EXTRACTED HONEY. 



ir)9 



EXTRACTED HONEY. 



teration, and there has been some ground 

 for it. Glucose has been used very largely, 

 but it can readily be detected by chemical 

 analysis and by the taste. Pure glucose, 

 that is, such as is used for adulterating, has 

 a strong metallic taste that is almost nau- 

 seating. One who has once tasted the 

 '•'stuff"' will readily recognize proportions 

 exceeding 25 per cent in honey. See Honev 

 Adulteration. 



Since the new national pure-food law has 

 gone into effect there will be very little 

 adulterated honey on the market, especially 

 so as over two-thirds of the States have 

 pure-food laws also. We may safely con- 

 clude, therefore, that all extracted honey 

 so labeled will necessarily be pure. 



A really nice article of extracted honey 

 will bring 8 or 1(J cts. quicker than a poor 

 one will bring 4 or 5; and we have seen 

 some, aye, and have offered it for sale too, 

 that we do not honestly think was worth over 

 2c., if it was worth anything at all, unless to 

 feed bees. Is all this difference on account 

 of the source from which it was gathered? 

 Not at all ; for all the honey we get here, in 

 the great majority of seasons, is from clover 

 and linden. Then where is the great differ- 

 ence ? It is, so far as my experience goes, 

 simply because it is taken from the hive 

 before it is ripe. We have never seen any 

 honey we thought was tit to extract until it 

 was all sealed over. Still further, we do not 

 believe it is nearly as nice, even when it 

 is all sealed over, as it will be if left in the 

 hive three or four weeks after it has been 

 all sealed. We will tell you some of our 

 experience to illustrate the point. 



In 1870 we extracted, from our apiary of 

 less than 50 colonies, over 3 tons of honey. 

 It was put up in 1-lb. bottles, and more than 

 half was sold for 25c per iiound when prices 

 were high on extracted honey. During the 

 fore part of the season the honey was al- 

 lowed to get pretty well capped over ; but 

 during basswood bloom, we, bees and all, 

 got somewhat crazy, we fear, and they 

 brought in what was but little better than 

 sweetened water ; we extracted and put it 

 into bottles, and hurried it off to fill orders, 

 hoping it would all get "■ good" as soon as 

 the weather got cool. It candied when the 

 weather became cold, for almost all honey 

 will candy, or at least one portion will can- 

 dy, leaving a thin watery part, which, if it 

 does not sour, acquires in time a disagree- 

 able brackish flavor, like that acquired by 

 liquids standing in an old barrel. At 

 about this stage it shows that peculiar qual- 



ity of pushing the bungs out of the barrels, 

 and the corks out of the bottles, running 

 over on the shelves and tables to the discom- 

 fiture and disgust of everybody who likes to 

 be cleanly in his habits. When we tasted 

 some of the honey in one of these bottles, six 

 months afterward, we did not wonder it had 

 stopped selling, and we made up our mind 

 it should no more be offered for sale. We 

 believe it was all poured out of the bottles, 

 and sold to a tobacconist. The contents of 

 the jars were not all alike, for the thin 

 watery honey has quite a tendency to swim 

 on top. We, one season, commenced to 

 retail from a barrel of what all pronounced 

 tine clover honey. One day a ciistomer 

 returned some, saying it was not like what 

 he bought before. We assured him it was 

 drawn from the same ban-el, and went and 

 drew some, to convince him. Behold I it 

 was sweetened water, compared with the 

 first. The thin honey having risen to the 

 top, it was the last to be drawn out. 



Again, new honey has, many times, a 

 rank, disagreeable odor and taste. AVe have 

 been told that in the Eastern States much 

 honey is sometimes obtained from the 

 fields where onion seeds are raised for the 

 market, and that this lioney, when first 

 gathered, is so strong of onions that it can 

 not be used. In a few weeks, however, this 

 rank and disagreeable flavor has all gone, 

 and the honey is very fair. Few persons 

 can tolerate the strong, aromatic flavor of 

 basswood honey when first gathered, and 

 some of the jars we have mentioned, when 

 opened, gave one the impression that some- 

 thing akin to turpentine had been mixed 

 with the honey. This was because it had 

 been closely corked when first gathered; had 

 it been left in the comb until sealed, the un- 

 pleasanttaste would have mostly disappeared. 

 We say mostly, for even sealing does not 

 seem to remove entirely the rank flavor, un- 

 til the combs have been some weeks in the 

 hive. We remember we once took a beauti- 

 ful-looking piece of comb honey out of a jar 

 that was found in the market. On opening 

 the cells we found the honey had such a rank 

 basswood flavor that it was, to us, quite 

 disagreeable, and yet we are tond of the bass- 

 wood honey. Very white new comb honey 

 is seldom of the fine, pure, sweet flavor of 

 honey that has been a long time capped 

 over, such as is found in the dark-looking 

 comb. To which shall we give the prefer- 

 ence — looks or taste V We once were so 

 busy that we could not attend to extracting, 

 and so we raised the filled stories up. and 



