THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



be lived up to. To illustrate this, a sec- 

 tion was exhibited at the convention 

 which had the comb perfectly straight, 

 completely capped, and white, and the 

 wood just a little soiled. According to 

 the Washington grading, this is neither 

 No. I nor fancy. It could not be fancy, 

 for the wood is soiled; it could not be No. 

 I, for the comb is straight. Moreover, 

 as Mr. Aspinwall lately remarked, in the 

 Review, a slight soiling of the wood is 

 not objectionable, but desirable. 



The committee also exhibited another 

 section which they could not agree upon; 

 and a vote of the convention wa taken 

 by ballot on the grade it should go into. 

 Twenty-eight voted that it should go into 

 the first grade; and ten that it should go 

 into the second grade. But the trend of 

 the discussion that followed showed that 

 it should go into the second grade. It 

 was a white, straight comb, well filled, 

 but the bottom row of cells on one side 

 was all empty, all except a few cells of the 

 next row empty, and five of the third 

 row. 



It was urged that onh- a few cells were 

 unsealed. To this it was replied that it 

 could not be called well capped; arid that 

 it is hard to establish rules after going 

 above the first row. Another section was 

 exhibited, which contained no more un- 

 sealed cells, but they were differently 

 arranged, so as to make sort of a patch; 

 which section hardly anyone put in the 

 first grade. 



The photographs I send represent sec- 

 tions graded by a connnitee as an illustra- 

 tion of the above rules. At the conven- 

 tion, too, sections were graded, so that 

 each one present could see with his own 

 eyes what the rules meant. To attain the 

 same result as nearly as possible in this 

 article, I append a description of each 

 section in the photographs, based on a 

 personal inspection of the sections which 

 appear in the photographs. I will refer 

 to them by numbers. There happened to 

 be no amber honej- available at the con- 

 vention to illustrate the second grade, 

 but that feature would not show in the 



photograph anyhow. The six sections 

 shown illustrate second grade white hon- 

 ey, though not necessarily white comb. 

 It is, of course, understood that no matter 

 how white and straight the combs are, if 

 the honey is amber, it is second grade. 

 This is in accordance with the actual con- 

 ditions of the market; there is no such 

 thing as fancy amoer; No. i amber; nor 

 No. 2 amber; but amber is No. 2 in this 

 State — and elsewhere, too, to judge by 

 sales to outsiders. The words "white" 

 and "dark," therefore, in the following 

 description, refer entirely to comb; not 

 to honey. 



All of the six .sections in the first grade 

 are almost free from propolis stains 

 on the wood, and all are separatored sec- 

 tions. Of course, each one nuist decide 

 for himself on the matter of separators. 

 If he can, without separators, obtain a 

 high enough percentage of combs which 

 do not project beyond the wood, well 

 and good. I think this matter is worthy 

 of more attention, in the way of scientific, 

 inathonatical experimenting, than it has 

 had hitherto — /. t'., does it follow, because 

 a man makes an assertion that he can get 

 along with or without separators, that he 

 really ktwws that his percentage of bulg- 

 ed combs is as low as it ought to be to 

 pay him in dollars and cents ? How can 

 he know unless he counts and calculates ? 

 And how many do so? Very few; but 

 many make assertions. It is, of course, 

 so largely a matter of locality that each 

 one should do his own experimenting. 

 My impression is, that the average weight 

 of the six sections showed is distinctly 

 higher than my usual average of separa- 

 tored honey in the localities where I have 

 kept bees. I must, therefore, bestow 

 some attention on the problem of whether 

 it will pay me, in my locality, to do with- 

 out separators. Others may obtain heav- 

 ier honev than I do, and will not need to 

 experiment in that line. To show the 

 importance of combs that do not project, 

 it is only necessary to mention the fact 

 that during the past season one call was 

 made for car of separatored honey. With 



