596 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1 



comb and extracted honey supers, and shall 

 add all the wide frames of eight sections each 

 to my extracting upper stories that I find I 

 can, without causing swarming at our out- 

 yards where no one is present to hive 

 swarms that would be quite sure to come 

 if we used too many sections in place of 

 drawn combs. 



Remus, Mich., May 8. 



[This I consider a very valuable contribu- 

 tion to our bee literature of this year, and I 

 hope every one of our comb-honey people 

 will read it very carefully. 



A few years ago the fact was pounded 

 forcibly into me that some colonies were in- 

 clined to sulk the minute we gave them a 

 super of sections. They would crowd every 

 available cell in the brood-nest, and very 

 often swarm before going into the sections. 

 I found that I could get such colonies over 

 their sulkiness to a very great extent, or, 

 rather, give them no chance to get sulky in 

 the first place, by giving them a shallow 

 super of extracting-combs; then when hey 

 once got nicely started going above, take 

 away the super and substitute one contain- 

 ing sections with full sheets of foundation, 

 and, presto ! they would go to work in this 

 also. In some cases I put the shallow ex- 

 tracting- super with bees on top. In other 

 instances I shook out the bees and gave the 

 same super to another would-be sulky colo- 

 ny. Later on, Mrs. A. J. Barber, quite in- 

 dependently of myself, struck on a similar 

 plan, and since then a good many have prac- 

 ticed the same method of producing both 

 comb and extracted at the same time, from 

 the same colony, with gratifying results. 



But here is a plan which I believe to be 

 superior to the Barber; and the further fact 

 that it is indorsed by such men as O. H. 

 and E. D. Townsend shows there must be 

 something good in it or we should not have 

 heard of it. It comes just in the nick of 

 time for many of our subscrij^ers to put it to 

 a test, and I hope they will do so at once 

 and report results. 



Most of the comb-supers of to-day have 

 section-holders. Those for plain sections 

 are only 1| inches wide. I see no reason 

 why a section-holder for plain sections (or 

 for the other kind) could not be readily 

 made into an extracting- frame by nailing in a 

 top bar between the two ends so that it will 

 come flush with the top of said ends. From 

 this top-bar might hang a full sheet of foun- 

 dation. One could even put fences on either 

 side, after the honey crop, cut out the comb 

 as so much chunk honey, or, better, per- 

 haps, extract, and save the empty comb for 

 bait on the Townsend plan for the following 

 season. There are probably thousands of 

 old-fashioned vs ide frames still in use. These 

 can be used in connection with full-depth 

 extracting- supers. 



Either plan is so easily carried out by 

 appliances that bee-keepers already have in 

 hand that we shall hope to get many reports 

 ere two or three months roll by. — Ed.] 



A PLEA FOR A LARGER PACKAGE OF COMB 

 HONEY. 



The Pound Section to Blame for the Depressed 

 Condition of the Honey Market. 



BY VIRGIL WEAVER. 



Pages 398 and 4:^7 indicate to me that the 

 section- honey men have gone into the ditch; 

 namely, big supply, no demand. It seems 

 to me that a pound package is too small. In 

 the first place, it is harder to produce, thus 

 reducing the profit along this line. Then, 

 again, it has a tendency to reduce the de- 

 mand by educating the public to buy in 

 small packages, or just a little at a time, if 

 you please. If a merchant has honey to 

 sell, a buyer will take a pound section; two 

 if he will give a reduction, and quite likely 

 this is the first and last for the year; while, 

 on the other hand, if the package contains 

 three or six pounds they will buy just as 

 quickly; then by giving a reduction of five 

 or ten cents as an inducement to take two 

 packages, as per the sections, he has sold 

 six or twelve pounds instead of one or two, 

 and this is quite a gain. 



The northern producers of comb honey 

 can learn something from Texas— that is, 

 produce "chunk" comb honey in shallow 

 frames, and sell in three and six pound fric- 

 tion-top pails. 



There will be no big demand for comb 

 honey so long as it is put on the market in 

 one-pound packages. I agree with Mr. G. 

 M. Doolittle, that, by reducing the two- 

 pound section to a one- pound was a serious 

 mistake. If section honey we must have, 

 the larger the section the better. I think the 

 section itself has done more damage to the 

 comb-honey market than all other agencies 

 combined. There are several reasons for 

 this. The manufactured- comb-honey lie was 

 caused by section honey. They are so near- 

 ly perfect that they do look more like the 

 work of a machine than the work of bees. 

 To the uneducated public, all sections look 

 alike. The casual observer does not go into 

 the details of producing section comb honey 

 as we bee-keepers do. They give a case of 

 honey a glance, and pronounce it bogus be- 

 cause " I saw it in the paper." Show them 

 a pail of chunk comb honey, one comb thick, 

 one thin, one large piece and one small, and 

 this to the general public looks more like the 

 work of bees. Sections are hard to keep 

 clean. It takes special care in dust and in- 

 sect proof cases to keep it nice. This is a 

 serious objection to section honey by many 

 consumers, and to the grocer in particular. 

 Here in our towns now I see section honey 

 exhibited for sale without any thing over it. 

 This is not much of an inducement to nice 

 housekeepers to buy and eat honey. No 

 wonder it is retailing at 10 to 12| cents per 

 lb., and no wonder the market is glutted. 

 The Russian tin boxes would protect the 

 honey, but they leave us in the same old rut 

 —too small a package. If we must make a 

 change in our package why not ' ' go the 



