94 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb 1 



perature we prefer is 170° F., and we never 

 want it more than 180°, believing that, if 

 much hotter than this, the flavor is injured ; 

 and if allowed to come near the boiling point 

 the honey is darkened as well. The round 

 all-glass dairy thermometer is best for this 

 purpose. We suspend it by a string from the 

 top of the can so it is always ready for ex- 

 amination. 



The question is now, when and how shall 

 we heat the honey ? The kitchen stove will 

 do, but we do not recommend doing it there. 

 As we bottle all our honey in the back shop of 

 our drugstore, we prefer warming it outside, 

 and as near the back door as we can get, until 

 this year, when we used a sugar-kettle having 

 sufficient water in to surround the honey nice- 

 ly. The objection is, a waste of fuel, and the 

 annoyance from smoke. Not long ago some 



ble stove we can warm the honey as fast as we 

 can fill 1-lb. bottles or smaller. As it takes 

 about an hour to get the first lot ready by 

 starting at 7 o'clock, the honey will be ready 

 by 8. We can then take off 40 lbs. every 

 half-hour, which means one hour for this 

 quantity when using two tins. This would be 

 from 700 to 800 1-lb. bottles in a day. If the 

 honey is granulated it is absolutely necessary 

 to stand it in water ; and then two boilers on 

 a cook-stove would be better. You do not re- 

 quire to use water if the honey is sufficiently 

 liquid to pour. Though honey is strained as 

 it comes from the extractor, we do this again 

 through thin cheese-cloth on the can we fill 

 from. Keep the honey on the stove covered 

 also, if for no other reason than to preserve 

 the aroma. When filling 1-lb. bottles we take 

 the tare of each, using a double-beam scale 



MR. DEADMAN AND BOYS BOTTLING HONEY. 



one (unlike those we read about who live in 

 Muskoka) walked oft with our kettle; and 

 when looking for it, or something to take its 

 place, I found on a heap of old iron the read- 

 ily movable stove seen in the picture. I have 

 been glad more than once that my kettle was 

 stolen, as this stove is so much better. It is 

 nothing more than the oven part of an old- 

 fashioned cook-stove. There are no legs and 

 no bottom, so we set it on the ground and 

 move it where we please. Two lots of honey 

 are warmed at one time ; and as the pipe is at 

 the back, and not, as with box stoves, at the 

 end, it warms with equal rapidity. This is an 

 advantage in itself. With this readily mova- 



for this purpose. We can then guarantee 

 each bottle to hold this quantity. We are 

 careful, however, not to give much over this. 

 Half an ounce over on each bottle would mean 

 15(5 lbs. when filling 5000, as we did one year. 

 Then you may meet some merchants who will 

 say you are charging too high ; and when be- 

 ginning on the price of the honey, and the 

 cost off the bottles, they will make no allow- 

 ance for overweight. The quart gems (wine 

 measure) that we used this season, would not 

 hold 3 lbs., so we filled without weighing, and 

 sold them as quarts. One-pint gems hold a 

 little over 1 )< lbs. ; but as the 1-lb. screw-top 

 straight jelly-bottles look nearly as large we 



