1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



E89 



^g^fiOOT 



There is an abundance of clover out, 

 both red and white. The first few days of 

 June were very warm; but it has now (the 

 10th) turned so cool that no bees can do any 

 work in the field. We are daily hoping it 

 will soon warm up. 



All the supply manufacturers in the 

 country, apparently, are having- a big busi- 

 ness in spite of the heavy winter losses. 

 Some of them are making enlargements, 

 just as we are. The great mortality 

 throughout the lale region makes it hard 

 to understand why there should be such a 

 heavy trade. 



BRICK HONEY FOR SUMMER TRADE ; CUT- 

 TING UP A SOLID CHUNK FROM A SQUARE 

 CAN WITH AN ORDINARY BUTTER- CUTTER, 

 SUCH AS IS USED BY WHOLESA.RE BUTTER- 

 DEALERS; A BIG FUTURE FOR BRICK HON- 

 EY. 



Learning that butter in large chunks is 

 cut up into bricks and rolls with a special 

 machine having taut wires evenly spaced 

 on a metal frame, we sent and got a regu- 

 lar butter cutter, and have been testing it 

 this summer to supply our trade for brick 

 honey. It is away ahead of the single-wire 

 method of cutting as illustrated in Glean- 

 ings, both in quantity and quality of the 

 work. The bricks can be gauged to a mathe- 

 matical size; and, instead of cutting one 

 brick at a time, four or fi?e wires are forced 

 through the mass almost as quickly as one 

 wire. In the process of cutting, the wires 

 sink slowly ^ai er the pressure through the 

 chunk. If too great a pressure is exerted 

 the wires are liable to break so that it is 

 best to ''make haste slowly." It would be 

 a great scheme to use one of these butler- 

 cutters in a grocery window on a big daj'. 

 The public would wonder what you were 

 cutting. Of course, possible buyers would 

 ask dozens of questions, and that is just 

 what you want. If you have on hand some 

 samples about an inch square, wrapped in 

 paraffine, and give them away on one day, 

 the probabilities are you can get rid of all 

 your old extracted honey in an incredibly 

 short time. 



I tell >ou, friends, there is bound to be a 

 future for brick and bag honey. I would 

 not call it "candied," but simply "brick" 

 honey, and explain to your customers that, 

 during cold weather, this is the natural 

 state of all first-quality honey, for poor stuff 

 w< uld not solidify into bricks for retail pur- 

 poses. It is simply a question of educating 

 your own local trade, and selling honey 

 right around home, f jr you can not sell it 



outside until the public has learned to know 

 what brick honey is. 



FROM THE FRYING-PAN INTO THE FIRE; A 

 CORRECTION CORRECTED. 



A SHORT time ago a reporter for the 

 Cleveland Plain Dealer visited our estab- 

 lishment, took a number of photos, and 

 notes for an article. These have now been 

 elaborated into an article, the same appear- 

 ing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer for Sun- 

 day, June 12, and presumably it has ap- 

 peared in Sunday editions of other papers. 

 We explained at the time to the reporter the 

 lies that are afloat about manufactured 

 comb honey, and desired her (for she was 

 a lady) to be kind enough to correct the 

 wrong impression conveyed. To this she 

 readily assented; but, unfortunately, and 

 evidently with the best of intentions to re- 

 fute the canard, she has made the matter 

 worse, if any thing. The following para- 

 graphs are somewhat misleading, to say the 

 least. In speaking of the foundation and 

 difl'erent processes of its manufacture, she 

 says: 



It goes to another machine, where it is made thinner 

 and finer, and from there to another, where it is hon- 

 ey-combed and cut into appropriate lengths. This 

 honey-comb is put into the hives to serve the bees 

 merely as a foundation for their labors. It is distinct- 

 ly a labor-saving device that men have adopted to get 

 more of the honey itself out of the little laborers 

 among the flowers. . . . 



A trip through the place is very interesting. They 

 start you at the room where the honey-combs are 

 made — the honey-combs, mind you, not the honey. 

 The company has a standing offer of $1000 for the man 

 or woman clever enough to invent a way to make arti- 

 ficial honey, "paraffine and glucose," which is the 

 imaginary formula sometimes given by carping crit- 

 ics. 



The only danger is that some reporter or 

 newspaper writer may read this article 

 carelessly, gather a wrong impression, and 

 conclude that honey-cjmb is made at our 

 plant, when in fact we make comb founda- 

 tion, such as all bee- keepers are familiar 

 with, the cell-walls of which are not deeper 

 than a sixteenth of an inch. The general 

 public is liable to jump at the conclusion 

 that we. The A. I. Root Co., are making 

 bogus artificial combs. 



IVe have ivrilten to the publisher, and 

 hope to have a correction. 



A WESTERN DEPARTMENT AND A WESTERN 

 EDITOR. 



I AM please! to inform our readers that 

 we have engaged Mr. H. C. Morehouse, of 

 Boulder, Col., to conduct (for a time at least) 

 a " Western department " in Gleanings, 

 entitled " Bee-keeping among the Rock- 

 ies." The first installment is begun in 

 this issue, and for the present will appear 

 once a month. Mr. Morehouse is an old 

 newspaper man, and formerly editor of the 

 Rocky Mountain Bee-keeper — a journal that 

 showed most excellent editorial ability — so 

 excellent that, when I heard Mr. M had 

 sold out his paper, I immedia'ely entered 

 into correspondence with him with a view 

 to getting him to edit a department in this 

 journal. While he sold out because he had 



