282 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



PLACE TO KEEP HONEY. 



I have sold a crop of honey before it was off the 

 hives and sometimes T have kept part of a crop over till 

 spring. 



In any case the honey for home use in spring must 

 be kept over. It is not the easiest thing in the world to 

 keep it through the wdnter in good shape. If kept cold 

 it is apt to grannlate or candy, as it is usually called. If 

 allowed to freeze, the combs crack and look bad, and in 

 time the honey oozes out of the cracks. Honey is deli- 

 quescent, absorbing from the atmosphere a large amount 

 of water if conditions are favorable. Try putting some 

 common salt in a place where you think of keeping 

 honey ; if the salt remains dry, so would honey. But a 

 place that is suitable at one time may not be at an- 

 other. Years ago I filled the back end of the honey- 

 room with honey. It was a good place for it ; the out- 

 side walls w^ere thin and the heat of the sun made it a hot 

 place. When cold weather came, however, it was a bad 

 place, and the lower sections at the back part — beautiful, 

 snowy-white, when first put in — became watery and 

 dark-looking. A fire for cooking was kept in the ad- 

 joining room, and although there seemed but very little 

 steam in the air, by the time it got to the back end of the 

 room, and settled to the lower part, there was enough to 

 spoil hundreds of sections. You see, warm air is like 

 a sponge to take up moisture, and cold squeezes the 

 rnoisture out of it. The point to see to, then, is to have 

 no air coming from a warmer place to the place w^here 

 the honey is. I would sooner risk honey in a kitchen 

 with a hot fire and plenty of steam, than in a room with- 

 out fire and with a door partly opened into a sitting- 

 room where no water or steam is ever kept. Indeed, a 

 kitchen is quite a good place to keep honey, the higher 

 up the better. 



