THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



21: 



the days of the Lemur and the later 

 Simian ancestor who succeeded the 

 Lemur in the chain of human develop- 

 ment. It produces none of the dietetic 

 disturbances due to either beet or cane 

 sug-ars. Its production steadil}' in- 

 creases in this country. Its consump- 

 tion grows and in time, if the Honey 

 Producers' Leag-ue accomplishes all 

 that it proposes, people will undoubt- 

 edly understand that no food is so free 

 from adulteration as honey in the 

 comb. 



TEN TONS EXTRACTED HONEY. 



What to Do With it if We Get it. 



In an excellent article, under the 

 above heading, and published in the 

 Progressive Bee-Keeper, Mr. C. W. 

 Dayton, of Chatsworth, California, 

 urges that honey be fully capped be- 

 fore it is extracted, even left on the 

 hives a few days after it is capped; 

 then he would store it in tanks that any 

 thin honey might rise to the top, draw- 

 ing the rich, heavy, ripe article from 

 the bottom. These tanks Mr. Dayton 

 makes of galvanized iron, waxing them 

 thoroughly on the inside, painting them 

 on the outside, after which he buries 

 them in a mixture ot ,^4 earth and '4 

 lime. He says that the lime takes up 

 the moisture from the outside, besides 

 absorbing any that may escape from 

 the honey. Burying the honey keeps 

 it of an even temperature, thus prevent- 

 ing granulation. Here is what he says 

 about the selling part of the problem:— 

 When I was at Florence a few days 

 ago a new customer came to my apiary 

 and said he had waited for days to 

 catch me to buy some of my honey. 

 Then he gave me the name of a friend 

 at Los Angeles and insisted on my 

 taking a 5-gallon can there. First I 

 went to the place without the honey to 

 be sure if they really wanted to buy 

 honey. "To be sure, they said, if it 

 was satisfactory." It was a boarding 

 house and the landlord and several 

 boarders, some of them lately from the 

 East, gave me a perfect jumble of stories 

 about machine comb honey and glu- 

 cosed extracted. I gave no answer. It 

 would have made my case worse if I 



had. When I brought the honey the 

 next day they gave it the highest praise 

 from the start. Now, this was not first 

 class water white, but it was a medium 

 grade of amber in a high class board- 

 ing house. And they insisted on hav- 

 ing my name and address to get more. 

 In the first twenty-four hours after I 

 arrived in Florence, 14 five gallon cans 

 were sold to persons who found out 

 that I was at the apiary and they came 

 there for honey. I can find customers 

 about Florence who have bought honey 

 regularly, every two weeks, for seven 

 years, without a miss; unless we neg- 

 lected taking it to them as per order. 



I am not arguing in honor of our 

 methods or salesmanship any farther 

 than it conforms to the natural way of 

 treating honey. There i.s another big 

 crop almost in sight and the question 

 is, what effect it will have on the pres- 

 ent "dull market ?" I expect that the 

 price will go pretty low. I will not be 

 very active in the market until the 

 storm has gone over. Seven cents per 

 pound for amber and eight cents for 

 water white will be our figures. Most 

 of our old customers will stay "with 

 us" as they have done before. The 

 storm will be mostly oyer by Decem- 

 ber or January. It costs 8 cents per 5 

 gallons to store honey in tanks. Each 

 tank takes one sheet of 30x36 in. gal- 

 vanized iron, and another piece 24x24 

 in. oft" another sheet. I have just 

 enough time to make one tank while my 

 wife is preparing breakfast. And one 

 tank is sufficient to hold one day's ex- 

 tracting. The caps to the 600 pound 

 tanks are arranged so that the 

 moisture can continue to escape for two 

 or three months through the hot 

 weather; then the caps are screwed 

 down and the tanks buried in the lime 

 earth about afoot over their tops, to 

 await orders. When I receive an order 

 I go with a clean five gallon can, or 

 other receptacle, and draw from the 

 bottom of the tanks. Only unearth 

 one tank at a time. I do not use any 

 expensive honey gates but a special 

 gate which is to be soldered on the 

 side of the tanks. 



I should have mentioned that the 

 pipe from the extractor leads to a tank 

 large enough to hold a week's extract- 

 ing. I suppose those many-hived short- 

 cut bee men will adhere strongly to 

 anything relating to big tanks full, 

 but there are four requisites in the pro- 

 duction and disposal of a crop of 

 honey. P'irst, is quality and ripeness; 

 second, is price; third, is full weight; 



