1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



725 



This usually results in a comb that is unfit 

 to rear brood in its upper part, on account 

 of the stretching of the foundation and the 

 consequent eloneration of the cells The 

 queen may sometimes lay in these, but they 

 are generally used only for honey- storing. 

 This results in a double loss — first, by re- 

 stricting the space available for brood- rear- 

 ing, already small enough in an eight-frame 

 hive ; s€ cond, and this is by far the more im- 

 port ant, by always maintaining a strip of 

 honey between the brood and the super, 

 which tends to discourage the storing of hon- 

 ey above. The same results follow, in an 

 increased degree, when full sheets, unwired, 

 are used under like circumstances, and to 

 some extent when wired horizontally, with 

 the wires loose. Out of several hundred 

 empty combs which I bought this spring, but 

 very few are fit for brood-rearing in the up- 

 per fourth. To use such combs for brood- 

 combs is apt to result in serious los^. 



These facts, which I have observed for a 

 number of years, have led me to use foun- 

 dation in the brood frames in only two ways 

 — first, as a narrow starter, not over an 

 inch wide; second, in full sheets carefully 

 wired. I once thought that I could not af- 

 ford to use any thing but full sheets of 

 foundation; but I have been compelled to 

 change my mind by finding that I could not 

 get the best results in honey- production ex- 

 cept by hiving swarms in a contracted hive 

 with only narrow starters. Too much drone 

 comb built, did you say? Well, sometimes. 

 But I can sort those combs out, use them 

 for extracting- combs, cutout the patches of 

 drone comb and replace with worker, or 

 even melt them up into wax and still come 

 out ahead. 



LIGHT-WEIGHT SECTIONS. 



Mr. G. C. Greiner has given us some val- 

 uable and interesting articles on the section 

 question; yet on page 213, while fully cog- 

 nizant of the fact that the tendency is to- 

 ward selling all articles by the piece rather 

 than by weight, and admitting that this ten- 

 dency is likely to increase, it seems that he 

 can not get rid of the unfortunate old idea 

 that there is such a thing as a " one-pound 

 section." A one-pound section by size, he 

 calls it. Will he be so good as to tell us 

 what the size of a one-pound section is? It 

 is almost universally agreed and admitted 

 by practical honey producers and dealers that 

 the sections in general use do not weigh a 

 pound, and that it is impractical to have 

 them of any definite fixed average weight, 

 year after year. Then why foster this idea 

 of ' ' one-pound sections ' ' by such talk? Ap- 

 parently Mr. Greiner has had no experience 

 with more than one size of section, and he 

 assumes that any section that falls much 

 below his maximum in weight is necessarily 

 defective. Thus he says, "A one- pound 

 section of honey that weighs four ounces less 

 than a pound can be of two kinds. It is 

 either from two-thirds to three- fourths built 

 out, and all finished capped honey, or it is 



all built out and very little capped, and yet 

 may contain quite a little loose honey." 

 Furthermore, he says of such sections that 

 " they could not be shipped on account of 

 their frailty. A good share of them would 

 be broken from the wood in transit." 



Now, I want to say that I have produced 

 tons of honey in sections 4J square that did 

 not weigh over 12 ounces to the section. So 

 far from its being impossible to ship them 

 without breakage, I was so uniformly suc- 

 cessful in shippirg them without damage 

 that it was a great surprise to me, when I 

 came to buying honey of others, to find their 

 heavier sections very much more damaged 

 in shipping than mine. For years I had elas- 

 tomers who bought my honey with the dis- 

 tinct understanding, specified in nearly ev- 

 ery order, that the sections were not to av- 

 erage over twelve ounces each. One man 

 who bought a great deal of such honey of me 

 to sell again by the case frequently compli- 

 mented me on the good condition in which it 

 always arrived, no ccmbs broken. 



I received, only two or three weeks ago, 

 the gold m( dal awarded me for the finest 

 display of honey at the St. Louis World's 

 Fair in 1904. The award was made on ten 

 cases of honey, 24 sections to the case, each 

 case weighing exactly 19 lbs. net. Besides 

 receiving this award I was informed that 

 one of the principal honey- dealers in the 

 United States said that it was the finest lot 

 of honey he had ever seen. 



All of the honey of which I have been 

 speaking was in sections 4J square, seven 

 to the foot in width, regular bee-way 

 style, and built between tin separators. I 

 prefer sections of this width because they 

 are so much more uniformly well built out, 

 more uniform in weight, making them more 

 acceptable to both retailers and consumers; 

 and last, but by no means least, because I 

 think I can get more honey by using them. 

 It does not by any means follow that the 

 man who buys a twelve-ounce section of 

 honey is either cheated or deceived, nor 

 even dissatisfied. He buys a box of honey. 

 If the dealer is wise he will not create or 

 countenance the impression that he is get- 

 ting a pound of honey. A pound of honey 

 of equal quality would cost him more money. 

 The dealer, in fixing his selling price, sel- 

 dom knows or cares any thing about the 

 market price of honey per pound as quoted 

 in the market reports. In most cases his 

 selling price is based on the cost to him; 

 and if we will give him honey on which he 

 may calculate his percentage of profit with 

 the same ease and certainty that he can on 

 most other articles he will usually be glad 

 to buy by the case instead of by weight. 

 With most grocers it has become a practical 

 necessity to sell by the piece. 



[Mr. Green does not differ so much from 

 Mr. Greiner as he does from Dr. Miller. 

 Say, my good doctor, it does me good to see 

 Mr. Green jab you in the ribs. Feel sorry 

 for you? Ye— s— s— s, but you can stand it. 

 -Ed.] 



