1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



331 



the value of the honey-bee on the part of 

 manj' people causes this valuable little ser- 

 vant of mankind to be more persecuted and 

 slandered than anj' other gift of our Crea- 

 tor. 



Some years ago an article went the 

 rounds of an ignorant press, copied from 

 one paper to another from Maine to Cali- 

 fornia, and from Canada to the Rio Grande, 

 accusing the bees of puncturing and rob- 

 bing the grape of its sweets. But when the 

 truth was learned, the facts proved that the 

 grapes had cracked the skin open, so that 

 the sweets were going to waste, and the 

 bees were doing all they could to save it 

 for man. But the slander had to run its 

 course. 



If it were not for this little busy servant 

 we should have to dispense with many of 

 our fruit-orchards, and make out to get along 

 with less than one-fourth part of our alfal- 

 fa and other clover seeds. We might just 

 as well say that the bees by gathering the 

 pollen from flowers injure the plants as to 

 contend that their saving the honey injures 

 them. We hope that those who may read this 

 article may see more clearly what honey is, 

 and how it makes its appearance on the 

 petals of flowers and on the leaves of forest 

 trees. 



Raleigh, N. C. 



CUTTING UP CANDIED HONEY FROM SQUARE 



CA.NS. 



BY E. R. ROOT. 



On page 224 of our issue for March 1, and 

 276, March 15, I described a method of cut- 

 ting up a solid chunk of candied honey just 

 as it is taken from the can after the sides, 

 top, and bottom had been cut away. I 

 promised to give a little later some half- 

 tones showing the modus operandi. These 

 I now present, showing each step of the op- 

 eration. 



Fig. 1 shows a cake of candied horey aft- 

 er the tin can has been stripped off. This 

 is accomplished by taking a pair of tinn- r's 

 snips, cutting oft" the top and bottom, slit 

 ting down one corner, and rolling the tin 



back, leaving the cake in one solid mass^ 

 This is slipped on to a board. An ordinary 

 No. 16 steel wire, tough and strong, is cut 

 into a length of about a yard. To each end 

 is twisted on a wooden handle. The wire 



FIG. 1. — CAKE OF CANDIED HONEY SHOWING 

 HOW THE 60 LB. CAN )S STRIPPED OFF. 



FIG. 2. — BEGINNING TO CUT OFF A SLAB OF 

 HONEY WITH THE WIRE. 



is slid under the cake, back far enough to 

 cut off a slab of the size desired — we will 

 say in this case 3 inches. The two ends 

 art drawn up on lines parallel to the end 

 of the cake and crossed in such a way as to 

 bring the wire clear around and the honey 

 in the loop formed. The two wooden han- 

 dles are then drawn from each other, caus- 

 ing the wire to sink gradually in all four 

 corners — see Fig. 2. Continual drawing 

 will gradually pull the wire through the 

 whole mass until it is nearly out — see Fig. 

 3. The wire is then drawn clear out, but 

 the slab will stick to the main mass from 

 which it was cut. A thin-bladed knife en- 

 ters the seam where the wire passed 

 through, slabbing the piece off, the same as 

 is shown in Fig. 4. We now have a chunk 

 of honey 3 inches thick, and of the size of 

 an ordinary 60 lb. square can. It then can 

 be cut up into smaller chunks, or ' ' bricks, ' ' 

 as we prefer to call them, as shown in Fig. 

 5. When this picture was taken, our Mr. 

 Warren had not gotten his hand in as he 

 has done later; but the bricks will weigh 

 approximately 2 lbs., and can be sold by 



