BEEKEEPING IN THE SOUTH 55 



the South and the extent to which it could be successfully carried 

 in the regions where the early summer honey flow is constant 

 but light, is only to be conjectured. The direct relation of the 

 swarm problem is probably the reason behind the popularity 

 of bulk comb honey in Texas and probably explains the pro- 

 duction of extracted and chunk honey rather than comb honey 

 in much of the South. There are many regions where section 

 honey could be successfully produced and some where comb 

 honey is being produced extensively. A hindrance to comb honey 

 production in this region, as seen by the author, is the large 

 number of bees operated by most commercial honey producers. 

 With an aggravated swarm problem, a change from extracted 

 to comb honey in much of the South will probably await the dis- 

 covery of more successful swarm prevention methods for out- 

 apiaries. 



Combless Packages. 



The combless package has proven a blessing to dozens of 

 honey producers in the South. The early failures in package 

 shipping caused many of the best known beekeepers of the 

 North to put little faith in the future of the combless package 

 business. First, the northerners did not know the value of taking 

 bees from colonies in the South to prevent swarming; and second, 

 they had little faith that shipments would ever be made success- 

 fully. 



The shipping problem is rapidly being solved and has been 

 found to be largely the fault of some who advocated the use of 

 too small a shipping cage for combless packages, to insure rea- 

 sonable success in shipping. There are dealers in the South 

 now who ship hundreds of packages annually with little loss. 

 T. W. Burleson, of Texas, told the author recently that he had 

 shipped several hundred combless packages in a year without 

 the loss of more than a dozen packages. Another fault was that 

 some shippers in the South took orders, for bees, too far from 

 them, to insure reasonable safety in shipping. Those who 

 condemned combless packages when the industry first started 

 either executed a right about face as to their value, or have been 

 left behind in beekeeping progress. 



