THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



793 



the hoiv, bill tlie wily veterans did not 

 come to the scratch. 



Amid raucli lauglitor tlie subject 

 was laid on the table, and the next 

 order of the day taken up, viz : an 

 essay by Mv. C. i'. Dadant, on 



EXTRACTED HONEY. 



Comb honey is nice, but it is a fancy 

 article, and is too costly for the gen- 

 ei-al public who want an article not 

 costing more than sugar, with which 

 it competes, and if honey can be sup- 

 plied as clieaply as sugar, it will, to a 

 large extent, supersede it. lu their 

 experience, their sales had largely 

 increased, and the home market now 

 readily consumes all their crop. Ex- 

 tracting honey checks swarming, 

 ■without a doubt. It enables the 

 apiarist to take care of a larger num- 

 ber of colonies. A larger quantity of 

 houey can be obtained, and much out- 

 lay for combs, crates and boxes is 

 saved. Mr. Dadant considered it a 

 mistake to suppose that there is an 

 over-production of honey. It is only 

 beginning to be considered a staple. 

 When honey is as common on the 

 tables of the farmer, and even laborer, 

 as sugar, and when it is found as 

 common by the keg and barrel in 

 wholesale stores as sugar, then only 

 shall we produce as much honey as 

 the country can use. Tlie revolution 

 in bee-keeping of which Father Lang- 

 stroth speaks, has come into effect, 

 but bee-keepers are only beginning to 

 find out all the advantages and all the 

 growth which the bee-business must 

 derive from the invention. 



Dr. Mason described his method of 

 getting extracted honey, but com- 

 plained that he could not get more 

 than 6-5 pounds per colony. lie was 

 asked how many combs he used, and 

 replied, •'eight." 



Mr. C. r. Mnth could not compre- 

 hend how the Doctor f-ould manage 

 with so few frames. He wanted at 

 least 10 frames for the brood-nest, and 

 then another story for extracting. 

 Even his bees, kept on the liouse-top 

 in the city of Cincinnati, had given 

 him averages double and even treble 

 what Dr. Mason had obtained, and 

 from hives in the country where they 

 had not so far to fly, he got far more 

 honey. 



Mr. W. E. Clark said that the 

 President had been the most success- 

 ful producer of extracted honey in the 

 East, and he would call on him to 

 explain his metliods. 



rres. Root, in response, said that 

 it was perfectly true, as Mr. Clarke 

 had said,tliat Mr.Doolittle's requisites 

 for producing comb honey were just 

 as applicable to the production of 

 extracted honey. A good queen, for 

 example, was just as necessary for the 

 one as the other. In both cases wise 

 manipulation was needed, and it took 

 a large amount of study to know what 

 is wise manipulation. Certainly we 

 mustliave large colonies of bees to 

 gather the honey, then we must ex- 

 tract it at the time when it could be 

 done to the best advantage and with 

 the least hindrance to the bees. It 

 was hard to lay down specific rules— 

 every bee-keeper must be a law to 

 himself, and And out the methods 



best adapted to his own locality. 

 Experience must be bought by prac- 

 tice, and at considerable expense ; he 

 only hoped that it would not cost 

 others as much as it had cost him. 

 Pres. Root gave the stereotyped direc- 

 tions for the production of extracted 

 honey, but said that these were sub- 

 ject to moditication in individual 

 cases. 



Mr. S. T. Pettit gave his experi- 

 ence in producing extracted honey. 

 He had missed it by not leaving the 

 honey in the hive long enough to 

 ripen. One season his lioney was all 

 of an inferior quality, owing to this 

 cause. He did not believe that we 

 could ripen the honey as well as the 

 bees themselves do it. He said that 

 we should have at least one-third of 

 the honey capped before extracting, 

 and he believed it was better if all 

 was capped over. 



Rev. L. L. Langstroth did not know 

 that he could add much to the ocean 

 of intelligence that was tiding all 

 around, but he wished to say a word 

 or two. He believed there v^'ere many 

 things that the bees could do— certain 

 things better than we can — and ripen- 

 ing honey was one of them. There 

 was too much artificial work in bee- 

 keeping. One bee-keeper had in- 

 vented nippers to pull dead bees out 

 of the cells, but live bees would do it 

 better. 



Dr. Mason said that the " big-bugs " 

 of the Convention had been poking 

 fun at him for getting only (io pounds 

 of honey per colony, but they would 

 find it impossible to get an "average 

 of 300 pounds in his locality— a city on 

 one side and a wilderness on the 

 other. Small as his average yield 

 was, it was larger than that of any of 

 his neighbors. He wished that his 

 critics would show him how to pro- 

 duce 300 pounds per colony, but the 

 trouble was as Mr. Clarke said, they 

 did not to disclose their secrets. 



Rev. W. r. Clarke wished to ask if 

 formic acid in honey was not the 

 element which gave it its keeping 

 qualities. He pui the question to 

 Prof. Cook. For his own part, he 

 believed that the formic acid was 

 added by the bees in the capping pro- 

 cess, which was carried on mainly by 

 the use of their tails— the sting— being 

 the last polishing tool. It was be- 

 cause the formic acid was thus added 

 that honey must be one-third capped 

 to be good, and all capped to be first- 

 rate. 



Prof. Cook thought that no one 

 knew how or when the formic acid 

 was added. He was also of the opin- 

 ion that too much stress was laid on 

 the matter of taste. Few could dis- 

 criminate as thoroughly as had been 

 suggested. 



The Convention then adjourned 

 iintil 7:80 p.m. 



EVENING SESSION. 



The meeting was called to order at 

 8 p.m., by Pres. Root. An essay was 

 read as follows, by Mr. R. F. Holter- 

 mann, of Brantford, Ont., on the 



CARE OF HONEY FOR MARKET. 



I bring this subject before you, 

 fully aware that it is not of as great 



importance as many others, being 

 indirectly connected with the pro- 

 duction of honey ; but on that ac- 

 count it has perhaps not received that 

 public attention which it merits. It 

 is our duty when blessed with the 

 means to procure a crop of honey, 

 that we should acquaint not only our- 

 selves but every bee-keeper with 

 what will secure to us the article in 

 the highest state of perfection, and 

 place it thus in the consumers' hands. 

 Have we, as a body, endeavored to do 

 so ? Looking at it from a business 

 stand-point, past experience has 

 taught us that in order to realize the 

 best results financially, from any 

 article extensively produced, it is 

 necessary not only to better our own 

 but we must better that of the entire 

 land. 



Let us imagine the land completely 

 destitute of vegetation. Here is a 

 heavy soil, in the distance is a sandy 

 one, and between, all grades of soil. 

 Here is a hill, there a swamp, and at 

 other distances, intermediate eleva- 

 tions. Now, could our eye stretch 

 from north to south within the honey- 

 producing area, and were this area to 

 be decked with our present vegeta- 

 tion, which of the aforenamed condi- 

 tions would influence the quality of 

 honey ? The heavy soil would give 

 us a richer lioney "then the lighter ; 

 the more extremes of cold climate 

 would give a better quality than the 

 more equable. Would the high and 

 the low land influence it V We know 

 that honey from every species of 

 flower has its peculiar flavor, no mat- 

 ter how indistinct, and that the sea- 

 son, its winds, temperature, and 

 degrees of moisture influence not 

 only the quantity, but the quality of 

 our honey. 



The progress bee-keeping has made, 

 and so many making a specialty of 

 it, has enabled us .in a measure to 

 conduct ourselves accordingly ; but to 

 the ordinary bee-keeper most of the 

 previously named conditions cannot 

 be controlled. But, how much lies 

 within our power ! 



One of the first questions would be, 

 when shall we extract '/ Shall we 

 extract before or after the honey is 

 sealed V What are the advantages 

 and disadvantages of the two sys- 

 tems V If entirely sealed, we require 

 to uncap a large surface, the bees 

 must with the ordinary appliances 

 be cramped for store-room, the brood- 

 nest becomes contracted, not alone 

 meaning loss of time until extracted, 

 but many think they do not regain 

 their old energy for the remainder of 

 the season. The advantages would 

 be, honey called ripe, subject to the 

 before-named conditions. 



When is honey ripe V With the 

 system of extracting when the honey 

 is unsealed, there is no uncapping, 

 and bees have plenty of store-room, 

 but the quality is inferior ; and right 

 here a friend would step in with his 

 ripening can. But we have made no 

 light mistake ; for in the past our 

 honey has been handled too much, as 

 if it could lose nothing by having it 

 come in contact with the air. What 

 imparts that peculiar aroma to honey, 

 and gives each kind of honey a dis- 



