14 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1 



BULK COMB HONEY. 

 Its Demand; Its Production Profitable. 



A few years ag'o bulk comb was practi- 

 cally unknown; but to-day there is scarcely 

 a bee-keeper in the United States who has 

 not heard of it and how it is produced; and 

 it is now the principal product of the 

 Southwestern Texas bee-keepers. Its pro- 

 duction is rapidly graining" ground, not only 

 all over Texas, but is gaining a footing- in 

 Nebraska, Colorado, and Utah. The de- 

 mand from the consumers for this article is 

 rapidly g^rowing, and is keeping far ahead 

 of its production; and of this fact the bee- 

 keepers are rapidly catching on. There 

 are many reasons why it is gaining a hold 

 with both the consumer and the producer, 

 and especially the former. When the con- 

 sumer buys a can of bulk comb honey he 

 feels sure that he is getting a pure sweet, 

 just as the bees made it. He feels that 

 he is getting full weight, and he knows 

 that he has bought it at a less price 

 per pound than he could have bought 

 section honey. Then he has his honey in a 

 nice bucket where the honey can not break 

 or lose out when cut into; and when he has 

 eaten out the honey he has a useful pail 

 left. These are some of the reasons why 

 the consumer prefers bulk comb honey to 

 section honey. I am talking of the majori- 

 ty of the people. Of course, there are the 

 wealthy who will always buy a limited 

 quantity of section honey because it is high 

 in price and has to them a fancy look. 



Bulk comb is produced in either full bod- 

 ies or shallow Ideal supers. If the former 

 is used it is hardly practical to fasten in 

 full sheets of foundation, as the frames can 

 not be wired because we expect to cut the 

 honey out; but with the Ideal frames we 

 can use full sheets if we so prefer. Ideal 

 supers and frames are preferred generally, 

 because they are not so large, are not so 

 heavy to handle, are nearer the right 

 amount of room to give a colony at one time, 

 and they can be freed of bees much quicker 

 than full bodies. To free them of bees we 

 simply smoke down between the frames 

 well, and then pry the super loose and 

 jounce it, when it will be found that most 

 of the bees will fall out. They can then be 

 stacked up and a hole left at the top, when 

 in two or three hours' time the last bee 

 will have left the supers. Then, again, 

 the supers and frames are nice for extract- 

 ed honey, should the bee-keeper in any 

 event desire to so use them; and, in fact, in 



putting up bulk comb it requires about one 

 third extracted hone^' with which to put the 

 comb up. 



In packing bulk comb we cut out the comb 

 nicel3' and place it in the cans, and after- 

 ward pour in extracted honey to cover the 

 comb and fill up the crevices, and in this 

 way about one-third extracted honey goes 

 in; and it must be remembered that this ex- 

 tracted honey goes in at the comb honey 

 price. It has been found both practical 

 and profitable to produce both comb and 

 extracted honey in the same apiary, and, 

 in fact, on the same hives at the same time; 

 for many have found that it pays them to 

 h.ive one super of combs on top of the regu- 

 lar brood-nest so that the queen may fill it 

 with brood before the honey- flow, if she 

 likes; and when the flow comes these su- 

 pers catch the first nectar; and as soon as 

 the flow is on and the bees have commenced 

 to secrete wax, this super of combs is lifted 

 and the empty frames of foundation placed 

 between them and the brood, which is the 

 most effectual way of baiting bees into the 

 supers; and it will be found that, where 

 colonies are so worked that swarming is 

 kept in check, if not entirely preventC'l, the 

 queen is left in entire possession of the reg- 

 ular brood-nest; and by the time the flow 

 is over, the brood will have hatchf^d from 

 the shallow super of combs, and the bees 

 will have filled it with extracted honey; 

 and this is just what we shall want in put- 

 ting up our comb honey, as we have al- 

 ready shown that at least Ij the honey 

 must be extracted with which to pack the 

 comb. It has been demonstrated time and 

 again that bees will store all the way from 

 50 to 100 per cent more honey when worked 

 for bulk comb than they will when worked 

 for section honey; and many believe (the 

 writer included) that, where the bees are 

 worked as outlined above, nearly if not 

 quite as much bulk comb honey can be pro- 

 duced as could be produced of extracted 

 honey alone; and especially does this hold 

 sfood where the localities have fast flows of 

 honey, in which a great amount of wax is 

 always secreted, whether there are any 

 combs to build or not. 



We will now show the relative cost of 

 bulk comb to section honey. When we buy 

 bulk-comb supers and frames we have 

 bought them to use for years; when we buy 

 sections they are for only one season's use, 

 whether they are filled with honey or not. 

 Then we have to have costly separators, 

 followers, etc., that soon give out to be re- 

 placed. When we go to ship we have to 

 have costly glass-front shipping-cases, and 

 these cases in turn are packed in crates 

 for shipment. When we pack section hon- 

 ey we have to take lots of time and patience 

 to scrape the sections. When we pack bulk 

 comb honey we buy cases of cans and cut 

 the honey out into them. 



When we get ready to ship we have to 

 pay a high rate of freight on section honey, 

 and run the risk of having a good part of 

 it badly damaged or destroyed altogether. 



