1256 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1 



nity as are willing or can even be compelled 

 to come. An active interest is being taken 

 in the convention by Ontario bee-keepers. 



CALIFORNIA HONEY. 



Why is California honey 7^ cts. per pound 

 when other good honey is 11 and 12? Is the 

 quality so much different, or did the light 

 not shine upon our western friends quite as 

 soon? Dviring the last ten years honey has 

 been getting down to an absurd price, and 

 it is to be hoped bee-keepers will not allow 

 the price to get down to the same tigure 

 again. Keep up the retail ■price. As soon as 

 you drop the retail price the wholesale must 

 "follow. People will not push your goods for 

 nothing. Paste that in your hat. 



THE PRESENT POSITION OF BEE-KEEPING. 



In my twenty-seven years' experience in 

 bee-keeping I have never seen so remarkable 

 a season in many respects as the past. Aft- 

 er two winters and two honey seasons very 

 adverse in Canada, and probably a consid- 

 erable portion of the United States, we have 

 only one colony where, three years ago, we 

 had four. In Ontario, probably two thirds 

 of the apiaries visited by the six foul-brood 

 inspectors have been found to be diseased. 

 Some found a less percentage, others a great- 

 er. It is well that the change came no later 

 than it did, or softae sections would not have 

 had any bees left to inspect. The ground is 

 very far from being covered yet, and it will 

 take all the energies of the six inspectors 

 next year to cope with the disease. The two 

 foul-brood diseases have been discovered; 

 but, happily, the disease Dr. Phillips calls 

 European foul brood has been rare, or at 

 least not much has been discovered. Where, 

 however, it has broken out its spread and 

 ravages have been much worse than the well- 

 known and more common foul brood. 



Honey prices have been so peculiar that it 

 would take any one all his time guessing the 

 outcome. Honey has been sold in August in 

 many cases at as low as 7 to 8 cts. per lb. in 

 60-lb. tins; then it went up in price until it 

 reached the price recommended by the com- 

 mittee of the Ontario Bee-keepers' Associa- 

 tion. A great deal of the honey has been re- 

 tailed by beekeepers at home; and jobbers 

 who held back from paying high prices have 

 been left with but a limited stock. Canadian 

 trade is very particular, and the low-pHced 

 foreign honey has not been able to make 

 much headway on our market, although the 

 duty is only 3 cts. per lb. 



Our Danish contemporary. Den danske Bi- 

 avls-Tidende, contains the J. E. Hand article 

 on catching the queen without moving the 

 frames, which appeared in our issue of June 

 15. The illustrations, though copied, are 

 very good. Our contemporary always gives 

 us full credit for all copied articles; and so 

 long as this is the case our friends are wel- 

 comed in helping themselves to the good 

 things of Gleanings. 



HONEY-EXTRACTORS. 



The Value of the Gasoline-engine to Run 

 Them; Time, Honey, and Money Saved. 



BY E. W. ALEXANDER. 



In telling of this particular part of our bus- 

 iness the writer finds himself embarrassed by 

 drifting continually to the personal pronoun; 

 so, let me say at the beginning that I have 

 no desire for notoriety, and 1 have often 

 wished that I had never signed my name to 

 any thing that I have ever written on the 

 subject of bee-keeping. But the past is as it 

 is, and we can use it only as a schooling to 

 help the future. 



I now wish to write a few lines direct to 

 my brother competitors of extracted honey. 

 The ever increasing demand for this product 

 of our apiary is inducing many to turn their 

 attention toward its production; and I hope 

 to see you all so situated that you can pro- 

 duce it in the future cheaper than it has ever 

 been in the past; for this reason, and this 

 only, I write this article. If you have read 

 the advertising columns during the past year 

 in our bee-journals as you should, you must 

 have noticed descriptions of an outfit for do- 

 ing the most laborious part of producing ex- 

 tracted honey by gasoline power. Many peo- 

 ple naturally hesitate in regard to investing 

 their money in new implements, preferring 

 to let (if I may be allowed to use some street 

 slang) the other fellow invest his money first, 

 then if it is all right they are ready to invest 

 also. Now, my son and myself were just 

 that other fellow that was ready to test this 

 outfit to its very core. With three first-class 

 extractors in perfect working order standing 

 in our extracting-room we bought an improv- 

 ed eight-comb extractor and a gasoline-en- 

 gine, to do our extracting. 



Well, as to results, the first test we gave it 

 was to extract about 3000 lbs. of last year's 

 capped candied honey. The combs were 

 mostly new and brittle, having been founda- 

 tion last year, had never contained any brood, 

 neither were they wired in their frames, as 

 we have not a wix'ed comb in our apiary. 

 When the extractor was started and the comb- 

 baskets began to hum like a buzz-saw, I at 

 once knew that the old candied honey would 

 have to leave the combs, which it did quite 

 clean; but I expected that the combs and 

 their frames would then and there dissolve 

 partnership; but, not so. They were so well 

 supported by the comb-baskets that we could 

 not find a cracked or broken comb in the lot. 

 The reversing of the reel is so perfect that 

 you don't have to stop either engine or ex- 

 tractor in order to do this part. Taking it 



