gathered is dark and hardly fit to market. This dark honey, coming in the fall, is of great assistance in building up and getting bees in shape for winter and often saves 'much feeding for winter stores. As the fall advances the bee-keeper re moves all useless combs from the hives, and colonies in need of feeding are fed. When real cold comes, outside boxes or winter cases are put on the hives. Some absorbent is placed over the combs to absorb the moisture from the cluster. The hives, which should face south or southeast, are protected from the winds by natural or artificial means. Evergreen hedges make excellent wind-breaks. When our bee-keeper has fixed his bees for winter, he must attend to marketing his crop. This is likely his hardest work. To get a good' price for honey is hard. He is greatly handi capped by the popular prejudice against honey. Because once in his life a man found adulterated extracted honey he should not ever after think all honey is adulterated. In truth, very little honey is adulterated. Artificial extracted honey may be on the market, but artificial comb honey is not, for comb honey cannot be imitated. An offer of one thousand dollars has stood for the last twenty years unclaimed for the first specimen of artificial comb honey which cannot be detected at a glance as arti ficial. The articles that sometimes appear in the newspapers about how a certain bee-keeper is making lots of money feed ing his bees glucose sound very nice, but are nothing but fabrications pure and simple. In the first place, bees don't like glucose very well and in the second place it doesn't pay. People won't go to the trouble to feed glucose if it doesn't pay. It doesn't pay because you would have to feed a good many pounds of glucose before you would get a pound of market able honey (?). Then the question arises, What did this bee keeper make in dollars and cents from his hard work ? That varies with the season, the management and the price at which the honey was sold. In seasons of utter failure in which the bees must be fed to keep them from starving the bee keeper instead of gaining
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers