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117 



PRIZE ESSAY. 



Extracted Huney as Compared 

 with Honey in I lie Comb. 



WritUn lor the American Bee Journal 

 BY G. W. DEMAREE. 



Take into your mouth a piece of 

 newly-built honey-comb, as white as 

 the virgin snow, in which no nectar 

 has been stored, and you will find it 

 as tasteless as a piece of blotting- 

 paper ; and I imagine that few people 

 would be inclined to swallow the one 

 substance more readily than the other. 

 Virgin wax is tasteless — why, then, 

 eat wax ? 



If we trace the history of honey, we 

 find that the ancients used it not 

 merely as a condiment, but as " meat" 

 — a substantial food. " Have ye here 

 any meat'} And they gave him a piece 

 of a boiled Hsh, and of an honey- 

 comb." "And behold there was a 

 swarm of bees, and honey in the car- 

 cass of the lion ; and he took thereof 

 in his hands, and went on eating." 



From the glimpse that we have into 

 the customs and habits of the ancients, 

 we judge that honey was eaten from 

 the hands, as a general thing, though 

 perhaps not alwaj's ; and this custom, 

 of long standing, gives us a clue to 

 the prejudice in favor of honey in the 

 comb. If honey is to be eaten from 

 the hands, then there are good reasons 

 whj' it should be taken in the comb, 

 because the comb is not only a recepta- 

 cle to hold the liquid honey, but the 

 wax, in eating, acts mechanically to 

 retain the sweet ou the palate, and 

 makes the eating more pleasurable. 



But customs have changed in these 

 modern times, and men take their 

 meals differently from what they did 

 in the ages of the past. Honey, as a 

 rule, is eaten with bread, and the wax 

 is entirely superfluous, the bread per- 

 forming the mechanical part in delay- 

 ing the delicious sweet on the palate. 

 The long-standing habit of eating 

 honey from the hands, is the true clue 

 to the prejudice in favor of honey in 

 the comb. 



Another reason — and perhaps the 

 chief of all the reasons for the preju- 

 dice against honey extracted from the 

 combs — is connected with the fact that 

 previous to the invention of the honey- 

 extractor, there was no method known 

 by which the pure honey in its virgin 

 state could be separated from the 

 combs, free from all foreign matter. 



It is a well-known fact that combs 

 of honey are likely to contain more or 

 less of " bee-bread" (pollen), and may 



sometimes contain young bees in the 

 larval state. Any process of expelling 

 the liquid honey from the combs by 

 23rcssurc — Ijy whatever form brouglit 

 to bear — the brui.sed and broken combs 

 are bound to p.irt with sonic of their 

 impurities, together with the li(]uid 

 honey, which impurities mix with, and 

 become a part of, the honey. Hence 

 the just pi-ejudice against the "strained 

 honey " of the long ago. 



IMPORTANCE OF THE HONEY-EXTRACTOK 



The centrifugal honey-extractor of 

 modern invention, entirely overcomes 

 the foregoing objections. By the use 

 of this machine, the liquid honey is 

 discharged from the cells by centrifu- 

 gal force, leaving the more solid im- 

 purities in the unbroken cells. By this 

 process, the honey in a liquid state is 

 obtained in its immaculate puritj'. 



What a boon to the health and wel- 

 fare of the human race is the centrifu- 

 gal honey-extractor ! Honey, taken 

 bj' this process, is the pure, God-given 

 nectar of flowers gathered and stored 

 by the bees, and evaporated in the 

 hives by currents of heated air kept in 

 motion by the fanning wings of the 

 inmates of the hive. No chemical 

 poisons are needed, or used, by the 

 bees to purify the products of the hive, 

 as is the case in the sugar refineries — 

 hence, pure honey, taken by the pro- 

 cess which I have described, is the 

 purest and the best, and the safest 

 sweet used for food by the human 

 race. 



Honey is a combination of sweets, 

 and has non-drying qualities uot found 

 in the chemically-prepared sugars ; 

 and hence it has no equal as a sweet- 

 ener in the culinary arts, and as an 

 adjunct to bread, it is the most pleas- 

 ing and healthful sweetener in the 

 world. 



GRANULATION OF EXTRACTED HONEY. 



Nearly all pure honeys have a ten- 

 dency to become solid — granulate or 

 candy — upon the approach of cold 

 weather ; and this fact is received with 

 well-nigh universal regret, on the part 

 of honey-producers, and those who 

 handle the article in the markets. I 

 now regard this as a very great mis- 

 take. It is nothing more than a ques- 

 tion of convenience. 



For a time the writer himself par- 

 ticipated in these regrets, because of 

 the inconveniences attending the prac- 

 tical handling of the article in its solid 

 state ; but after discovering that the 

 consumers of the article in the bounds 

 of my tr.ade do not object to the can- 

 died state, but are more than pleased 

 with it ; and after a close and careful 

 study of the nature and composition 

 of the pure nectar of flowers, evapor- 

 ated to the honey state by the bees, 



and also partially by artificial means ; 

 having before me samples of honey 

 taken each season for ten or twelve 

 years past, from which to take obser- 

 vations while practicing my studies — 

 I discovered that the best grades of 

 honeys tend to solidity most rapidly, 

 and such honeys endure length of time 

 with the least perceptible change in 

 body and flavor. This being true, the 

 fact that honey solidifies as the tem- 

 perature lowers, is not only not a 

 thing to be regretted, but is a blessing, 

 though it be a " blessing in disguise" 

 to those who have not gone below the 

 "crust" in their investigations. 



Owing to peculiar properties in 

 honey, it maintains a higher tempei'a- 

 ture by reason of latent heat, than does 

 the body of air with which it is sur- 

 rounded ; but the latter is subject to 

 more rapid change of temperature, 

 hence the disposition of honey to yield 

 up its moisture to the air, or absorb it 

 therefrom, governed wholly by va- 

 riance in temperature. In the light of 

 these facts, it requires no very pro- 

 found reasoning to bring one to the 

 conclusion thatthe "solid state " is the 

 best possible natural protection to 

 honey against atmospheric influences. 



I conclude, then, that the natural 

 tendency of honey to become solid — 

 granulate or candy — should be accepted 

 as a matter m course, and the minds 

 of bee-keepers should be directed to- 

 wards the best methods of handling 

 and popularizing the article. 



Christiansburg, Ky. 



VERMONT. 



Report of the Termont Bee- 

 ' Keepers' Convention. 



Written lor the American Bee Joumctl 

 BY J. H. LAKRABEE. 



I send a report of the recent Bee- 

 Keepers' Convention, as reported in 

 the daily Free Press and Times, of 

 Burlington, Vt. We did not affiliate 

 with the International, but I hope that 

 we will do so next year ; also I hope to 

 bring about a fuller report of the ex- 

 tent of bee-keeping in the State of Ver- 

 mont, bj' means of blank":, to be dis- 

 tributed to all bee-keepers, through 

 the Vice-President in each county. But 

 progress and improvements are hard 

 to bring about in the face of such poor 

 seasons, as we Vermonters have had to 

 endure for three or four years. 



The report to which I refer, is con- 

 densed asfollows : 



The Vermont Bee-Keepers Associa- 

 tion met :xt the Van Ness House at, 

 Burlington, Vt, on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 

 1890. The convention was called to 

 order at 1:30 p.m., by President R. H. 



