544 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15. 



Mr. Israel claims that lie was merely a spec- 

 tator, and had but little to do with it but to 

 clear the way, prepare the room, and watch 

 the honey come pouring down the mountain- 

 side like an avalanche. 



The supers held S7 pounds of honey, and 

 they were piled three and four on a hive, thus 

 making from 261 to .348 pounds each time they 

 were filled. 



Mr. Israel has recently sold his ranch, and 

 moved to San Diego; but notwithstanding his 

 76 winters he is as hale, hearty, and active as 

 if he were a score and a half years younger, 

 and is determined to still follow his chosen 

 pursuit. 



Long may his " Skylarkian " products ap- 

 pear in Gleanings. 



PLAIN SECTIONS. 



A General Discussion of the Question. 



BY DR. C. C. MILLER. 



It's funny to stand and look on to see how a 

 new thing is viewed by different ones. Smith 

 hears of a new thing, and at once is jubilant 

 over it — knows it's just the thing — " there's 

 millions in it." Brown hears of it, and imme- 

 diately knows to a dead certainty that the en- 

 tire thing is all wrong, and will bring ruin to 

 the whole business. Yet one knows as much 

 about it as the other — just nothing at all. Per- 

 haps you expeci me to stand before your ad- 

 miring gaze as the one shining exception — a 

 man who can see all the merits and at the 

 same time all the demerits. No, hardly. As 

 I think over the past I can hardly pose as such 

 a well-balanced, philosophic personage. Many 

 and many a time I've thought over some new 

 plan, perhaps of my own devising, perhaps 

 not, and the more I thought over it the more 

 I thought it was j ust the thing. Untaught by 

 the lessons of the past I'd plunge headlong 

 into the new scheme, not carefully trying it 

 on a few colonies but on every colony in my 

 possession, only to find the bees couldn't pos- 

 sibly be induced to look at things as I had 

 looked at them. Why can't we be level-head- 

 ed, anyway ? 



There's the matter of plain sections — ac- 

 cording to some, good beyond belief : accord- 

 ing to others, bad beyond redemption. I'm 

 not going to enter into a full discussion of the 

 good or bad qualities of the section in ques- 

 tion ; but I'm going to try to take somewhat 

 middle ground this time. I'm not going to 

 settle at once that it's the 7ie plus ultra, and 

 fill all my supers with that kind this year ( I 

 have 24,000 of the old kind piled up in the 

 shop ready to go on the hives now ) ; neither 

 am I going to settle that there's no possible 

 chance that I'll ever care for them ; but I 

 mean to try them on a small scale this year, 

 then I'll know whether to go into them more 

 deeply another year. 



The chief thing that concerns me is to know 

 whether, in the long run, I'll make or lose 

 money by them. Some tell me they'll cost 

 more, some say less. I don't know which to 

 believe. One tells me they'll bring the busi- 



ness into disrepute, because the comb, coming 

 so near to the wood, the grocer's fingers would 

 pinch into the honey and set them to " bleed- 

 ing." Do you know? I just swallowed that 

 fallacy whole for a long time without recog- 

 nizing that it cL'cis a fallacy. Suppose we look 

 for a minute at the difference between the sec- 

 tions with insets and the plain secdons. I use 

 sections \y& wide, and the top of a section 

 throughout the greater part of the length is 

 just about the same as the top of a plain sec- 

 tion, lyi inches. Now, are not my sections 

 exactly the same at the top as the plain sec- 

 tions? Well, there's only one little differ- 

 ence, and I don't know whether that makes 

 any difference in the thickness of the comb. 

 The plain section has a fence that comes clear 

 to the top of the section. My sections have a 

 plain separator that lacks % inch of coming 

 to the top of the section, leaving Yf, inch at the 

 upper part of the comb, without separator be- 

 tween the two sections. In actual practice I 

 doubt whether that makes any difference ; but 

 if there is any difference, my sections with 

 the insets must have the comb built out fuller 

 than the other, so when you grasp one of them 

 by the middle of the top-bar the old-style sec- 

 tions ought to bleed the worst. 



But you say, "The old-style sections are not 

 handled by the narrow part at the middle, but 

 at the wider part near the corners." Are 

 they ? I put this question to one who had 

 handled thousands of sections : " When you 

 lift a section of honey, where do you take hold 

 of it ? " After a little hesitation the answer 

 came, " I don't know." Isn't it just a little 

 queer that one should do a thing thousands of 

 times without being able to say just how it is 

 done ? That reminds me of the old lady who 

 was up as a witness, and was asked how many 

 windows there were in a certain house. She 

 said she didn't know. 



"And yet," said the magistrate, "you say 

 you've passed it a great many times." 



" Your Honor," replied the old lady, " can 

 you tell how many steps you go up to the 

 place where you are now sitting ? ' ' 



He was obliged to answer in the negative. 

 "Begging your pardon," said she, "you 

 can't tell whether it's four or five steps you've 

 gone up day after day for years ; so it be no 

 great wonder an old woman can't tell twice 

 that number when she's seen them only a few 

 months. ' ' 



But, to return to the manner of handling the 

 inset section. I said, "Stop and think. Do 

 you take hold of the section by the narrow 

 part at the middle, or at the wide part ? " 

 " I think I handle it at the wide part." 

 I went and got a section of honey and held 

 it out, saying : 



" Now take hold of that section." 

 Without the least hesitation the section was 

 lifted by the middle of the top bar, with the 

 remark, " That's the way I handle a section." 

 And, my highly esteemed friend who have 

 been arguing that bleeding business to the 

 detriment of the plain section, I'll risk my 

 reputation as a guesser on the guess that that 

 is the way you handle such a section, and that 

 that is the way every grocer handles it ; every 



