April 7, 904. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



261 



necessarily be much changed in the process, and a great 

 portion of its constituents eliminated. 



I will add in this connection, that among those who 

 have disputed the high cost of comb, in the economy of the 

 hive, a French writer, Sylviac, in several European publi- 

 cations, has lately asserted that comb was made of some 

 other material than honey, but this material seems to have 

 remained a mystery for him as well as for the rest of the 

 fraternity. I would not mention this assertion, which has 

 no weight, except as an example of what arguments may be 

 used, by writers of undoubted ability, when they allow 

 themselves to draw too much on their imagination. The 

 writer in question, I will say, is not a practical apiarist, but 

 an amateur. 



I have often heard the remark made that it is astonish- 

 ing how fast bees can build combs in a good season. I have 

 noticed it myself, but we know that a pound of combs occu- 

 pies a very large space, and as the bees harvest honey very 

 freely at the time the comb is built, even if combs were to 

 cost them IS pounds of honey for each pound of wax, it 

 would be but a day or two of delay to build most of the 

 combs of a colony, yet the saving realized by giving them 

 the comb already built would be well worth considering. 



I have heard it stated by some apiarists that the day was 

 coming when the production of beeswax would pay better 

 than that of honey. No one has had faith enough in such 

 an assertion to give it a trial in practice, and I dare say that 

 it would not take long to convince any one of its fallacy. 

 Those who have tried to feed extracted honey to fill up sec- 

 tions have invariably reported that it did not pay, that the 

 cost was too great, and I do not believe it will ever pay, 

 much less will it pay to let the bees expend their honey for 

 wax-production alone. 



When we put all testimonials together, the cost of comb 

 honey appears to be fully twice that of extracted honey ; 

 that is, the bees can harvest twice as much honey when the 

 combs are already built as when they have to build them. 

 This I take as an average. In some seasons there will be 

 less cost to the building of comb, while in other years the 

 cost will be increased. The most expensive production of 

 comb honey to the bees comes when the crop is very 

 short and very sudden. If the weather has been cold, 

 backward, rainy, unfavorable, in short, and a suitable 

 day comes suddenly to be followed perhaps by five or six 

 other such days, and then the crop ceases — in such a case 

 the production of extracted honey is far ahead of that of 

 comb. 



In the first instance, the combs are ready for harvest 

 and there is no delay, no loss of time, the bees are at work 

 en ma !se. 



In the second instance the suddenness of the crop has 

 taken us unawares, and they have had hardly time to build 

 a few combs when the flow is at end. A large crop cut 

 short, suddenly, by a storm and continued bad weather, will 

 also leave the comb-honey production in bad shape, as 

 many combs have been built, and partly filled, and must be 

 abandoned. A big flow, uninterrupted and steady, is the 

 most encouraging for comb-honey producers, and that is 

 why I insist that the production of comb honey will be most 

 especially successful in localities where large crops are the 

 rule. 



My last, and least, grievance against the production of 

 comb honey is that it requires the use of a number of con- 

 trivances for which I never had any fancy — separators, 

 queen-excluders, honey-boards, etc. With the production of 

 extracted honey none of these is needed ; at least not by the 

 methods we follow. We connect the upper and lower stor- 

 ies as freely as possible, and make things as convenient for 

 the bees as it is possible to do. 



Now that I have given you as much as in my power the 

 most favorable view of the production of extracted honey, I 

 must do the fair thing and give you the dark side of the pic- 

 ture in a closing article. Hancock Co., 111. 



The Deliquescent Powers of Honey. 



BY AI.LKN LATHAM. 



MUCH has appeared ii 

 the water-gatheriii 

 taking the ground ' 

 others taking the other 

 extreme statement of the 

 forms us that honey w 

 liquid has that power — 



1 the American Bee Journal about 

 .; powers of honey, some writers 

 hat honey has no such power, and 

 v'iew. On page 30 we get the most 



former. Mr. Johnson not only in- 

 ill not gather moisture, but that no 



L statement which he would tmd 



most difficult to prove, except in a technical and hair-split- 

 ting way. 



There are many liquids which are, in the common mean- 

 ing of the term, deliquescent, and honey is one of them. I 

 have recently tried an experiment to prove that honey has 

 this property, and though my experiment is not absolutely 

 conclusive, it will probably satisfy most of the readers of 

 the American Bee Journal. 



A watch-glass was cleaned and counterpoised on a bal- 

 ance of extreme delicacy, a piece of paper the size of the 

 capping of a worker-cell being sutHcient to throw the bal- 

 ance out of equilibrium. There was then placed on the 

 glass S grams (about a thimbleful) of honey — a well-cured 

 honey of first quality. Honey was added or subtracted by a 

 pin-point till a five-gram mass was excellently balanced. 

 The balance was left with the glass of honey on the pan, 

 and the counterpoise on the other pan for several days, be- 

 ing weighed each day. Day by day it lost weight. 



The air in this locality during the present winter has 

 •been extremely dry much of the time, the humidity running 

 as low as 30 not infrequently. A saucer of honey set aside 

 has gummed over instead of getting thin, as so often hap- 

 pens. So with the honey in the experiment, it got thicker 

 and thicker, and showed no signs of gathering moisture. I 

 saw that I should have to create a moist atmosphere for it, 

 and on the Sth or 6th day began to burn a jet of hydrogen 

 in the balance case a few minutes daily. Burning hydrogen 

 furnishes pure water. Fearing to injure the delicate bal- 

 ance by the moisture, I placed the glass under a bell-glass 

 under which water had been boiled, this being first done on 

 the 18th day. This was continued till the close of the 33rd 

 day. 



On the 33rd day I dried the bell-glass thoroughly, and 

 put under it with the watch-glass of honey two shallow 

 dishes of calcium chloride. This chemical has the power to 

 take water from the air, and is used to dry air with. My 

 purpose was, of course, to dry the air and thus cause the air 

 to take away from the honey the moisture which it had ac- 

 cumulated. These conditions were continued for nine days. 



The watch-glass of honey was weighed daily when pos- 

 sible. Business and an attack of the grip prevented an un- 

 broken record. I ofl'er below the results, which will tell a 

 story for themselves. 



It is to be observed that the loss or gain in weight is 

 not uniform, a fact which is to be accounted for by varia- 

 tions in temperature, humidity of outer air, and irregularity 

 in replenishing the moisture in the air under the bell-glass. 

 I incidentally discovered that air will get dry though there 

 be the tiniest crack for the difi'usion of the inclosed air with 

 that outside. 



I say that my experiment is not absolutely conclusive, 

 for the reason that I did not analyze the honey before and 

 after the experiment, but only a very obtuse person will 

 question the conclusion that honey will absorb water. Sev- 

 eral circumstantial facts point that way. The honey grew 

 thinner as it increased in weight. As the honey grew thin- 

 ner it gained in bulk. At first there was only a thimbleful, 

 but at the time of the greatest weight there were about two 

 thimblefuls. The increase in weight varied very regularly 

 with the amount of water in the air. The honey grew 

 thicker as it lost weight. The honey did not difi'er in ap- 

 pearance at the close from what it was at the start of the 

 experiment. 



I tasted the honey at the close. Though it had not lost 

 body nor sweetness it had lost all its fine flavor, and tasted 

 rank. Mr. Johnson will doubtless say that this proves de- 

 composition, but not I. I believe that it simply means that 

 the volatile oils which the honey had at first had been lost, 

 and that the foul air from the burning alcohol lamp had 

 given a new flavor. Flavors are hard to weigh on a balance, 

 though they may be weighed with money. 



Had decomposition of any sort taken place it is reason- 

 able to suppose that gases would have appeared in the 

 honey. This was not so. At all times the honey was clear 

 as jelly, and whatever was gained or lost was through the 

 surface of the honey. This last fact is seen from the cir- 

 cumstances that when the honey was losing weight the sur- 

 face honey was thicker than that below, while the reverse 

 was true when the honey was gaining weight, the surface 

 then being thinner. 



In trying to prove that honey is deliquescent I have at 

 the same time proved it to be elllorescent. This is much 

 like saying that a thing is white and is also black, for deli- 

 quescence and efflorescence are directly opposed properties. 

 Yet the honey gained water when the air was humid, and 

 lost water when the air was dry. It would seem that there 

 is a certian (possibly not fixed I humidity point above which 



