1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



121 



count. Another machine stamps out 

 the metal just the right size to make 

 the barrel. Another operation 

 punches the holes where the legs are 

 to be attached, and the grates are 

 cut out by a die in a similar manner. 

 Each machine cuts out its particular 

 part, and enough of these parts to 

 make hundreds of smokers are 

 turned out in an hour's time. When 

 the parts come to the man who is to 

 assemble them, he begins by picking 

 up the flat sheet of metal that is to 

 compose the barrel. By feeding it 

 between rollers it comes out the 

 right shape. The bottoms are then 

 crimped on and other parts attached, 

 one after another. With every part 

 cut to fit, a skilled man can turn out 

 the finished smokers very rapidly. 

 Unless one has given a thought to 

 the number of beekeepers who must 

 have these implements, the size of 

 the shipments will amaze him. Here 

 are little packages each containing 

 a single smoker going out to bee- 

 keepers in widely separated loca- 

 tions. Here again one finds a box 

 holding half a wagon load, con- 

 signed to a dealer. Not long since, I 

 happened to see several of these big 

 boxes of bee-smokers on a depot 

 platform away down in Mississippi. 

 It is because so many other beekeep- 

 ers are buying tools, at the same 

 time, that the manufacturer, can af- 

 ford to invest the hundreds of dol- 

 lars in machines necessary to turn 

 them out fast enough to enable them 

 to sell to us at a dollar. Although 

 the maker gets only a few pennies of 

 profit on each smoker, if he can sell 

 enough of them, the total makes a 

 satisfactory business. There never 

 was a time in the history of the 

 world when the price of a day's labor 

 would buy so many useful things as 

 has been the case since the invention 

 of our modern labor-saving machines. 

 The Bingham uncapping knife has 



maintained its leadership from the 

 first. The men who make these 

 knives for Woodman now began 

 making them for Bingham more than 

 thirty-five years ago. A certain 

 amount of hand labor is necessary 

 to the making of a good knife. The 

 metal is stamped out the right size 

 by a machine, but it is then ready 

 for the critical operation of finishing, 

 which must be done by hand. Each 

 one of the thousands of these knives 

 that have been turned out every year 

 for a generation, has been examined 

 by the same pair of eyes and ground 

 down to a fine finish on a big stone 

 by the same man, who has continued 

 to turn them out year after year. 

 The steam knife is made in just the 

 same way as the cold knife, with the 

 addition of a copper jacket soldered 

 along the top, to provide a cavity to 

 hold the steam. How much this one 

 man working away in a dingy room 

 has done to lighten the labor of the 

 beekeepers of America, no one can 

 estimate. Without uncapping knives 

 and smokers extracted honey pro- 

 duction would be very unsatisfactory, 

 it not impossible. 



Unsanitary Conditions and Un- 

 wholesome Methods Sur- 

 rounding the Manipulation, 

 Packing and Marketing of 

 Honey 



By Emil F. Lein. 



ACTION was taken at the last 

 annual meeting of the New 

 York State Association of 

 Beekeepers' Societies to standardize 

 the marketing of section honey and, 

 for sanitary reasons, requiring its 

 encasement in cartons. 



Such action, if its execution is ul- 

 timately enforced, will inure to the 

 benefit of the beekeeping profession, 



A. G. WOODMAN VISITING WITH JAY COWERING AT JENISON. MICH. 

 MR. COWERING HAS 300 COLONIES IN PROTECTION HIVES. 



and is a protection to the consumer, 

 in so far as it shields the combs 

 against dirt, filth and germs from the 

 moment of their encasement in these 

 cartons, but, unfortunately, is no 

 guaranty against prior infection, or 

 contamination of these combs caused 

 under the management of the filthy, 

 careless or indifferent comb-honey 

 producing beekeeper. 



Even though the reader has no per- 

 sonal knowledge of unclean and un- 

 wholesome conditions pertaining to 

 the handling of honey among bee- 

 keepers, let him not assume that they 

 do not exist. A little incident which 

 came under the personal observation 

 of the writer last year may suffice to 

 prove that at least isolated cases of 

 unsanitary conditions may be found 

 of a nature so shocking that if the 

 facts were known by the general 

 public they would not promote the 

 sale of section honey. Many an in- 

 nocent consumer might hesitate be- 

 fore being tempted again to purchase 

 his favorite sweet in the form of 

 snowy-white and apparently pure 

 combs in sections, without further 

 assurance that the producer had 

 taken care of these combs with at 

 least ordinary regard to cleanliness. 



It is not the purpose of this article 

 to injure the sale of comb honey. 

 But regardless of the effect a disclos- 

 ure of actual conditions might pro- 

 duce, at least the beekeeping frater- 

 nity should be aware of them. 



We have in mind a visit last au- 

 tumn to a beekeeper in another lo- 

 cality. Here we were confronted 

 by conditions such as we had never 

 expected to find among beekeepers 

 anywhere. Before our eyes was un- 

 folded a scene which impressed itself 

 upon us indelibly. On a dirty floor, 

 fairly littered with rags, tools, cloth- 

 ing, household articles, etc., in the 

 most chaotic fashion, were scattered 

 several supers filled with white comb 

 honey, one super of which was partly 

 covered with dusty woolen rags on 

 which a cat with a litter of kittens 

 had made her bed. Apparently dis- 

 turbed by our entry, some of the kit- 

 tens crawled over several supers, to 

 the distress of their mother. 



We shall have no difficulty in point- 

 ing out evils fully as great among 

 the producers of extracted honey, 

 most of which have reference to the 

 careless and indifferent handling of 

 the product and others to the unde- 

 pendable methods of packing adopted 

 by them. j 



Imagine our feelings, after opening 

 the first few cases of a large ship- 

 ment of so-called "white" honey, 

 upon realizing that we had before us 

 rusty cans, the upper surfaces of 

 which were corroded and covered 

 with filth, intermixed with granu- 

 lated honey; that a ring of buck- 

 wheat honey was plainly visible 

 around the inside of the screw tO| ; 

 that upon unscrewing the caps we 

 again discovered the presence of 

 buckwheat honey on the inner screw 

 thread, indicating that these old cans 

 had previously contained buckwheat 

 honey and without being cleaned had 

 been used for clover honey; imagine 

 our resentment upon discovering 

 that the liners in some caps were so 



