1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



51 



ens and dozens of different smokers, I came to 

 the conclusion that the hot blast suited me the 

 better. This conclusion was based on the fol- 

 lowing : Greater volume of smoke, for the 

 reason that the cold blast will not produce a 

 hot enough fire to produce a smudge that is 

 conquering to the fullest degree. It takes 

 heat, with most of the fuels obtainable, to 

 produce a great amount of smoke, and to get 

 that heat it requires a forced draft through the 

 fire. I constructed a large number (or, rath- 

 er, I had them constructed ) in our shop, of 

 different smokers. Some of them were almost 

 on the same line as is described in your letter. 

 I found, when I got the fuel in the cold blast 

 burning briskly after much coaxing, that I 

 could throw as much smoke as with the hot- 

 blast smoker ; but it took too much working 

 of the bellows, and the effort and time wasted 

 were too great. In other words, I could, with 

 half a dozen whiffs of the hot blast, produce 

 more smoke than with five times the number 

 with the cold blast. 



Years ago the value of cold smoke was dis- 

 cussed, and it did seem to me that smoke pure 

 and simple, without heat, would be decidedly 

 preferable ; but in tests that I made I found I 

 could conquer bees sometimes, even with hot 

 air alone, without smoke. As a rule, hot air 

 and smoke combined were more effective than 

 either one of them alone. In my experiments 

 I used some vicious Cyprians — bees that were 

 almost unconquerable. I know that once or 

 twice I tried to subdue them with a cold-blast 

 smoker; but I had to give up the job, and then 

 I went at them another time with a hot blast, 

 and conquered. 



The first four or five years of my experience 

 in the apiary was in the use of cold-blast smo- 

 kers exclusively. I was then of the opinion 

 that this was the better ptinciple ; but later, 

 after 1 began using the hot blast, I found that 

 the smokers of this class would give their 

 greatest smoke with four or five whiffs of the 

 bellows, and consequently were sooner ready 

 for work. 



Now as to the construction of smokers you 

 refer to. I have made them with larger tubes 

 and with smaller tubes ; with tubes remova- 

 ble ; with fire-boxes of the same capacity as 

 the hot-blast arrangement, but with results as 

 above given. 



We are now and have been for years selling 

 both kinds of smokers ; but I have had a feel- 

 ing that the cold blast was so inefficient, as 

 compared with the hot blast, that we owed it 

 as a duty to the fraternity at large not to offer 

 the cold blast at any price. This feeling has 

 not been shared by my father; but the different 

 boys who have come into our apiary to work 

 have been given their choice of smokers, and 

 I think that, without exception, they have se- 

 lected the hot blast after a few days' trial of 

 the two kinds of smokers. 



The modern shipping-case to-day as sold by 

 us is the result of the combined thought of 

 bee-keepers and commission men alike. In 

 my travels among bee-keepers I usually try to 

 get " pointers," and the shipping-case has re- 

 ceived, among other things, its fair share of 

 attention. It was Capt. J. E. Hetherington 



who first began the use of cleats in the bottom 

 of the case, with paper tray, I believe. I 

 think he used cases, thus prepared, for years 

 before the general fraternity came to know 

 them. Filially a prominent commission house 

 that I visited urged upon me the very great 

 importance of having cross-cleats in the cases, 

 saying that, if we once began to make them 

 in that way, every manufacturer in the coun- 

 try would be forced to make the same kind, as 

 bee-keepers and commission men alike would 

 be quick to see their merits. I went home, 

 and, as a result, shipping-cases were sent out 

 having cross-cleats and paper trays, and the 

 result was almost wonderful. We got orders 

 for shipping-cases from sources hitherto un- 

 known to us ; and the following year all the 

 manufacturers made cases on these lines. 



The follower was made, not so much to 

 facilitate the removal of sections as it was to 

 permit of the use of different widths of sec- 

 tions in the same case. The time was when 

 every width of section required a special case ; 

 and the dealer and manufacturer were put to 

 no little annoyance, as every odd width requir- 

 ed an odd size. Now a few standard cases 

 will take in every sort of section, so far as 

 width is concerned, on the market. In some 

 cases there may be more folded paper back of 

 the follower — in others, none at all. In still 

 others, the follower may be omitted entirely. 

 —Ed.] 



RAMBLE 159. 



Preparing Chunk Honey for Market; Experiment- 

 ing with Solar Wax-extraciors ; Size and 

 Shape of Brood-nests. 



BY RAMBLER. 



A poor season for the production of comb 

 honey always leaves more or less of the sec- 

 tions only partly filled and partly capped; and 

 many of cur sections having drawn combs 

 that were not leveled down properly present- 

 ed a surface quite dark in appearance. In 

 fact, we had but a small amount of strictly 

 first-class comb honey, and that was stored in 

 sections that were leveled down to within 

 about y% inch of the septum. 



The late Mr. Levering had a fair sale for 

 honey put up in round tin cans holding from 

 five to six pounds of honey. Comb honey 

 was cut from those 12-lb. boxes, and fitted 

 into these cans, and extracted honey turned in 

 to fill up the vacant space. Having several 

 dozen of these cans on hand, our incomplete 

 sections were taken in hand, the honey cut 

 out and fitted into the cans, and it would not 

 do to tip these cans sidewise at too much of 

 an angle, for, being provided with a loose 

 cover, the honey was liable to drip from the 

 top. Those who handled the hcney in these 

 cans complain* d about this feature, and claim- 

 ed that much honey leaked out when the cans 

 were taken to a distant market. 



The cans, and how we took the sections in 

 hand to fill them, is shown very well in the 

 photo. 



As an improvement upon this style of pack- 



