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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15. 



PRICES STIFFENING. 



It is a great pleasure to note how prices on 

 comb honey have stiffened. See our Honey 

 Column. We used to think that supply and 

 demand had but little to do with the price of 

 honey; but this poor year has shown that the 

 price is going up. Whether it will go higher 

 than 12 or 14 cts. for white and fancy, 1 can 

 not say. Last year at this time prices were 

 ruling at 9 and 10 cts. 



HARRY HIIvL. 



That new editor of the American Bee-keep- 

 er, Mr. Harry E. Hill, is going to give us all 

 warm competition. His experience in keep- 

 ing bees is probably more varied than that of 

 any other apicultural editor in the United 

 States. He has seen and kept bees from New 

 York to California, from California to Florida, 

 and from Florida to Cuba. He, if any one, 

 ought to know the influence of locality and 

 its effect upon bees. The Ainer. Bee-keeper, 

 under his editorial management, fairly bristles 

 with good things. Gi^eanings offers its con- 

 gratulations to the W. T. Falconer Co. 



NARROW sections. 



Mr. Hutchinson has this to say regarding 

 the width of sections : 



PEANUT QUEEN-CELIvS. 



Those big peanut queen-cells on a stick, a 

 la Doolittle, give larger and better queens, 

 according to our Mr. Wardell, than by the old 

 method. I supposed this was true, but there 

 is some satisfaction in having it proved before 

 our eyes. I have just received a line from 

 Mr. Alley, inquiring why we fuss with arti- 

 ficial Doolittle cups when the natural ones 

 can be raised more cheaply by the bees, as per 

 directions in his book. But there is one great 

 advantage in artificial cups; viz., they stiffen 

 the base of the cells so that one can mash 

 them right into the side of a comb, without 

 crushing the cell itself. The natural cell-cups 

 are frail things, and require to be handled 

 like eggs. 



THE APIARY BUII^DING AT THE TRANS- 

 MISSISSIPPI EXPOSITION. 



It is not often that bee-keepers are fortu- 

 nate enough to secure a separate building for 

 the display of bee-exhibits. Two or three 

 such buildings have been secured at several 

 expositions ; but they were comparatively 

 small, and were lacking in architectural 

 appearance. But, thanks to Messrs E. Whit- 

 comb and L. Stilson, a magnificent building 

 75 X 1.38 feet has been erected at the Trans- 

 Mississippi Exposition. Of it, E. T. Abbott, 

 of the Btisy Bee, who has seen it, says: " It is 

 safe to say no such building was ever before 

 erected exclusively for the display of apiarian 

 products." The American Bee Journal, in 

 speaking of its appearance, says, " It is of the 

 Swiss farmhouse style of architecture, and is 

 declared by experts to be the best arranged 

 building ever erected for bee exhibits." 



APIARIAN BUIIvDING AT THE OMAHA EXPOSITION. 



The width of sections that I used this year is only 

 one and one-half inches. Several years ago, when I 

 lived at Rogersville, I used several thousands of sec- 

 tions of this width. This is the width that bees nat- 

 urally build their comb, and they build this width of 

 combs more even and straight without separators 

 than they do the thi;ker combs. They complete and 

 cap the combs quicker. Fourteen sections weigh 

 about twelve pounds. I like sections of this width. 



If I can read the signs of the times the trade 

 will gradually work toward lighter- weight sec- 

 tion honey -boxes — not for the purpose of de- 

 ception, but because the wholesale price of 

 honey has got down so low that one or two 

 things must happen : The price must go up or 

 quantity decrease. In good years the former 

 is out of the question. 



Unfortunately, owing to the fact that we 

 were fairly snowed under with orders we were 

 unable to get our exhibit in place at the open- 

 ing of the exposition ; but Supt. Whitcomb 

 was kind enough to grant us an extension of 

 time. If every thing has gone according to 

 calculation our exhibit is now erected and in 

 place. During the convention, Sept. 13, 14, 

 15, one or more of our people hope to be pres- 

 ent to "explain things." 



The big convention, and the largest and 

 most magnificent of apiarian displays, with 

 the very low railroad rates, ought to prove 

 drawing cards — to bee-keepers. Let every 

 one come who possibly can. 



