1903 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



497 



have one customer who will not buy it in 

 the sections at all. He will stand by and 

 see me cut it out of the sections, place in 

 his bucket, and pour extracted honey over 

 it, and g-ladly pa}' for it, and take it away. 

 He says he gets full weight (what he pays 

 for), and that "the comb honey floating- in 

 the liquid honey is very rich and nice." 



Bulk hone)\ managed with the same 

 care as that of section hone}', and covered 

 with a fine grade of extracted honey, is 

 most delicious to mj' taste. Had yve all 

 adopted a section large enough to hold a 

 full pound, the demand for bulk honey 

 would not now be increasing so rapidly. 

 When a customer buys a package of bulk 

 hone}^ he tells all his neighbors what 

 "rich" honey he has, and soon we have a 

 dozen more customers wanting honey like 

 that we sold to Mr. Smith, It's no use for 

 us to form a mutual-admiration society and 

 say we will stick to a certain size "stand- 

 ard" section, and force our customers to 

 buy light weights. Thej' just simply won't 

 do it. With combs l;'s thick I find it takes 

 nearlj' 20 square inches of comb to weigh a 

 full pound. The4X5 sections contain 17jVo"o% 

 square inches of comb (4-'4 X S-U ). The 

 4'4 X5 section contains 19 square inches of 

 comb, 4^4 X4. I firmly believe that, if we 

 had adopted the 4'4 X5Xl:Js section, or one 

 of equal capacit}', the demand for bulk 

 honey would not now be increasing so very 

 rapidl}'. But the demand is increasing, 

 and I predict that it will continue to grow. 



There is one advantage in producing 

 bulk honey that Bro. H. does not mention. 

 When we cut out the bulk honey, place it 

 in the cans, and cover it with extracted 

 honey, there is no trouble with worms get- 

 ting into it. We have no labor nor trouble 

 in fumigating our honey. 



Speaking of the advantages of closed-end 

 frames, you say, Mr. Editor, in your foot- 

 note to mj' article, page 907: "All that you 

 say in favor of closed-end frames is equal- 

 ly true of the half-closed end or Hoffman. " 

 There is one very important advantage of 

 the closed-end frame that I did not mention. 

 C'osed-end frames confine the bees ivithui 

 the Jraines. This is not true of the half- 

 closed end or Hoffman. To confine the 

 bees within the frames is a very important 

 advantage. No combs can then be built 

 between the ends of the frames and inside 

 of hive-walls. T. K. Massie. 



Tophet, W. Va. 



FEF.mNG BACK THE HONEV FROM PARTLY 



FILLED sections; HOW IT SHOULD BE 



DONE. 



I have on hand quite a number of sections 

 partly filled — not marketable last fall, nor 

 filled sufficiently for home use. Please tell 

 me if it would pay to feed the honey in them 

 to my bees. If so, how? Would they leave 

 the combs unharmed? If so, could thej' be 

 used again? 



I have no extractor, and raise only comb 

 honey. The bees are busy now on the ma- 

 ples. 



I thought if the bees could use these un- 

 finished sections in raising brood I might 

 be able to have them fill some sections with 

 fruit- bloom honey. E. L. Stewart. 



Chestertown, Maryland, Mar. 21. 



[If you put such honey in the upper story 

 of a hive, expecting the bees to carry the 

 honey down into the brood-nest, you may 

 be disappointed. They mayor may not— it 

 all depends on the season of the year. If 

 you wish to have the sections cleaned out, 

 put them in supers and put the supers in 

 hives, stacked up in one tall pile a few rods 

 from the apiary. Give ingress to the pile 

 through only a very small entrance so that 

 only one or two bees can pass at a time. 

 The bees of the yard will rob out the sec- 

 tions very slowly, without making any spe- 

 cial commotion. Mr. Vernon I3urt, our 

 neighbor, has all such sections of his clean- 

 ed out in this way. — Ed. 1 



NATIONAL COMMERCIAL ORGANIZATION. 



I hope that our people will not stop think- 

 ing and talking national organization for 

 commercial benefits. While there is not so 

 much want for it at this particular season 

 of the year, this fall there will be many sad 

 experiences, and the matter will again be 

 brought to the front. Besides the loss to the 

 producers, some have said that it will cost 

 too much to maintain the head office; but it 

 is evident that such have never put the fig- 

 ures together. Here are a few: 



We will make our basis low, so as to be 

 safe. We will calculate on handling only 

 1000 cars of honey, that being extracted, 

 which would be 15,000 tons, or 20,000,000 

 pounds. Figuring upon a selling basis of 

 6 cts. per pound, we have $1,800,000. As 

 the cost of selling to be upon the basis of 1 

 per cent, we have S 8,000, which should be 

 ample for that amount of business; when 

 the business doubles, then our resources al- 

 so double, which will be needed for the ex- 

 tra help and other appliances. Now we 

 have figured that it will cost $18,000 to 

 market 1000 carloads of honey through the 

 National Commercial Agency, and we must 

 seek for some benefit, or we are out that 

 amount; but thej' are so numerous we can 

 mention but few. First, as it now is we 

 pay 5 per cent to market the honej*. Here 

 we save 4 per cent, or $72,000, and surely 

 we should be able to keep the selling price 

 at least one cent per pound higher than un- 

 der the present system; and when crops 

 are good we should still hold the prices 

 uniform, which would mean at least two 

 cents per pound; but figuring upon the one- 

 cent saving, and from the 1000 carloads 

 handled, we save 8300,000; add to this the 

 572,000, and we have $372,000, less the 

 $18,000 selling expenses, and here we are 

 with a net saving to ourselves of $354,000; 

 and when the business doubles we have 

 $708,000, and shall soon reach the million 

 point; yes, and see what we can save of the 

 thousands of dollars' worth of our ^-oods 

 which are now consigned to unscrupulous 



