MAY 1, 1914 



^r. C. C. Miller 



ITMAY 



Bees came out of cellar, April 13, " in 

 apparently good condition;" white clover 

 looks promising, and dandelion blossoms 

 ai-e just opening. Glad I'm a beekeeper ! 



Hello, Gleanings ! I suppose you feel 

 (|uite smart in your new dress. You do look 

 rather nice. When all the women are com- 

 ing out with their new Easter bonnets it's 

 only fair you sliould have new liead-gear. 



The Chicago Record-Herald, one of the 

 leading dailies of Chicago, if not the leading 

 daily, lias come out Avith the announcement 

 lliat it will accept no more liquor advertise- 

 ments; also two Pittsburg dailies. That 

 means a Avhole lot. 



Mention of workers taking a hand in a 

 ({ueen-tight reminds me that years ago I had 

 several cases in which, after the introdue- 

 (ion of a queen, 1 found a good many dead 

 workers freshly thrown out. I took it that 

 there were two factions, one for and one 

 against the queen, resulting in a battle. 



My bees were fed as soon as placed on 

 summer stands. A solid frame of sealed 

 honey was shoved into the entrance under 

 the bottom-bars (that's only one of the 

 advantages of that two-inch space under 

 bottom-bars). Then a little board was tack- 

 ed in front, leaving an entrance about %^ 

 inch square. 



Arthur C. Miller catches it, page 286. 

 That's right, Bro. Crane; he's always mak- 

 ing trouble, and you never know where he'll 

 start up next. After all, aren't you drawing 

 it a bit strong to make " at least .35 lbs. of 

 heavy syrup " the amount thought needed 

 to be fed October 1? It may be true in 

 some cases, but I think they are very ex- 

 ceptional. I doubt if I ever thought one of 

 my colonies needed to be fed more than 25. 

 Please remember that for every one like you 

 there are 20 who will gaiess that a colony 

 will get along with a good deal less than it 

 really needs. Here's the way it's likdly 

 to be : "I guess that colony will squeeze 

 through with 10 pounds;" and then when 

 he doubles that and adds half as much more, 

 like enough he'll have it about right. 



I TOOK a well-filled section that weighed 

 14 oz., carefully cut out the comb, melted 

 it, and rinsed the resulting cake of wax. 

 The wood (of course slightly daubed) 

 weighed 31.6 grams (1.115 oz.) ; the wax, 

 13.27 grams (.468 oz.). Deduct weight of 

 wood and wax from 14 oz., and we have 

 left 12.417 oz. as the weight of the clear 

 honey. The consumer who buys such a sec- 



tion at 25 cents pays at the rate of 32.21 

 cents a pound for his honey, since the wood 

 and wax are of no value to him. If he can 

 buy extracted honey at 15 cents a pound he 

 is paying 17 cents for the looks and possi- 

 bly better quality of comb honey. Yes, I 

 know I'm a comb-honey producer, but the 

 truth's the truth. [If you will turn to the 

 last edition of the A B C and X Y Z of Bee 

 Culture, page 698, and the former edition 

 under the heading of Wax, you will find 

 that your figures approximate very closely 

 those made by ourselves. For instance, we 

 state that a 16-ounee section of honey con- 

 sists approximately of 14% ounces of hon- 

 ey, a little over ^/^ ounce of wax, and about 

 an ounce of wood. When we take into 

 consideration the • fact that your section 

 weighed only 14 ounces to start on, your 

 figures are very close to ours. But look 

 here, doctor; don't you remember that hon- 

 ey in the comb, if well ripened, has a flavor 

 and bouquet that the same honey out of the 

 comb does not have? We never tasted any 

 extracted honey quite the equal of a cor- 

 respondingly tine article of comb honey 

 from the same source. Wax itself has an 

 arom.a all its own. Separate that wax from 

 the honey, and a part of the delicate flavor 

 is gone. The process of extracting, expos- 

 ure to the air, and the process of heating to 

 prevent granulation, robs virgin honey of a 

 slight amount of its original flavor. The 

 original flavors in honey are very volatile, 

 and are easily driven off: by exi>osure to air 

 or heat or both. While the ordinary con- 

 sumer, perhaps, may not notice the differ- 

 ence, the connoisseur will; and any consum- 

 er, if he has a chunk of comb honey and a 

 small amount of extracted honey from the 

 same comb, will detect a slight difference in 

 favor of the article in the comb, providing 

 the liquid article has been extracted several 

 days. Pardon us for quoting our ABC 

 and X Y Z of Bee Culture again ; but you 

 will recall that we have made a strong point 

 of this under the head of Comb Honey, and 

 again under Extracted Honey. We sent 

 these articles to a number of honey con- 

 noisseurs, and they all agreed that our 

 judgTnent of the relative merits of the two 

 kinds of honey were correct. Yes, sir, 'e; 

 the writer believes that we ought to empha- 

 size the fact that honey in the comb well 

 sealed is a little superior to the same honey 

 out of the comb equally ripened. If this 

 were not true, the general public would not 

 be willing jear after year to pay more than 

 twice the price for comb honey.— *Ed.] 



