An Appreciation of Avant Garde 
I want to sing the praises of Peony, Avant Garde, the Wittman- 
niana hybrid. We do not hear much about it but is it not.wonderful? 
Last spring when it bloomed, I took a specimen into the house and 
actually I went and worshiped at its shrine every time I came home. 
And each time I looked at it the colors seemed more delicate and 
beautiful. Such a lovely blending of translucent white with shell pin 
shadings I had never realized before. Surely I want more of it, and 
my sympathy goes out to any member who is still without it. The 
crinkled character of the substance of the petals adds to its beauty 
and makes the pink shading more elusive. What a pity that the Eng- 
lish language does not seem able to express my admiration of this 
most beautiful flower. 
W. E. Saunders in Bulletin of Peony News, No. 12. 
Honey 
Letitia E. Wright, Jr. 
Extracted honey, or, as it used to be called, strained honey, is at 
present in high favor. Perhaps the war and the shortage of sugar 
gave it a final impetus into popularity; because then, through the 
Bureau of Entomology at Washington, bulletins were sent out urging 
all bee-keepers to concentrate their efforts on producing extracted 
honey. This was done because a colony of bees can produce more 
honey for extracting than they can in the comb. The combs from 
which the extracted honey is taken can be used over and over again 
for years; but when comb honey is taken away, the bees must produce 
enough wax to build new combs before they can store up more honey. 
Running an apiary for extracted honey means less work, or one 
may say requires a less skillful bee-keeper, than is necessary where 
comb honey is produced. In the production of comb honey, bees are 
more apt to swarm, and they are sometimes a Httle sulky and refuse 
to work in those nice fresh little boxes that have been so carefully pre- 
pared for them. Therefore the hives must be watched more carefully 
than when producing extracted honey, when the bees are working under 
more natural conditions. 
The equipment for extracted honey, as far as the hive itself is 
concerned, is very simple. The supers are the same size as the hive 
body and the frames in both the hives and the supers are alike. A 
queen excluder is placed between the hive and the super. This ex- 
cluder permits the worker bees to pass through it, into the super, 
but excludes the queen, so she is prevented from lajdng eggs in the 
combs from which the honey is to be extracted. 
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