THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



195 



the honey keeps about as warm in the 

 tanks as it did in tlie hives before ex- 

 tracting-; and I think it ripens faster. 

 We have large faucets at the bottom of 

 the tanks to draw off the honey as 

 fast as it thickens; but it sometimes 

 g-ets ahead of us and we have a tank 

 of solid candied honey to dig out with 

 shovels, so, after a long- experience in 

 producing and selling hundreds of 

 tons of extracted honey, I am sure it 

 makes no difference whatever in the 

 quality of the hone}^ whether it is left 

 in the hive until the bees have it all 

 capped over nicely before extracting, 

 or whether it is extracted every five 

 or six days, provided it is ripened in 

 tanks, so it will weigh 12 to 13 pounds 

 to the g-allon, before it is put into 

 barrels. With our tanks and surplus 

 combs we can easily store 50,000 

 pounds of honey at one time, so we 

 don't have to put any into barrels un- 

 til it is well cured. This gives us a 

 chance to get a much larger yield 

 from our bees, and also with much 

 less work than we possibly could if 

 we allowed the honey to remain in the 

 hives until it was all capped over. 

 But, unless you have the proper facil- 

 ities for ripening it, donH extract a 

 pound until it is well ripened by the 

 bees. If you do, you will surely re- 

 gret it. Almost any man can produce 

 comb honey that will sell quite readily, 

 but it requires experience and skill to 

 produce extracted honey so it will al- 

 ways bring the highest market price, 

 and sell to the same parties year after 

 year, and, at the same time, keep all 

 colonies, at all times, well supplied 

 with capped honey to winter on. I 

 have known some men to extract as 

 often as they could get four or five 

 pounds from a colony. This is all 

 wrong. Others go to the other ex- 

 treme, and tier up their colonies until 

 they are six or seven hives high, and 

 then what a time they have to uncap 

 so much cold honey, and that at the 

 end of the season, when we can hard- 



ly open a hive without having a swarm 

 of robber bees around. This, too, is 

 all wrong. One extreme is as bad as 

 the other. 



We never extract any from the lower 

 hive, and seldom go over the yard, to 

 extract, more than six times during 

 the summer. We never think of ex- 

 tracting until the upper hive is full. 

 This upper story holds about forty 

 pounds, and if the harvest is such that 

 the bees have it filled in five or six 

 days, as they usually do, we extract 

 again. We always try to catch it if 

 we can just before the bees commence 

 to cap it over; in this way we save the 

 bees and ourselves a great deal of 

 hard, and unnecessary work, and we 

 get nearly twice the amount of honey. 

 Myself and two sons have extracted 

 from 270 hives in nine hours, or at the 

 rate of one hive of nine combs every 

 two minutes, returning the combs to 

 the bees, and closing up the hives in 

 good shape. This never could have 

 been done by three men if they had to 

 uncap every comb. As to the quality 

 of the honey, it would be so thick after 

 it had been in the tanks a short time 

 that it would hardly run through a 

 large molasses faucet; and as soon as 

 the weather commences to get cold it 

 candies up solid. 



No, it is not necessary to let the bees 

 ripen your extracted honey if you will 

 run it from the extractor into a large 

 tank in a dry, well-ventilated room, 

 where the mercury remains above 100 

 degrees night and day. You will 

 soon have it so thick you will have to 

 use a shovel to handle it with. 



And now, before I close this article, 

 let me again caution you to be ver3% 

 very careful not to put any thin, un- 

 ripe honey on the market. If you 

 cannot ripen it yourself, as I have 

 described, j'ou better leave it with the 

 bees a whole year, rather than spoil a 

 market that so many of us have work- 

 ed so long and so hard to build up. 

 Delanson, N. Y., Jan. 4., 1904, 



