ADVANCED BEE-CULTURE. 



63 



tin is the package. It never leaks nor 

 taints the honey; it protects the honey 

 perfectly from the air; is easily opened, 

 and, if the honey is candied, it can be 

 easily liquefied in the can. 



Almost everybody prefers their honey 

 in a liquid state. They prefer to buy it in 

 that condition, and thus be saved the 

 trouble of melting it. Honey is more 

 attractive in appearance when in its liquid 

 state. When candied it has no more 

 beauty than so much lard. In order that 

 the beauty of extracted honey may be 

 seen, it must be put up in glass, then its 

 beautiful amber tints sparkle in the light, 

 and the result is that the prospective pur- 

 chaser ends by saying, "Well, I guess I'll 

 take it. ' ' To compete with comb honey 

 as a fancy article of gropery merchan- 

 dise, extracted honey must be in a liquid 

 state, and put up in glass with tin foil 

 caps and small tasty labels. Of course 

 all this costs money, but any expense in- 

 curred in beautifying a commodity is 

 most cheerfully repaid by the consumer. 

 Some purchasers may not be willing to 

 admit even to themselves, of their sus- 

 ceptibility to the attractions of beauty, 

 but what do we care ? Upon all packages 

 of extracted honey there should be ex- 

 planatory labels, stating that, in cool 

 weather, most honey will granulate or 

 candy, but may be liquefied by placing 

 the vessel in warm water. There should 

 also be a caution in regard to the great 

 liability of scorching honey when melt- 

 ing it. 



If candied honey is to be put upon a re- 

 tail market, tin pails are the proper re- 

 ceptacle to use. They should vary in 

 capacity from one to ten pounds. 



As there will be no danger of breakage, 

 tin pails can be shipped in a box, but bot- 

 tles of honey should be shipped packed 

 in sawdust. I have shipped thousands 

 of bottles so packed, and never had one 

 broken. 



By the wav, some recent experiments 

 indicate that extracted honey may yet be 

 retailed in paper sacks. The sacks are 

 heavy Manila paper, paraffined, and the 



honey put in while in the liquid state, and 

 then allowed to granulate. The sacks 

 can be set into small boxes, a la egg crate 

 fashion, the boxes holding them square 

 until the honey candies, when the sacks 

 of honey can be packed for shipment like 

 so many bricks. The purchaser can peel 

 off the paper and melt up the honey if he 

 prefers it in that state.. The cost is only 

 about one tenth that of tin. 



If I have plenty of surplus cases (su- 

 pers) when taking off comb honey, I 

 leave the honey in them, simply stacking 

 the cases up criss-cross in the honey 

 house, where they remain until I have 

 leisure to scrape the propolis from the 

 sections. The single-tier, 12-lb., ship- 

 ping case, with glass in the ends, seems 

 to have driven nearly every other case 



12-LB. SHIPPING CASE. 



from the market. It is light and easily 

 handled, and if a comb leaks the honey 

 does not drip upon a lower tier of sec- 

 tions, as there is no lower tier. Much 

 has been said about these cases being so 

 small that freight handlers do not 

 "dump" them and thus break the honey. 

 Freight men do not handle them singly, 

 but usually take about four at once, and 

 load them on a truck if the distance is 

 great. I doubt if it is "dumping" by 

 freight handlers that does most of the 

 damage. It comes about by the railroad 

 men putting the cases in the car the 

 wrong way, or, perhaps, piling them up 

 too high, which allows the bumping to- 

 gether of the cars to break out combs, or 

 tumble down the pile of cases. When 

 the shipment is so large that a whole car, 

 or half a car, is needed, and the cases can 

 be snugly stacked up with the combs par- 

 allel with the track, straw underneath and 

 at the sides, and boards across the end of 

 the pile, nailed fast to the sides of the 

 car, honey can cross the continent un- 



