876 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Dec. 29, 1904 



We have to liquefy our honey in the winter time for from 

 three to four days and ship it in a liquefied condition, and in 

 that way it will go sometimes for months in the coldest kind 

 of weather without granulating again. Sometimes it will 

 granulate the second time and sometimes we can keep it for 

 two or three years and it will not granulate. 



Mr. Gill (Colo.) — I think Mr. Lovesy is mistaken when 

 he says alfalfa is more prone to granulate, because there are 

 several kinds that will granulate before alfalfa. We reckon 

 alfalfa will stand up longer than basswood. We have one 

 kind of honey in Colorado where the bee has to hurry home 

 to get there before it granulates ! 



Mr. Dadant — I think this question of the granulation of 

 honey is very important. I think we were among the first 

 to extract any in large quantities. We have been producing 

 extracted honey for years, and we have sold hundreds of 

 thousands of pounds of it. We have educated a great many 

 of our patrons to the use of extracted honey, and we sell 

 nearly all our honey granulated. You run the risk of burn- 

 ing your honey if you melt it. After all the riatural condition 

 of extracted honey is granulated in the winter. I believe 

 Mr. Weber's argument is good. 'It is said they can manufac- 

 ture honey that is granulated. When you find adulterated 

 honey on the markets it is liquid, and your honey always 

 granulates, therefore it is well to educate people to use honey 

 that is granulated. We should insist on the fact that good 

 honey in cold weather will granulate except in a very few 

 instances. 



Mr. Rhees — This question interests me. I have not in 

 the past done very much in producing honey but I propose 

 doing more in the future. I have sometimes thought if we 

 could invade the candy market it would be a very fine thing. 

 Children are very fond of honey, but in this day of enlighten- 

 ment we are accustomed to having things prepared in a C9n- 

 venient form. On account of that we much dislike anything 

 that causes any particular effort after we buy it, to prepare it 

 for use. Some people do not like honey in a candied form, 

 and I believe the majority of people would rather eat it on 

 their hot rolls and batter-cakes in liquid form. But before 

 they can get it in that form they have to liquefy it. This 

 is something that most housewives would not do. I believe 

 if candied honey could be put up in a small enough package, 

 m little tubes say, or some smaller form, that it . could be 

 sold and used as candy by the children, and it would be 

 verv convenient. 



"Mr. Davis (Tenn.)— I would like to ask Mr. Rhees a 

 question in regard to liquefying his honey. I understood 

 him to say he liquefied for several days. Does he mean he 

 keeps it warm for several days? 



Mr. Lovesy— About 120 degrees. If you get it too hot 

 vou usually color it. I liquefy it from three to four days 

 and keep it maybe a little less than 100. I find even at that 

 if I put it on the stove and keep it there for two or three 

 weeks it will color it. If you put too much heat on it you 

 ■ can spoil both the flavor and color in a few hours. I liquefied 

 the whole of the honey that I sent down here to the Fair 

 on a furnace, and I left it there for four days, and still you 

 will find some of it candied. 



Mr. Hart (Cal.)— I would like to know if Mr. Lovesy 

 keeps a fire under his honey for four days? 



Mr. Lovesy— In liquefying honey to send down here to 

 the Fair we put it on for a couple of days. In fact I had 

 found out many years ago that by liquefying and keeping 

 in a liquefied condition for three or four days it would keep 

 liquid; and as I said before, if it granulated the second 

 time we would go through the same process, and I have had 

 honey keep for two or three years after that, in a liquefied 

 condition If we had liquefied it for only 24 hours or so, 

 an then took it off the first cold snap that came, it would 

 granulate again. 



Mr. Dadant— Do you melt it over water or on the stove.'' 

 Mr. Lovesy— Generally on a coal-oil stove. If you use 

 that, it is a good idea to get an iron ring and set the can 

 on that I use a coal-oil stove with three burners. 



Mr Dadant— I don't know whether this is exactly on the 

 question, but Mr. Lovesy gives us an impression that honey 

 heated to more than 120 degrees will color. I believe his 

 method of heating has something to do with that. From what 

 he tells us he does not put it over water but on a coal-oil 

 Lmp and heats it to 120 degrees. If he would examine it 

 he would see the honey that is right next to the fire be- 

 comes a great deal hotter than that, and the honey next to 

 the metal gets burned and turns dark, while the rest of the 

 mass is still cold. The only way in which you can melt honey 

 and keep it from being damaged by heat is over water, one ves- 

 sel in another. You must not let the water boil, as it will 



evaporate the essential oils of the honey. I think the damag- 

 ing of the color conies from what I stated. 



Mr. Abbott — I like to agree with Mr. Dadant whenever 

 I can, but I have to disagree with him this time. You don't 

 have to have water in order to heat honey properly. You can 

 heat honey with a dry heat just as well as you can with water; 

 in fact it is better. I have been dealing in extracted honey 

 for 20 years and I have bottles that have been heated up a 

 half dozen times; some of them are just as white as the 

 day they were first put in the bottle and the flavor is not 

 injured in the least. We used to use water; we don't do 

 that any more, because we don't want our labels destroyed. 

 As soon as it granulates in the store the wagon takes it up 

 and it must be liquefied and go back in that condition, and 

 if we used water we would have to put on new labels every 

 time. We do it with dry heat, but the vessel which contains 

 the honey must not come in direct contact with any fire. 



Mr. Pressler — The question was whether it is profitable 

 to use the Aikin package to sell granulated or extracted 

 honey. 



Mr. Lovesy — This question of granulated honey is a 

 question that interests most of us. My experience is, that 

 what Mr. Dadant says does not pan out with me. I put 

 sufficient heat on those cans of honey that they will take at 

 least 24 hours before the honey melts, and then I leave it 

 there the full length of time. In the winter time I leave 

 it three or four days, and when I pour the honey out it is as 

 white in the bottom of the can as at the top, and if Mr. 

 Dadant's theory was right it would be colored at the bottom. 

 The idea of liquefying it for that length of time is to keep 

 it in liquefied form afterward. 



On motion of Mr. Hyde, the convention adjourned to 

 Wednesday, at 10 o'clock, a. m. 



SECOND DAY— THIRD SESSION. 



At 10 a. m. Pres. Harris called the convention to order 

 and at his request the Rev. Mr. Brant led the convention in 

 prayer, after which came the following: 



PRESIDENT HARRIS' ADDRESS. 



It affords me much pleasure at this time to address you 

 as your president. This is the fourth convention of bee- 

 keepers of the world, and the 35th annual convention of the 

 National Bee-Keepers' Association of America. I feel proud 

 to preside over the deliberations of such a body of ladies 

 and gentlemen as are here present. It makes every bee- 

 keeper at heart feel proud of the association that we have, 

 and by mingling together to know that by being in touch 

 with one another we can in our own way use our best 

 endeavors to push our interests to the front. 



Talking on international matters, you have here, within 

 a few hundred feet, one of the greatest displays ever known 

 in modern times — the World's Fair — something that no mind 

 can fathom ; something that those who have helped to con- 

 struct it cannot tell you its great beauties. It is something 

 that is a great educator in modern times to the average mind. 

 You go there and look through the foreign industries and 

 the different buildings and you find the crude appliances of 

 long ago and the magnificent appliances we have at the 

 present time. Such is the case in beedom. You can look 

 back years ago when our appliances were crude. We have 

 got down today to modern bee-keeping, where you are mak- 

 ing it a science, where you are doing all you possibly can to 

 build up your industry. You should feel proud of it. You 

 should feel proud that you are meeting here today in the 

 World's Fair City. Nothing grander in the history of this 

 country has ever been presented to the human mind. 



Some of you have visited, and other will visit, this Fair 

 before you leave the city. I want to say to you as your 

 presiding officer, that I know no north, no south, no east, 

 no west, and I hope that each and every one of you will 

 have this same feeling in your own hearts, to meet here as 

 a band of brothers to push forward with your shoulder to 

 the wheel of this organization, that not only now is a grand 

 organization but in the future will be one of the grandest 

 in the United States. We have this representation of foreign 

 countries. We are glad to know they are here ; we are also 

 glad to know that they take the deep interest they do in 

 coming here to mingle with us. 



The matter of legislation is one of vast importance to 

 us all, and I hope before this convention adjourns sine^ die 

 that there will be a resolution passed here that a committee 

 be appointed of one or two good bee-people from each State 

 that may go to your representatives and your senators, and 

 try through the committees we have appointed, to get Na- 



