THE BEE-KEKPERS' REVIEW. 



215 



I have never allowed any great amonnt 

 of drone comb in the brood combs, yet 

 I have never seen any need for a qneen 

 i-M-hider with my manai^ement, in this 

 locality, when working for comb honey, 

 except when hiving a swarm in a con- 

 tracted brood nest, upon the old stand, 

 ,ind transferring the sections from the old 

 to the new hive. In this case, as the 

 (|neen has no where to lay, until combs 

 ire built, she at once goes up into the 

 sections where the bees at once clean out 

 a lot of cells for her, and she soon spoils 

 a whole super full of sections. With an 

 established colony, in which the brood 

 nest is full of comb, I have so seldom 

 founil any evidence of the queen invad- 

 ing the sections, even where no excluder 

 was used, that I see no need of an ex- 

 cluder under such conditions. 



BLF..ACHING HONEY. 



How i( may lie Done l>> the use of 

 Sunlight .'in Sul|iluir. 



Two years ago, when the matter of 

 bleaching comb honey, b\' means of sul- 

 phur and sunlight, was advocated by some 

 of our California brethren, I was inclined 

 to ridicule the matter. Since then I have 

 been far enough from home to learn at 

 least one thing, and that is, that localities 

 ■ Iiffer. What may be entirely practical, 

 ,tnd greatly needed, in one localit}-, may 

 be entirely useless in another locality. In 

 this locality / have never produced a 

 pound of honey that ccnild have been im- 

 proved upon by bleaching. Perhaps 

 some other bee-keepers m this locality 

 may have produced honey that couhl 

 have been improvetl by bleaching. If 

 honey is left on the hives until it is cover- 

 ed with propolis or travel- stain, I have 

 no doubt that bleaching would improve 

 its appearance — whiten it. With my 

 management, the honey comes off the 

 hive while the combs are still in their vir- 

 gin whiteness. In other localities, and 

 with other methods of management, I 



am now ready to admit that bleaching 

 may be a great advantage. 



I am led to make the above observa- 

 tions, from reading a very inleresling 

 article t)n this subject in Gleanings. It 

 was written by that most successful and 

 practical of Ivaslern bee keepers, Mr. J. 

 li. Crane, of iSIiddlebury, Vt. Here are 

 .some of the things that Mr. Crane has to 

 say on the subject: — 



During the season of igoo there appear- 

 ed one or two articles in Gleanings on the 

 subject of bleaching honev, by writers on 

 the Pacific Coast. As the results given 

 seemed quite reasonal^le, and as I had been 

 trouljled a good deal with stained combs, 

 I decided to try it on a small scale in the 

 autumn of the same )-ear. Accordingh' I 

 made a light frame in front of my honey 

 room and covered it with sheeting, put- 

 ting up shelves and selecting .s<jme 600 or 

 700 of my worst stained combs. I pro- 

 ceeded to sidphur and bleach according 

 to rules laid down in the articles above 

 referred to; and after encountering some 

 unloooked-for difiiculties I succeeded in 

 so whitening the darkest end of luy crop 

 of honey that, when sent to the market, 

 it sold for the highest market price, and 

 was, I believe, the whitest, to look at, of 

 any honey 1 sent to market that vear. 



I have spoken of liaving met with some 

 nnlooked-t'or difficulties in bleaching. 

 Tlie first was in the u.se of sulphur. The 

 writers above referred to say the sulphur 

 smoke should be cold, and they use or 

 recommend burning some distance from 

 the combs, and carrying it in a pipe 

 through the ground and then setting 

 clamjjs over where it conies up. I found 

 it, in our colder climate, very difficult to 

 get a draft through such a pipe, and at 

 times impossible, as the pipes would be 

 colder than the atmosphere, when the 

 draft will be downward instead of upward, 

 and no amount of coaxing would make it 

 do the work or go where I wanterl it to. 



Another difiiculty I quickly ran again.st 

 was the dampness of our climate, with 

 nu^re or less -storins, when I found my 

 le.'.nto of cotton cloth was far from satis- 

 factory. At one time there was a heavy 

 storm of rain and wind, which, flapping 

 the wet cloth against my honev, gave 

 some of it quite a soaking, even upsetting 

 one shelf with the honey on it. If such 

 a structure were to be used, either the 

 honey must be carried into a warm dry 

 room every night, and set out again every 

 the morning, or we must e.xpect more or 

 less of the combs will be injured or ruin- 

 ed with dampness, and the extra labor 



