DEVOTED TO BEEW A1NP HOIVEY, AJNT> HOME INTEREST©. 



Vol. VIII. 



JUNE 1, 1880. 



No. 6. 



A. X. ROOT, 



Publisher and Proprietor, \ 



I 

 Medina, O. 



Published Monthly. 



TERMS: $1.00 Per Annum, in 

 lAtlvanee; 2 Copies for $1.90 ; 3 



J for $2.75; 5 for $4.00; 10 or 



more, 75 c each. Single Number, 10c. 



Established m 1873. [auFmleV cluU may be made at 



NOTES FROM THE BANNER APIARY. 



No. 



HOW I EXTRACT HONEY. 



tN the April No. I told you how I raised queens 

 and extracted honey; now, we will suppose 

 that the honey is ready to extract, and [ will 

 tell you how I go to work to extract It. 



My shop is a building- that was once used for a 

 dwelling-; it has a pantry, bedrooms, and innumer- 

 able shelves, nooks, and cupboards, and I have ta- 

 ken the pantry tor my honey room. I have a good, 

 wide, long shelf put up, at a convenient height, and 

 in a solid and substantial manner, across one end of 

 the pantry. To one end of this shelf my extractor 

 is firmly fastened with screws. And now let me 

 describe two dishes for receiving the cappings, and 

 straining the honey from them. They are made of 

 tin; are 12 inches in diameter, and 14 inches deep. 

 Two inches from the bottom is a false, or a remova- 

 ble, bottom,made of perforated tin; not the ordina- 

 ry perforated tin, but it is perforated something af- 

 ter the style of a nutmeg grater. In the bottom is 

 a honey gate through which the honey may be 

 drawn off. A round hole, 12 inches in diameter, is 

 made in the shelf, and the can is slipped down into 

 this hole until a projecting rim that is around the 

 top of the can rests upon the shelf. The cans have 

 tin covers. When one of these cans becomes filled 

 with cappings, it is removed and set one side, and 

 the other one put in i's place. After the honey has 

 drained out and been drawn off, the cappings are 

 washed in a barrel of water, and then put away to 

 be melted into wax. The water in whioh the cap- 

 pings are washed is made into vinegar. 



I have a nice light wheelbarrow, upon the plat- 

 form of which I can place four hives; there is also 

 a nice track, made of boards, extending from the 

 door of my shop to the center of my apiary. I fill 

 four hives with empty combs, and wheel them out 

 into the apiary. I then carry one of the hives of 

 combs to a hive from which I wish to remove some 

 frames for extracting, and take out a few frames of 

 comb and lean them against the hive, in order to 

 make room for the frames of honey as I take them 

 from the hive. I look over the upper story, and re- 

 move every frame in which the honey is sealed over 

 one-third of the way down from the top, shaking 



the bees either into the upper story or else In front 

 of the hive. The few straggling bees that remain 

 are brushed off with a turkey quill. After I have 

 removed all of the honey that is sufficiently ripened, 

 the empty spaces in the upper story are filled with 

 empty combs, and I then prooeed to "interview" 

 another hive in the same manner. 



My hives are Simplicities, holding eleven Ameri- 

 can frames ; and as the lower stories, with the ex- 

 ception of perhaps one or two outside frames, are 

 pretty well filled with brood before the upper stories 

 are put on, the queen seldom goes "up stairs;" but 

 when I do find a "patch" of brood in a frame in an 

 upper story, I extract the honey from the comb in 

 which it Is found, and then open some lower story 

 and take out an outside comb that contains no 

 brood, spread the brood frames apart, and put the 

 frame with the little "patch" of brood in the center 

 of the brood ne3t. 



When I obtain a load of honey, I wheel it to the 

 honey room and extract it, and then take the load 

 of empty combs back to the apiary and exchange 

 them for another load of honey. 



When extracting, I leave the honey gate open. 

 To receive the honey I use a large tin pail. I cover 

 the pail with a board, and a cheese cloth, bag 

 strainer hangs through a two inch hole in the board 

 cover ; thus the honey is strained as fast as It is ex- 

 tracted. When a pail Is full, it Is removed and an- 

 other is put in its place. For storing honey, I have 

 some large tin cans, with cloth covers similar to 

 your extractor covers, and furnished with honey 

 gates for drawing off the honey. They are about 

 IV or 18 Inches in diameter, about 27 inches deep, and 

 will hold 300 lbs. of honey. They cost, last season, 

 $2.10 each. After newly gathered honey has stood a 

 few days, a scum rises upon it; this I skim off. 



Some bee-keepers tell us to wait until the honey is 

 all scaled over before extracting it, but I have al- 

 ways extracted mine when it was one-third sealed, 

 and I would not ask for better honey. Perhaps lo- 

 cation has something to do with the matter. 



W. Z. Hutchinson. 



Ilogersville, Genesee Co., Mich. 



It seems to me, friend II., that pail under 

 the honey gate would be getting full and 

 running over every little while. I believe I 

 should have a barrel, or manage to get one 



