AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



817 



Hiyes at ExDerlienl Stations, Etc. 



Written for the JLmerican Bee Journal 

 BY DK. C. C. MILLER. 



The article on page 724, by G. D. 

 Littooy, makes me a little apprehensive. 

 I don't want Hon. R. L. Taylor to die 

 yet. He's a man I am proud to count 

 among my friends — a man whom I can 

 always fight when there is anything to 

 fight about without any fear of strained 

 relations outside of the particular fight 

 on hand, and he's a man of eminent fair- 

 ness and impartiality in making experi- 

 ments. Now suppose the question is 

 submitted to him, " What is the best 

 hive in the world ?" and it's publicly 

 known that such question is before him. 



How many different hives do you sup- 

 pose will be sent him from all quarters? 

 He would need an apiary of perhaps 

 500 colonies, to have just one colony in 

 each kind of hive. He could have op- 

 portunity for little else but to watch 

 those different hives throughout the sea- 

 son, and just as he came somewhere 

 near a decision, the inventive geniuses 

 all over the land would send in a fresh 

 batch of hives, and that would continue 

 season after season, if the first season 

 didn't kill him. 



I think we can hardly expect the ex- 

 periment stations to take up that wide 

 question, but each one of us must take 

 our choice out of the few hives that are 

 generally accepted by bee-keepers, let- 

 ting improvements push to the front on 

 their own merits, as they have done in 

 the past. Of course it is all right for 

 the stations to try anything that comes 

 up new and promising, but we hardly 

 ought to ask them to say which is the 

 best of the many hives. 



EXTRACTED HONEY. 



Tell Bro. Sturtevant (page 726) I'll 

 try to "fix it up with" Melbee. I be- 

 lieve in extracted honey, and have noth- 

 ing but words of encouragement for the 

 friends who " are trying to get extracted 



honey where it belongs in the world." 

 Bro. Sturtevant is himself on the right 

 track when he's doing all he can to 

 furnish the best quality of extracted 

 honey, and I think that will got it where 

 it belongs several centuries sooner than 

 to ask 25 or 50 per cent, more than for 

 the same quality of comb honey. 



TIERING-UP AND CAPPING HONEY. 



Isn't there a mistake in that assertion 

 of Mrs. Atchley on page 717 ? She 



says: " as soon as the first crate 



is about full or completed, you can raise 

 it up and place an empty one between 

 it and the brood-nest. This will cause 

 the bees to cap over the sections quicker, 

 and give you nice honey." The plan is 

 all right, but my experience is that tier- 

 ing-up makes the bees slower at capping 

 over. 



Marengo, 111. 



Ripeness in Honey— Hoi to Secure It. 



Written for the '■^ Bee- Keepers'' Review'''' 

 BY R. M'KNIGHT. 



The subject of ripening honey is re- 

 ceiving some consideration at present. 

 It is a subject, too, that deserves con- 

 sideration because honey is at its best 

 when ripe. This implies that there is a 

 time when it is unripe, and a possibility 

 of its being over ripe. We know that 

 honey is found, and sometimes mark- 

 eted, in the three conditions above men- 

 tioned. But we do not all know the ex- 

 act properties that constitute ripeness in 

 honey, because no fixed standard of per- 

 fection has been decided upon, or one 

 that embraces all the constitutents of 

 honey in their highest state. One, and 

 only one, of the conditi®ns that con- 

 stitute perfection in honey is agreed 

 upon and accepted as a standard of 

 quality, that is, that it shall weigh at 

 least ISK pounds to the gallon. 



But the specific of honey is not the 

 only test of perfection. Flavor and 

 aroma are quite as important. Its den- 

 sity may decide its nutritive property ; 

 but it is the other two that make it 

 grateful or otherwise to the sense of the 

 taste and smell — in a word, that make it 

 palatable. But people's tastes differ, 

 and honey collected from different 

 classes of flowers has a corresponding 

 diversity of flavor ; hence the difficulty 

 in fixing a standard of quality for honey. 

 I am now speaking of extracted honey, 

 because its quality is determined by the 

 three properties above named ; not so 



