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Show Bees. The California Agriculturist says that there are two million beo-hives beo-hives in the United States, each hivo yielding a little over twenty-two pounds of honey in a year. The aver age price at wmcu noncy is soiu is estimated at twenty-five cents a pound, from which it appears that bees, after paying their own board, present us with a revenue of about $8,000,000 a year. Or, it may be said, that they givo a pound of pure honey to every man, woman and child in tho United Stales. The Agriculturist estimates the profits on tho sale of surplus honey at from fifty to two hundred percent, on the capital capi-tal invested. But all bees are not as well educated as those of California. The honey that comes to us Irom California, when not cut up and bottled, bot-tled, is contained in little square wooden frames, probably six by six inches, in which tho bees deposit it ready for transportation. The upper side of the otherwise ilat frame is madenfathiu Diece of wood shaped like a Y. Tho "bees begin building on tho lower point of tho V, and are thus made to keep their wax structure in tho middlo of the frame. After the honey has been deposited the tranies may bo packed closely together, to-gether, and each layer is kept sepa rate from tho others by the projecting sides of the frame. California honey usually reaches eastern markets in this way, but for retail sale is taken from tho frames and packed in glass bottles or jars. |