1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



597 



whole hog" and adopt the three and six 

 pound fr.ction-top pail? They are dust and 

 insect proof, easy to handle, harder to smash 

 in shipping; are shipped at the railroad's 

 risk and at a lower freight rate; are useful 

 after the honey is cleaned out of them— 

 something that can not be said of the sec- 

 tion. 



I should like to make a suggestion to the 

 Honey-producers' League— that is, to put 

 traveling salesmen on the road who can sell 

 and talk honey. Sell to the grocery trade. 

 Every time he sells a grocer say 500 lbs., 

 advertise it for him in his local paper, and 

 in large towns advertise the League. I have 

 tried this with the very best results. The 

 grocer never has any left on his hands, and 

 I most generally make him another ship- 

 ment. I sell my extracted honey at 10 cts. 

 wholesale; comb honey 14 cts., while my 

 neighbors who depend on the local market 

 wholesale their section honey at 8 and 10 

 cts. I will explain a little further. 



I keep myself posted as to where there 

 has been a failure in the honey-flow; and 

 after the season is over with me I go to 

 these localities and sell my entire crop in a 

 very few days. There is a great demand 

 for pure comb honey in our large cities that 

 is never reached, because people are afraid 

 of section honey. By advertising, the Hon- 

 ey-producers' League can do much good. 

 The $1000 forfeit will help; but as long as a 

 customer can say, " I want a pound of your 

 nice honey you have advertised," there will 

 be no demand equal to the present supply of 

 section comb honey; therefore give us a 

 larger package— something that will keep 

 the honey secure until it is consumed, be 

 that a day, month, or year. 



Chunk comb honey will not have to lie on 

 the counters a year or two before it is con- 

 sumed, as section comb honey has to do; 

 therefore it will not get an opportunity to 

 candy. This eliminates the only objection 

 to the friction-top pail. 



Ainsworth, la., May 1, 1905. 



[After reading Mr. Weaver's article one 

 can not help acknowledging that he may have 

 a good deal on his side of the argument. It 

 would seem a little unorthodox to go back 

 on section comb honey, which has seemed to 

 be a long step in advance over box-hive 

 comb honey, and to a great extent it cer- 

 tainly was and is. At all events it is per- 

 haps possible that comb-honey producers 

 have been concentrating their efforts too 

 much on one style of package. 



The bee-keepers of Texas have made a 

 great success with their chunk or bulk hon- 

 ey; and it is no doubt true that we of the 

 North ought to give more attention to it 

 ourselves. Probably the city markets would 

 not take to it very readily; but the local 

 trade, especially the trade that knows per- 

 sonally the producer, would probably prefer 

 to buy honey in that form to that which 

 looks so nice and pretty in little boxes, but 

 which, in the eyes of these same uninitiat- 

 ed, are suggestive of bogus or so-called 



manufactured comb honey. But Mr. Wea- 

 ver strikes on one very important point- 

 that of inducing the trade to buy not mere- 

 ly one pound at once, but five or ten. It 

 often requires almost as much effort to sell 

 one pound of comb honey at a certain price, 

 say 15 cents, as it does to sell five pounds of 

 bulk honey, we will say at 10 or 12 cents. 

 Manifestly the bee-keeper would make more 

 rnoney at 12 cents than he would at 15, for 

 his bulk honey would not require special 

 sections, and he could put into the pails 

 combs with uneven and unsealed cells as 

 well as those that are extra fancy, so far as 

 whiteness and evenness of capping are con- 

 cerned, and get the top price for all all his 

 comb honey. — Ed.] 



WARMING EXTRACTED HONEY. 



How to Do this with Little Heat, and without 

 Danger of Injuring the Flavor. 



BY G. C. GREINER. 



The accompanying illustration. Fig. 1, 

 represents a plan which may greatly assist 

 in overcoming a certain trouble in the pro- 

 duction of extracted honey. I aim to have 

 all my honey drawn from the tanks, either 

 into retail packages or into 60- lb. cans before 

 granulation takes place. But sometimes, 

 especially in the later part of the season, it 

 happens, by a little neglect on our part, or 

 by compulsion of prevailing conditions (for 

 we are not always master of the situation) 

 that the process of granulation begins before 



l_ 



/m-'i \ 



y 



.W? 





we really expect it, thus making the draw- 

 ing-ofF a very slow operation, if not entirely 

 impossible. On account of the weight of 

 our tanks when full (mine weigh approxi- 

 mately 400 lbs. ) it is practically impossible 

 to handle them, which would be necessary if 

 we had to move them on to a stove or some 

 other heating device for reliquefying. I 

 have found by actual experience that the 

 application of the little two-wick oil-stove, 



