83 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



May 



honey in weight than wax secreted, to 

 be eaten by the bees, for its production, 

 and at the same time get a more tlior- 

 oughly cured product than is usually 

 obtained by leaving it in the hive until 

 full. 



Take notice in a good honey-flow and 

 see if it does not require about the same 

 time to put the last half pound of honey 

 in a comb and cap it that it does to 

 gather and store the other four, five or 

 more pounds that a Langstroth comb 

 will hold hung two inches from center 

 to center. By the method described I 

 am given three diflferent processes of 

 curing and two of selection and clarify- 

 ing. Bear in mind that honey in bulk 

 arranges itself according to its density: 

 The heaviest goes to the bottom while 

 the lighter and thinner goes to the top, 

 and with it all particles of wax or other 

 light foreign substances. 



First. By drawing only from the 

 bottom of the tank I get the heaviest 

 honey while the light remains in the 

 tank to cure, or until the end of the 

 flow, when there is plenty of time to run 

 it slowly through the evaporator and put 

 it in the condition desired. 



Second. That drawn off runs through 

 the evaporator and is there further re- 

 lieved of its water ; and, 



Third. The heaviest of this is barrelled 

 off from the bottom of the lower tank 

 while the lighter, at the top, gets the 

 benefit of the heat of the room and 

 the current of air constantly passing 

 over it. 



It if claimed by some that honey can- 

 not be cured outside the hive so that it 

 will be equal in body, color and flavor 

 to that left for the bees to finish. This 

 is surely a mistake, as any one can easily 

 learn by a thorough test of the process 

 that 1 practice and advocate. Some 

 kinds of honey, both North and South. 

 have a tendency to ferment and often 

 do so even when left in the hive aftfu- 

 being fully capped over. 



It is not very unusual to (ind combs in 

 the hive, in the faH, covered with great 



blisters formed by gas from fermenting 

 honey having pushed up the capping 

 over spots an inch or more square. I 

 have seen crops of forty, fifty or more 

 barrels with a wire nail driven into each 

 barrel; this nail to be withdrawn each 

 day to let the gas escape and then re- 

 placed. These were in apiaries where 

 the bees were depended upon to cure the 

 honey, while in my own honey-room not 

 even a puff could.be heard upon the re- 

 moval of a bung from any of the hun- 

 dred barrels that it contained. 



Fermented honey may be best for 

 bakers and manufacturers who require 

 the raw acid for its chemical actiou, but 

 such buyers purchase in large quantities 

 at low figures. For high-priced table 

 honey, smoothness and richness of fla- 

 vor is desired, and this is only found in 

 heavy, sound honey. 



Besides these observations of the com- 

 parative action of honies I have many 

 times tested with a hvdrometer my own 

 honey, artificially cured, and that cured 

 by the bees in other apiaries, and never 

 yet found mine to register lighter than 

 the best of the latter. 



As to color, I have left white honey in 

 my evaporator until it would wind up on 

 a spoon to the size of a goose-egg, and 

 still it was white, with hardly a trace of 

 cloudiness to show its greater density. 

 If honey is dark the color may deepen a' 

 little, but not sufficiently to change its 

 price or classifi'-ation. It takes a high 

 temjieraiure to materially darken the 

 color of honey. In the evaporator it 

 never gets so hot that you cannot bear 

 a finger in it for several seconds. A 

 great deal of theory and many wild state- 

 ments, nearly all based on theory, have 

 found their way into print concerniuii 

 the impossibility of securing that per- 

 fection of flavor by artificial means that 

 is given to honey by the bees. A single 

 practical test will ofttimes show the 

 fallacy of volumes of theories, and so it 

 is here. I have never found a person 

 who could, with any degree of certainty, 

 tell which of two samples of well cured | 



