 



The Economy of its Use over 

 Extractor. 



Ht Solar Wax- 



BY J. J. RAPP. 



I have been experimenting for a year or so 

 with the various plans for getting the wax out 

 of old combs, and have never been satisfied 

 with the amount secured. Having several 

 hundred old combs to render this 3^ear, I fitted 

 up a press with which I have been very 

 successful. The bee-keepers here who an- 

 nually produce hundreds of pounds are sur- 

 prised at the amount of wax they have been 

 throwing away. One prominent apiarist esti- 

 mates his loss at nearly two tons of wax since 

 he has been in the business. Most of them 

 have been in the habit of consigning every 

 thing to the sun extractor, and being satisfied 

 with the results. At first I had no idea of 

 looking any further than to old combs for 

 material to work in the press, taking it for 

 granted that the work of a good sun extractor 

 on cappings, in this land of sunshine, was 

 about as complete as it was possible to make it. 



But after trj-ing it I find slumgum to be a 

 rich source of wax, while moth-eaten combs, 

 or any refuse that has been rendered by other 

 methods, may be profitably worked. My first 

 lot consisted of 284 combs, Langstroth frame, 

 most of which had been in use ten years or 

 longer, and were about as unpromising a lot 

 as you are likely to find. Many of them were 

 filled with old pollen, so that they weighed 

 almost a pound apiece after cutting from the 

 frame; or, to be exact, 20 weighed 18 pounds. 

 They yielded 117 pounds of clean wax, or a 

 pound of wax to 2,\ frames, or about 6)4 lbs. 

 to a sixteen-frame hive, or 7 i to a nineteen- 

 frame. The weight of cheese corresponded 

 with that of the wax, and about 20 lbs. was 

 either soluble or carried off with the water. 



I next tried a small quantity of capping 

 slumgum (about 9 lbs.) that had lain in the 

 sun extractor nine months, two of which were 

 during the hottest weather we have here in 

 California. It was as black and hard as coke, 

 and showed about as little sign of containing 

 wax. It yielded 1% lbs. 



Third lot. Had an oil-case half full of sun- 

 extractor refuse that had stood in the weather 

 a full year, and was moldy, and even appar- 

 ently rotten in the bottom, and full of moth- 



