1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



629 



RAILROAD RATES FOR OMAHA. 



The next meeting of the United States Bee- 

 keepers' Union will take place at Omaha, 

 Sept. 13, 14, 15. Railroad rates will be one 

 fare for the round trip plus $2 00 " from the 

 Western Passenger Association territorj- east 

 of and including Utah, except that from points 

 within a radius of 150 miles of Omaha the rate 

 of one fare for the round trip will apply." 

 Reasonable rates have been secured at hotels, 

 and you may be sure that Bros. Whitcomb and 

 Stilson will see that ever}' necessary detail is 

 carried out. The Home of the Honey-bees 

 will be represented of course. 



SNOW-WHITE OR CREAM-COLORED SECTIONS. 



The editor of the Rcvieiv quite agrees with 

 Mr. G. K. Hubbard, that it is only the bee- 

 keepers who demand snow-white sections ; 

 that neither the merchant nor consumer asks 

 for them. And in turn I quite agree with Mr. 

 Hutchinson, that it is poor business manage- 

 ment to pay for extra whiteness. In our cata- 

 log for the last two years we have tried to ed- 

 ucate our fraternity up to this sort of doctrine, 

 but somehow bee-keepers will insist on white 

 goods, in spite of the fact that white honey 

 would show off to better advantage in the 

 darker or cream-colored box. Put a cake of 

 nice white honey, for instance, down on some 

 clean snow and it will appear dark by con- 

 trast. Of course, snow is whiter than the 

 whitest basswood ; but there is a great deal of 

 this wood that is much whiter than the aver- 

 age of white honey ; and I can not and never 

 could see the sense of paying more money for 

 the so-called snow-white when it is quite liable 

 to make the honey it incloses appear darker by 

 contrast. 



The supply-dealer is perfectly willing to give 

 his customers their choice ; and if they are de- 

 termined to pay more money for the white 

 sections, he has no fault to find. 



THE HONEY CROP FOR 1898 POOREST IN 

 YEARS. 



Later reports seem to confirm previous re- 

 ports to the effect that the season this year 

 comes as near being a failure, so far as honey 

 is concerned, as any year bee-keepers have 

 had for man}- a year back. A few have been 

 fortunate enough to secure good crops, and 

 market quotations, owing to scarcity, indicate 

 an advance in both comb and extracted. The 

 season seems to have been the poorest in our 

 own vState of Ohio. In sections of West Vir- 

 ginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, Wis- 

 consin, and Minnesota, good crops are re- 

 ported; and the season in Vermont seems to 

 have been exceptionally good; and reports in- 

 dicate fair honey-flows in other portions of 

 New England. Of course, the season in Cen- 

 tral and Southern California was a complete 

 failure, owing to a lack of rain. In Northern 

 California some honey was gathered. Colo- 

 rado is the one State out of all the rest that 

 will be the banner honey State this year, for 

 the season was considerably ahead of last 

 year. Very flattering reports have come 

 from Florida. 



COMB honey IN PLAIN SECTIONS. 



We have examined several lots of honey 

 put up in plain sections; and, while not as 

 free from pop-holes as we hoped, they are cer- 

 tainly an improvement over that in the old 

 style. The combs are whiter, probably 

 through a freer circulation, and are a little 

 fuller in the boxes. Well, here are three 

 letters that will speak for themselves. 



Your .sections and fences are perfectly elegant; and 

 I consider the fence the neatest, best, and most conven- 

 ient thing ever devised for the purpo.se of separators. 



Bloomingville, O., July 22. R. R. Harris. 



I have tried the plain sections and separators, and, 

 contrary to expectation, they are a decided success! 

 Owing to the free communication throughout the su- 

 per, the outside sections were filled and sealed right 

 along with the center ones, while only 15 to 20 sec- 

 tions to the super of the old kind would be found 

 finished. I believe the perfect communication af- 

 forded by the " fence " to be the most important point 

 in its favor. w. A. Campbell. 



Cisco, Ga., July 2l>. 



My honey-flow is over, and I am well pleased with 

 plain sections. I find that it requires more care to 

 handle them; but they show up better and are more 

 attractive than the others. 1 tried them on a small 

 scale this year, and will increase next. 



Calvert, Ala., Aug. 4, L. W. McRae. 



In the case of some, at least, plain sections 

 will be filled out no better than the old-style 

 with bee-waj's; but with a number of others 

 they are, to all appearances, better filled. I 

 have just been looking over a large shipment 

 received from Geo. E. Hilton, of comb honey 

 all in plain sections. As I looked over those 

 boxes of beautiful combs I could not help 

 feeling just a little satisfaction that I had had 

 a hand in showing up the merits of fences in 

 nobee-way sections. 



So far we have received only one or two re- 

 ports to the effect that some of the plain sec- 

 tions of honey would not crate, owmg to the 

 bulging. We were at a loss to account for 

 this, especially as we received so many favor- 

 able reports of the opposite character. So far 

 as we could ascertain, there was no uncratable 

 sections where the supers and fences were 

 properly constructed. But we put out last 

 season what we called our " S fences," having 

 cross-cleats the same thickness as those used 

 on our other fences. We did not then dis- 

 cover that we here made a mistake, for the 

 cleats should have been i'^^ inch thick, on 

 fences to go in old-style supers instead of ,-^. 

 This made an error of .}^^ inch, and the accu- 

 mulated error would reach as high as % inch 

 down to 4L inch. This resulted, of course, in 

 the combs bulging more in some sections than 

 in others, and, of course, they would be un- 

 cratable. We wonder now at our stupidity in 

 not seeing this in the first place; but as we 

 sold only a very few, comparatively, of our vS 

 fences, the trouble will not be very vidde- 

 spread. 



One important fact has developed since the 

 season opened; namely, fences and plain sec- 

 tions must be wedged tightly together in the 

 super. If not wedged there is a possibility 

 of some uncratable boxes of honey in a super. 

 We called attention to this through our cata- 

 log and through our journal, and all the plain 

 sections and fence separators sent out last sea- 

 son were provided with thin wedges; and, so 



