1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



21 



to the kindness of Mr. J. A.Warren, manager 

 of this department, I had opportunity to ac- 

 quaint myself intimately with the grading 

 of comb honey, having graded tens of thou- 

 sands of sections with my own hands. Dur- 

 ing this time I came face to face with facts 

 such as confront every producer of comb 

 honey. Let us take two sections of honey of 

 the same quality. One is perfectly sealed 

 on both sides, and is laid aside as Fancy 

 honey while the other is perfectly sealed on 

 one side and is perfect, though a few cells 

 on the other side are not perfectly capped 

 or are slightly injured, perhaps scratched. 

 Now this section containing just as good 

 honey as the other must be sold as No. 2, 



sume an unpropitious summer, bad weather, 

 and poor yield. Your bees may have half 

 filled the sections and ended their labors. 

 What can be done with the sections in such 

 a season? This question is frequently asked 

 in the columns of apicultural papers. How 

 can they be preserved without spoiling the 

 quality of honey? And what amount of 

 trouble and what bitter disappointment you 

 encounter when it has to be put through 

 the extractor! In such cases large frames 

 would be much better to manage. 



Thus recognizing the superiority of the 

 production of honey in large frames over 

 the production of it in sections, we have a 

 thorough warranty to justify fully the as_ 



FIG. 3.— COVER DESIGN, PULL SIZE OF SQUARE TIN BOX. 



and at a corresponding reduction in price. 

 I really think that such combs might be 

 packed in the -Russian tin boxes with clear 

 conscience with the somewhat injured side 

 down and sold as Fancy honey. Are you 

 not personally fully satisfied that the honey 

 is pure and identical in quality with the oth- 

 er, the only difference being in the fact that 

 its appearance is not exactly the same? Of 

 course, if such combs turn out to be light in 

 weight, some extracted honey must be pour- 

 ed into the bottom of the box or some honey- 

 comb cells inserted. 



When the season is good, comb honey in 

 sections does very well. But let us look at 

 the other side of this matter. Let us as- 



sumption that the cost of the boxes will 

 more than repay itself. You must add to 

 this the saving in not requiring sections, 

 separators, or fences. 



With regard to the packing of such boxes 

 for shipment, this method is still more con- 

 venient than shipping in sections. Because 

 of the regular form of the boxes they are 

 easily packed in cases, take up little space; 

 breakage and leakage are done away with, 

 something that is to be feared in shipping 

 sections. 



To be exact, I may add that Russian bee- 

 keepers use also plain unlithographed boxes, 

 having plain labels on the outside. Of 

 course, they do not look as pretty as the 



