1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



641 



otce secured, in good marketable shape 

 where it will bring the best the market af 

 fords. But this is not all of it. Besides se- 

 curing- the best prices, the producer will 

 usually get prompt returns. No. 1 and 

 " Fancy" sell, as a rule, with little or no 

 delay, where mixed and ungraded goods 

 are a drug on the market; and the poor bee- 

 keeper waits months, sometimes, before he 

 gets jeturns; then when he does get them 

 his honey has to be sold at a sacrifice, be- 

 cause at the time of the sale it is leaking, 

 possibly candied, and the actual net return 

 is only a half or a fourth what it would 

 have brought if the honey had been scraped 

 and graded. 



Sometimes we get some beautiful fancy 

 honey put up in second-hand cases, or cases 

 that are soiled and dirty, making the whole 

 lot look poor. If they were new cases, but 

 simply soiled, a small piece of sandpaper 

 on a block of wood will make them look al- 

 most new in two minutes' lime; but if the 

 cases are second-hand, and roughly sawn 

 — -well, there is nothing to do but to recase. 

 Commission men sa}% and our own experi- 

 ence goes to corroborate it, that a good case 

 well made, carefully nailed, and clean, will 

 make the honey bring enough'more to pay 

 for three or four good cases, where, if it is 

 a poor one, it knocks the price down on the 

 whole consignment, no matter how well it 

 may be scraped and graded. In saying 

 this, I may be accused of "grinding our 

 own ax," because, forsooth, we make and 

 sell shipping-cases, but that is not the mo- 

 tive. But it does hurt our business when 

 bee-keepers fail to get good prices, and hon- 

 G.y is a drug on the market. 



But this is not all. No matter how much 

 honey may be properly graded and scraped, 

 if it is left on the hive till it is travel-stain- 

 ed it is liable to be lumped ofT as No. 2. 

 Of course, we bee-keepers know that honey 

 that has been on the hive for some time aft- 

 er it has been gathered acquires a richness 

 that it will not have if taken off at once. 

 But that is not the point. The public de- 

 mands, and will pay a better price for 

 clean white goods than it will for soiled and 

 dirty honey that possibly may have a bet- 

 ter flavor; for of this fact the public knows 

 nothing, and it therefore has no weight. 

 People are in the habit of buying by sight; 

 and if the goods do not look as good as the 

 best they do not want them. 



I tell you, brother bee-keepers, and I say 

 it with all kindness, if you but knew how 

 much good money you are losing sometimes, 

 under the delusion that it does not pay to 

 scrape or grade, you would reform your 

 ways very soon. Pick out an honest com- 

 mission house or honey-buyer, then follow 

 his suggestions. Do not imagine that you 

 know more about it than he does as to what 

 the public wants and will pay for. 



And, again, do not send your No. 2 and 

 off grades to market — better by far sell 

 around home, where you can explain that 

 your travel-stained honej' is just as good as 

 or even better than the "Fancy white" 



which you ship to the city. If the sections 

 are poorly tilled out and unscraped you 

 will probably get a better price by cutting 

 the combs out entirely and mixing with 

 them a good grade of extracted honey, and 

 selling to your neighbors as bulk comb hon- 

 ey. But do not attempt to ship this to the 

 Northern cities, at least, where it will be 

 sold as a glucosed concoction. 



Now, dear friends, if you will lake these 

 suggestions in the spirit in which they are 

 written, you and the honey-man in the city 

 will both profit; and you will at the same 

 time stimulate the comb-honey market. 

 There is no trouble at all in selling No. 1 

 and "Fancy" comb honey — bear that in 

 mind. 



HOFFMAN FRAMES — THEIR MERITS AND DE- 

 MERITS. 



There has recently been some discussion 

 in the Bee-keepers" Review and in these 

 columns regarding the merits of the Hoff- 

 man frame. Mr. W. Z. Hutchinson and 

 Mr. J. A. Green are foul-brood inspectors 

 for their respective localities, and, of course, 

 have had opportunity to examine hundreds 

 of hives, handling a great variety of frames 

 as a matter of course. Both men take the 

 view that the Hoft'man is not a convenient 

 frame to handle, and there are some others 

 of the same opinion. Mr. Green, while not 

 condemning the frame, believes it has inhe- 

 rent defects which might be remedied, but 

 he does not show exactly how. The chief 

 objection that seems to have been raised 

 against it by himself and others is that the 

 division-board that is sent out with it in the 

 hive with which it goes can not be removed 

 readily; and because of this fact the diffi- 

 culties attendant on the handling of such 

 frames is very greatly increased. Mr. 

 Green says, "If the division-board or fol- 

 lower were more substantial, and a little 

 more space were allowed back of it, a care- 

 ful operator could get along with it very 

 well." But he does not indicate what con- 

 struction of follower would be better; nor 

 does he explain how it would be possible to 

 provide for more space in the standard 

 hive, of which, perhaps, a million or more 

 are in use. The manufacturer is glad — 

 yes, eager^to adopt whatever improvement 

 will surely be an improvement, providing it 

 is practicable to carry it out. But he can 

 not introduce a change which throws all 

 other supplies out of harmony with it. It 

 would lie impossible to make standard 

 hives a little wider without calling down 

 upon our heads the righteous indignation 

 of all our old customers whose old hives and 

 covers wouldn't match the new. 



From a careful reading of Mr. Green's 

 article in the Review it is evident that the 

 follower which is pronounced flimsy is not 

 the one the Root Co. has been making for 

 the past four or five years; but I notice that 

 some of our competitors are still making 

 the same old follower. The one we now 

 make is much more substatially made, and 



