THE AMERICAJS BEE JUURNAL. 



615 



of nectar. The back places and cor- 

 ners, inaccessible to cultivation, but 

 where tlie raspberry clings, may be 

 the most productive plots. The 

 hedges and stony places where only 

 the goldeurod can thrive and bloora, 

 may be fruitful of golden gains. The 

 white clover fields and the buckwheat 

 may be useful for other purposes 

 than what the scythe and sickle con- 

 template. 



Nor should we fail to notice the 

 fact that all this is absolute saving. 

 There is no pay-back to any phase of 

 the industry. In producing honey, 

 you do it to the prejudice of nothing. 

 The lands are not the worse off for 

 the profitable yield. You do not, in a 

 cargo of it, ship also the heart of the 

 hills and the valleys. Tliat remains 

 with us. and is growing larger the 

 while. The soil is kept at home. The 

 pastures— the poor, denuded pastures 

 —come to be fruitful again, for the 

 full hand gives back a moiety of the 

 gains to enrich the desolate places. 

 The bees fertilize the dowers and 

 make all things more productive. 

 Everything indeed smiles the more 

 joyfully because of their coining and 

 their going, and truly, it must be said 

 of them, as one writer has felicitously 

 bestowed the telling epithet, that 

 they are the blessed bies. 



Randolph,o* Vt. 



to keep in the heat and save cutting 

 a hole through the quilt. This leeder 

 woiks grandly. It cannot daub the 

 bees; can be cleaned very easily by 

 replacing the cotton ; and, above all, 

 it is cheap and easily made, costing 

 only o cents. 

 Eastwood, Ont. 



For tne American Bee JoamaL 



An Inemensiye Bee-Feeder. 



E. S. EDEN. 



"Western Stock Journal. 



A Plea for Extracted Honey. 



BEV. O. CLUTE. 



As this is the month for feeding 

 bees, 1 will give a description of my 

 feeder, and plan of placing it on the 

 hive. 1 make it as follows : 



Take a strip of tin 4 inches wide 

 and 12 to 16 inches long, according to 

 the desired size of the feeder; make 

 a rim by fastening the ends together 

 with a lap joint. Then take another 

 piece of tin 3J^ inches wide, and a 

 little shorter than the other, make 

 another rim, and place a piece of cot- 

 ton over this last or smaller rim ; then 

 shove it down into the larger one, and 

 the feeder is finished. 



In shoving the smaller rim with the 

 cotton over the end into the larger 

 one, the cotton is drawn very tight, 

 like a drumhead, and it just goes 

 down to within J^inch of the lower 

 edge of the larger rim, allowing suffi- 

 cient bee- space between the cotton 

 bottom of the feeder and the frames 

 when it is placed on the hive. 



In placing it on the hive, I turn 

 back the quilt the width of the feeder, 

 then cut a hole in a piece of paper a 

 little smaller than the feeder ; place 

 this paper on the exposed frames, put 

 the feeder over the hole in the paper, 

 fill it with feed, put the capon the 

 hive, and the job is finished. 



You will observe that the bees will 

 enter the feeder through the hole in 

 the paper, and suck the food down 

 through the cotton bottom. It is not 

 necessary to use heavy cotton, as it 

 will not leak the food through it un- 

 less it is very thin. The object of the 

 paper being placed on the frames, is 



The honey extractor is simply a can 

 containing a revolving frame. Into 

 this revolving frame the frames of 

 honey are placed and rapidly re- 

 volved, or whirled around, by turning 

 a crank. The centrifugal force throws 

 the honey from the cells without 

 breaking or in any way injuring the 

 combs. The combs can then be re- 

 turned to the hive to be again filled 

 with honey. 



In producing and using extracted 

 honey, there are several important 

 advantages, viz : 



1. A large yield of honey. It is es- 

 timated by the most competent bee- 

 keepers that it takes from 15 to 25 

 pounds of honey to make one pound 

 of wax. When comb honey is pro- 

 duced this comb is used only once— it 

 is sold with the honey and consumed. 

 But in producing extracted honey, the 

 comb is not consumed. The same 

 comb may be filled and extracted 

 several times in the course of a sea- 

 son, and then stored away for use 

 another season. Thus the honey and 

 time that would be used by the bees 

 in comb-raaking can be devoted to 

 gathering honey. With good manage- 

 ment at least twice as much extracted 

 honey as comb honey can be produced. 



2. The good quality of the honey. 

 Pure honey, as stored by bees, is one 

 of the most beautiful and delicious 

 articles of diet. Beeswax, or comb, 

 is indigestible, and of no value as an 

 article of food. Extracted honey is 

 entirely free from wax or comb. But 

 when comb honey is used, the in- 

 digestible comb must either be swal- 

 lowed or removed from the mouth 

 after swallowing the honey. 



.S. It is more easily handled. Comb 

 honey is very easily injured. A slight 

 bruise will set the honey to running, 

 and soon the combs are damaged, and 

 the sticky honey is leaking over every- 

 thing. Avery large part of the comb 

 honey reaches market in an unsightly 

 condition. But extracted honey is 

 thrown from the combs, drawn from 

 the extractor into kegs or barrels, and 

 then taken to market in tin pails 

 holding from one to ten pounds. The 

 pails make neat, serviceable packages, 

 that do not leak, are handled with 

 care, and, when the honey is used, 

 are valuable for use in the household. 

 Extracted honey can be taken in 

 barrels and kegs to any part of the 

 world, and is becoming an important 

 article of export. 



4. It is more convenient to use. 

 Honey is largely eaten with hot-cakes 

 and hot biscuits. For these, extracted 

 honey is just the thing. The crystal 



syrup-cup is full of the beautiful, 

 clear, amber honey. It can be poured 

 upon the buttered cakes until they 

 swim in luscious sweetness. It can 

 be poured into the pure, white china 

 sauce-plates to be put with a tea- 

 spoon on the biscuits. Then if 

 farmers, and everybody, would pro- 

 duce honey in abundance, it could be 

 used for cakes, puddings, jellies, pre- 

 serves, and temperance drinks, and 

 for all these purposes the extracted 

 honey is superior to any other. 



5. Extracted honey is not strained 

 honey. This distinction must be 

 carefully made. Strained honey is 

 often a very inferior article. Old 

 black combs, filled with rank bee- 

 bread, or with the larvje of young 

 bees, is broken up, and the honey, 

 mixed with the juice of young bees 

 and with bee bread, is strained out. 

 It is not wonderful that it is dark and 

 muddy in color, and rank in fiavor. 

 But "extracted honey" is the pure 

 article, thrown from the combs by 

 centrifugal force, without admixture 

 of young bees or bee-bread. It is 

 honey in its purest and most service- 

 able shape. 



6. It is cheaper than comb honey- 

 As the bee-keeper can produce more 

 extracted honey than he can of comb 

 honey, with the same amount of bees 

 and labor, he can afford to sell it for 

 less. Hence it can be used by many 

 who could not afford to buy comb 

 honey. There is no doubt that comb 

 honey has intrinsic excellences, which 

 will always command for it a good 

 market. But it is equally certain that 

 extracted honey has merits which 

 will rapidly bring it forward. We 

 hope the day is not far distant when 

 every family in the country and in 

 the villages will keep bees to supply 

 the family table with this delicious 

 and healttiful sweet. 



Iowa City,o« Iowa. 



For tbe American Bee JonniaL 



TlieCansesofDroutliDnl[nown. 



EUGENE SECOR. 



I wish to express my approval of 

 the article on page 553, by J. C. Arm- 

 strong, on tile-draining as relates to 

 drouth. It is the best that I have 

 seen on the subject. 



Only a day or two ago I was talking 

 with a man who came to Iowa in 

 1854. He said they experienced a 

 drouth about that time of such 

 severity that in going by wagon from 

 Muscatine to Fort Dodge— in April— 

 there was not moisture enough to 

 wet the wagon tires except when they 

 forded rivers. Of course there was 

 not a mile of railroad, nor a rod of 

 tiling in Iowa. Immediately follow- 

 ing this period was a wet one, when 

 steamers ran on many of our inland 

 rivers. And on page 563, we are in- 

 formed that England is at present 

 suffering from drouth, nearly as great 

 as our own. , ^ ^ .. 



All this goes to prove that drouths 

 and floods always have existed, and, I 

 believe, always will ; that they are in- 

 dependent of local bodies of water ; 



