1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



305 



Can only ooze from the oells after be- 

 ing capped, on account of a larger 

 bulk of liquid being in the cell after- 

 ward than there was at the time the 

 bees sealed the cell. 'J'his can come 

 only from one source, which is always 

 brought about by either cool, damp 

 weather, or a non-circulation of air, 

 or both. Honey only swells as it be- 

 comes damp, and the first that will be 

 seen of that dampness will be in the 

 unsealed cells where the honey will 

 have become so thin that it Aviil stand 

 out beyond the celb, or, in other 

 words, the cells will be heaping full. 

 If the dampness remains, the sealed 

 honey will soon become transparent, 

 while the honey from the unsealed 

 cells will commence to run out, daub- 

 ing everything below it, and eventu- 

 ally, if the cause is not removed, the 

 cappings af the cells will burst, and 

 the whole will become a sickening, 

 sour mass. While in New York City, 

 I once saw several thousand pounds 

 of such stufE, which was once as nice 

 comb honey as could be produced, but 

 it had become unsightly and spoiled 

 by being stored in a damp, cool cellar 

 The cappings to the white combs were 

 ruptured, with the honey oozing out 

 of the cells, to such a degree that the 

 nice white cases were all soaked with, 

 it. and which, with large puddles on 

 the floor, gave off a sickening smell 

 which, with the unsightly appearance 

 caused one to think of honey as only 

 something to be loathed. 'J1ie com- 

 mission merchant asked me what was 

 the matter with the honey. I told him 

 that the damp, cool cellar was what 

 was the matter, but he could not be- 

 lieve it until I caused him to confess 

 that the honey was all right before it 

 was placed in that cellar six or eight 



weeks previous. When I first com- 

 menced keeping bees, I stored my 

 honey in a tight room on the north 

 side of the house, where it usually re- 

 mained from four to six weeks before 

 crating for market, and some of the 

 first sections remained much longer 

 than this. In crating this honey, I 

 always found the centre and back side 

 of the pile watery and transparent in 

 appearance. As that which was stored 

 first was always the worst, I thought 

 that it must be owing to that being 

 the poorest and least ripened honey, 

 until one year I chanced to place this 

 honey "by itself in a warm , airy room, 

 when to my surprise, I found upon 

 crating it, that this first honey was 

 kept perfectly, while the later, stored 

 in the old room, was as watery as ever. 

 This gave me the clue to the whole 

 matter, so when I built my shoD, T lo- 

 cated my honey room in the si 

 corner of the building, and painted 

 the south and west sides a dark color, 

 to absoi it from the midday 



and afternooi) ^-un. On two sides of 

 this room I fixed a platform one foot 

 from the floor, so arranged that the 

 sections rested on the edges of strips 

 1^x3 inches, which were long enough 

 to hold 28 sections. The sections 

 were often piled on these strips until 

 they are fifteen or tweuty feet high 

 and thirty wide, making a cube, as it 

 were, containing three to six thousand 

 pounds of honey on either side, yet 

 the whole was so piled that the air 

 could circulate between each and every 

 section. During the afternoons of 

 August and September days, the tem- 

 perature of this room would be raised 

 to 100 and above, which would warm 

 the pile of honey to nearly that degree 

 of heat, and as this large body of hon- 



