I907-] 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



.277 



that honey usually contains from 12 

 to 23 per cent, of moisture. This is 

 a matter best decided in a chemist's 

 laboratory, being beyond the accom- 

 plishment of the average bee-keeper, 

 and need not trouble us, as we can 

 get at all we want to know in this 

 connection by very simple means, as 

 I shall point out directly. 



Importance of Maturing Honey. — 

 It is of vital importance to the indi- 

 vidual bee-keeper, and to the industrj^ 

 generally, that all honey should be 

 well matured or ripened before it is 

 placed on the market, so that there 

 may be no risk whatever of its fer- 

 menting afterward. In order that you 

 may thoroughly realize this, I may 

 tell you that in the course of my trav- 

 els I have come across quite a num- 

 ber of samples in a State of fermenta- 

 tion, some of them with the owners' 

 names on the labels. These packages 

 had been placed on the market, and, 

 of course, had to be condemned. Those 

 brands, you may depend, would be 

 tabooed in that district or market 

 ever afterward. We now come to the 

 method of maturing honey, the prin- 

 cipal feature of which is to make 

 certain that our product does not con- 

 tain an excess of moisture. As I said 

 just now, the average bee-keeper can- 

 not, by direct means, find this out; 

 but by testing our honey for its spe- 

 cific gravity we shall be able to as- 

 certain what we want to learn, and 

 this is a very simple matter, as I shall 

 explain shortly What has scemei 

 extraordinary to ine is, that, consid- 

 ering its great importance, nothing, 

 to my knowledge, has ever been dis- 

 cussed of a practical nature on the 

 maturing of honey in any of the bee 

 literature that has come under my 

 notice. I have all the standard works 

 on bee culture, and have read all the 

 principal bee journals for the past 

 thirty years, but beyond the mere 

 statements that honey should be rioe 

 before being put up for market, there 

 has been nothing. I do not wish it 

 to be understood that what I am going 

 to say is to be taken as the last word 

 on the subject — far from it, for it will 

 take considerable time yet before we 

 have arrived at that stage. My aim 

 is to get our associations and practical 

 bee-keepers generally interested in 

 the matter, so that they may assist 

 me in making tests, that we may 

 eventually arrive at some trustworthy 

 knowledge of the matter, instead of 



working, as we are now doing, in the 

 dark, or by rule-of-thumb. 



Ripening Honey Inside and Outside 

 Hive. — I care not whether we follow 

 the practice of leaving the honey in 

 the hive until it is all capped over be- 

 fore extracting, or extract it before this 

 stage and ripen afterward; we still 

 need some means of clarifying it and 

 testing it for its ripeness, as the case 

 may be. For myself, I am convinced, 

 and prepared to risk my reputation 

 upon it, that honey can be as well 

 ripened outside the hive as within it, 

 and that it is only a mechanical pro- 

 cess in either case — the getting rid of 

 the surplus moisture by evaporation. 

 I am very pleased to be able to state 

 that I carried out this method of 

 ripening honey outside the hive on a 

 large scale twent^'-four years ago (at 

 Matamata, in 1883), and that my first 

 experiment was with ten tons, and 

 with complete sviccess. The enormous 

 saving that this method nii-ans over 

 that of ripening the honey inside the 

 hive, in the way of extra material, 

 time, labor, the control of swarming, 

 and the larger crop of honey, can 

 readily be estimated by practical bee 

 farmers. I am also pleased that such 

 men as Alexander, Professor Cook, 

 and T. W. Cowan, proprietor of "The 

 British Bee Journal,'' advocate the 

 same method. 



Need of Shallow Maturing Tanks. 

 — The absolute requirement in any 

 case for the proper maturing of honey 

 is a shallow tank, in which it should 

 remain for a time after extracting, 

 while the atmosphere around it should 

 be warm and dry. In this way the 

 surplus moisture will evaporate, and 

 the fine particles of pollen and wax, 

 that it is impossible to catch in the 

 strainers, and also the air bubbles 

 (that within themselves may contain 

 moist air) may rise to the surface in 

 the form of scum and be taken off. In 

 this way, and I believe in this way on- 

 ly, can we properly mature our honey 

 and get it into the best form for mar- 

 ket. It has been urged by two bee- 

 keepers I was discussing the matter 

 with some few days ago, who were 

 using deep cylinder tanks, that the 

 ripe honey, being heaviest, sank to 

 the bottom, and the moisture is forced 

 to the top. This sounds very well 

 in theory, but is not correct in prac- 

 tice, as can be readily proved by mix- 

 ing honey and water together, when 

 they will not entirely separate after- 



