970 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15 



fancy and No. 1 are shipped to the same 

 commission house; but ship the fancy to one 

 house and the No. 1 to another house, or to 

 a different city, and No. 1 often sells for as 

 much as fancy." 



"Why should that be? " 



" For the reason that most persons can 

 not carry the difference between the two in 

 the eye' twenty feet, or when going from 

 one building to another. What I mean is 

 this: The average judge of comb honey, 

 looking at XXX honey in one building, and 

 then going two rods to another building and 

 looking at XX or No. 1 honey, will, upon 

 close questioning, tell you, when he gets 

 through beating around the bush, that he 

 sees very little difference between the two 

 lots." 



"That is a point I had not thought of; 

 but I guess you are right, for I had some 

 No. 1 honey crated in the house, and some 

 fancy in the shop. I was praising that in 

 the shop to my wife, and she said she did 

 not see why I was making such a fuss about 

 that shop honey, for that in the house looked 

 just as good." 



"That is just as I find it; and more— face 

 one side of a crate with fancy honey and 

 the other with No. 1, and ask the ordinary 

 man which of the two sides is the nicer, and 

 you will see him step first from one side to 

 the other, then back again, then to the first 

 side again, then back once more, when he 

 will tell you he sees very little if any differ- 

 ence. But you place a crate of fancy and a 

 crate of No. 1 honey side by side, or one on 

 top of the other, and any ordinary person 

 will tell you that the fancy looks the nicer." 



"And I guess you are right again. " 



"Yes; and why the No. 1 does not sell as 

 v/ell as the fancy, where both are shipped 

 to one commission house, is because the 

 commission man sees the two side by side, 

 and forms the opinion that No. 1 is not as 

 good as the fancy, and so, after the fancy 

 is sold, he tells his customers he has been 

 selling fancy at 15 cents, but he has some on 

 hand that is not quite as good, and he will 

 take 13 for it. When he makes such an ad- 

 mission the purchaser takes advantage of it, 

 so offers him 11 or 12 cents, and generally 

 gets it at his own price." 



" I see. Then you don't ship all your hon- 

 ey to the same party? " 



" Not now. Years of experience taught 

 m.e better than to ship both fancy and No. 1 

 to the same man;" so I now ship the XXX to 

 one party and the XX to another; and fifteen 

 or twenty years of this has proven that, 

 more often than otherwise, the XX brings 

 fully as much as the XXX." 



' ' Well, if such is the case why not put the 

 No. 1 and fancy together, and face the crate 

 with the fancy, as the old bee-keeper said 

 was the best way?" 



' ' I should hardly think that the best way, 

 though I know that the bee-keepers of a 

 quarter of a century ago did that way. Ev- 

 ery case of honey should be so crated that 

 it would give a fair representation from the 

 outside of what the whole was." 



" But do you not face at all? " 



"When at a bee convention some years 

 ago a certain man asked all those who put 

 the poorest sections next the glass on the 

 case to hold up their hands, but not a hand 

 went up." 



" I should not expect there would. How 

 do you do?" 



' ' After sorting my honey very carefully, 

 seeing that no section of a lower grade is in 

 a higher one, I take the number of sections 

 of any special grade which a crate will hold 

 to the cleaning-block, and, after cleaning 

 one, I look at the two sides of that certain 

 seci:ion, and then place the smoother side 

 next the glass. But I never allow a single 

 section of XX honey to go into a XXX crate, 

 much less an X section." 



" But suppose you were to put fancy and 

 No. 1 honey in the same crate, as the old 

 bee-keeper told me to do, how would you do 

 it?" 



' ' / would not do it. ' ' 



"But suppose I did it, how should it be 

 done? " 



' ' The only way to do this, if you think you 

 must do it, would be to put the half of the 

 crate on one side with fancy honey and the 

 half on the other side of No. 1." 



' ' And if I did this, the ordinary commis- 

 sion man, or the one purchasing the honey, 

 would not be likely to see any difference be- 

 tween the two sides, according to your ex- 

 perience in the past in having the average 

 person look from side to side of the crate." 



* ' Now, that is one way to get back at me. 

 Allow me a question." 



"Certainly." 



' ' What would there be in the way of the 

 commission man or the purchaser setting the 

 No. 1 side of one crate and the fancy side of 

 another toward him, or half a dozen of each, 

 did you ship him that many? " 



' ' I am off now. Good by. ' ' 



PARTICULARS WANTED CONCERNING THE 



SWARTHMORE OUTFITS; IDEAL SECTIONS 



USED FOR FRAMES IN BABY NUCLEI. 



I should like to have full particulars re- 

 garding the Swarthmore outfit. Have you 

 a book describing the outfit, telling what 

 each part is for and how used? I do not un- 

 derstand them by name. I have one of your 

 outfits, and like it very much. I am using 

 the Ideal section, two in a box, for baby nu- 

 clei, and get every queen mated without any 

 brood. I place the sections in half-depth 

 wide framps spaced J inch apart in super (no 

 separators) placed on 12-frame L. hives. I 



