MARCH 15, 1913 



177 



General Correspondence 



RIPENING HONEY ARTIFICIALLY 



The Great Majoiity of Authorities Advise Against 

 . the Practice 



BY OREL L. HERSHISER 



This subject has come in for a good deal 

 of discussion ever since the introduction of 

 the honey-extractor, the hilest contribution 

 being that of Mr. I. Hopkins, page 801, 

 Dec. 15, 1912. Advocates of extracting un- 

 ripe honey practice this for the twofold 

 reason of greater quantity with less labor. 

 The time otherwise spent in uncapping is 

 saved, and the honey is thrown out more 

 quickly and thoroughly because of its thin 

 and watery condition. But the honey thus 

 produced did not and does not meet with 

 favor from the American customer. Some 

 \ears ago prices of extracted honey became 

 depressed to a point of little or no profit to 

 the producer of the better grades, and there 

 is no doubt that the production of so much 

 unripe honey had more to do with that con- 

 dition than all else. The -writer knows 

 something about it, as he lost a good 2000- 

 pounds-a-year customer by supplying a 

 thousand pounds of fine-looking and ap- 

 parently ripe basswood honey purchased 

 from another beekeeper, but which, evi- 

 dently, had been extracted before it was all 

 capped, as it fermented and outgrew the 

 capacity of the pails. What appeared to 

 be the source of profit to the uncapped- 

 honey producers — greater quantity — prov- 

 ed to be the cause of loss, for there could 

 be no profit in cjuantity when it was more 

 than neutralized by diminution in price. 

 That unripe honey has had and will ever 

 have a depressing effect on the market; and 

 that unprincipled dealers have used and 

 will ever use it as a club to hammer down 

 the price of high-grade honey ripened on 

 the hive can not be successfully denied. 

 For what distributor of honey that has been 

 ripened on the hive, whether apiarist or 

 dealer, has not been adversely affected by 

 unfair competition with unripe honey? If 

 the principle of " greatest profit for the 

 labor " had been strictly adhered to, in- 

 stead of " greatest quantity for labor," I 

 believe we should all now be getting better 

 prices and profits from our apicultural in- 

 vestments. 



Mr. Hopkins observes, " We all know 

 Low strongly the ripenirg of honey any- 

 wliere but Avithin the hive has been opposed 

 at different times," and it is within the fac.s 

 to add that that opposition is growing 

 stronger and sharper from year to yeai\ 



Mr. Hopkins cites several prominent au- 

 thorities in support of his contention in 

 favor of ripening honey outside the hive. 

 Of these, our beloved Quinby died in 1875, 

 and the hone,y-extractor was not invented 

 until 1868, and probably did not come into 

 even limited use for a year or two later. 

 With that profound reverence that every 

 American beekeeper who is familiar with 

 the fountain heads of his occupation feels 

 for Moses Quinby it does not seem that he 

 could have so attained to that ripeness of 

 experience on this point as to make him a 

 leading authority. It is idle to speculate as 

 to what might have been his ultimate opin- 

 ion on this point had he lived to mature ex- 

 perience ; but it is proper to say that some 

 of the early advocates of the ripening out- 

 side the hive later changed their minds. 



Mr. L. C. Root has not been extensively 

 engaged in apiculture for about 25 years, 

 but he retains his interest in the subject 

 and in beekeepers. He was present at the 

 convention of the National Beekeepers' As- 

 sociation, Albany, 1910, and entered heart- 

 ily into the discussion of many subjects. A 

 very able paj^er from Mr. W. P. South- 

 worth, of Salix Falls, Iowa, on the subject 

 of " Ripening Honey on the Hives," was 

 read at tlie convention. Mr. Southworth is 

 the manager of an association of beekeep- 

 ers called "The Western Honey-producers," 

 an association whose annual output reaches 

 200,000 pounds. He pointed out that ripen- 

 ing honey on the hive is tlie best method of 

 producing honey that would " taste like 

 more;" that it is not enough that honey be 

 entirely sealed in the comb to be ripe and 

 ready for market, but that it should age on 

 the hive; that the extracting process causes 

 the honey to take in the ferment germs that 

 attack the particles that are not thoroughly 

 inverted or changed from nectar to honey; 

 that he had read the articles written by E. 

 W. Alexander and others on extracting, 

 often during the season, and their methods 

 of artificial ripening, and that he had con- 

 sidered what constituted honey, and would 

 refer to the bulletin published by the Agi'i- 

 cultui-al Department at Washington, D. C, 

 entitled " The Chemical Analysis and Com- 

 position of Honey ;" that he admired E. W. 

 Alexander, and had studied his writings, 

 and found his methods suitable, with one 

 exception, and that was liis method of ex- 

 tracting the nectar from the combs before 

 it was sealed or even well evaporated; that 

 in his location (loAva), and with the equip- 

 trent that the average and even extensive 

 beekeeper has, he believes the plan is worse 



