FubHslit ^VeeUly at ll.s XlicMsran Street. 



S>i'00 a Veai — Sample Copy I'ree. 



37th Year. 



CHICAGO, ILL., JULY 1, 1897. 



No. 26. 



Six Months forOnly 10 Cents ! 



NOW FOR NEW SUBSCRIBERS. 



Get Your Bee-Keepiug Friends and Neighbors 

 to Take the Old American Bee Journal. 



We would like to have each of our present readers send at 

 iedtst one neiv subscriber for the Bee Journal before Aug. 1, 

 1897. That surely will not be hard to do, when they will 

 need to pay only 40 cents for the rest of this year. That is 

 6 months, or only about 7 cents a month for the weekly 

 American Bee Journal. Any one with only a colony or two 

 of bees should jump at such an offer as that. 



Now, we don't ask you to work for us for nothing, but 



will say that for each new -tO-cent subscriber jou send us, we 



will mail you your choice of one of the following list: 



Wood Binder for the Bee Journal 20c. 



50 copies of leaflet on " Why Eat Honey ?" 20e. 



50 " '• on "How to Keep Honey " 20c. 



50 ■' ■• on " Alsibe Clover" 20c. 



lcopye»ch "Preparation of Honey for the Market "(10c.) 



and Uoolittle's " Hive I Use " (oc.) 15c. 



1 copy each Dartants' "Handling Bees" i8c.)and " Bee- 



Pasturaire a Necessity " (10c.) 18c. 



Dr. Howard's boob on "F)ul Brood" 25c. 



Kohnlie's " Foul Bro d" boob 25c. 



Cheshire's " Foul Brood " boob ilOe.) and Dadants' " Hand- 



liDff Bees" [Sic ] 18c. 



Ur. Footc's Hand-Bookof Health 25c. 



Rural Life Book 25c. 



Our Poultry Doctor, by Fanny Felld 25c. 



Poultry for .Market and Profit, by Fanny Field 25c. 



Capons and (.'uponizing 25c. 



Turbeys for Marbet and Profit ■. 25c. 



Green's Four Books on Frult-G rowing 55c. 



Ropp Commercial Calculator No. 1 25c. 



SUo and Silage, by Prof. Cook 25c. 



Bienen-Kultur LGerman] 40c. 



Kendall's Horse-Hook [English or German] 25c. 



1 Pound White Clover Seed 25c. 



1 " Sweet " •■ 25c. 



m •' Alsike •' " 25c. 



m •■ Alfalfa " " 25c. 



Hi " Crimson " " 25c. 



The Horse— How to Break and Handle 20e. 



We make the above offers only to those who are now sub- 

 scribers ; In other words, no one sending in his own 40 cents 

 as a new subscriber can also claim a choice of the above list. 



GEORGE W. YORK & CO. 

 118 Michigan St., - CHICAGO, ILL. 



Extracting Honey — Treatment of Unripe Honey 



BT C. P. DADANT. 



I have received the following questions, which I will an- 

 swer in the American Bee Journal : 



Mr. C. p. Dadant — Dear Sir : — I would like to ask you a 

 few questions about honey and extracting. 



1st. I have some supers on where the frames are about -,-J 

 or % capt. Will it hurt to take the supers off now ? The bees 

 are capping the super under it before finishing the top one. 



2nd. If I take these off and set them in a dry room, won't 

 the honey ripen there ? 



3rd. How soon do you start to extract ? 



4th. How can a person tell when honey is too watery to 

 extract ? 



5th. Would ray honey do to extract now? It seems, when 

 a super is pretty near full, the bees work better in an empty 

 one. I don't want to tier up too high for fear of blowing over ; 

 I have three on some hives now. Respectfully, 



Theo. Keller. 



Answer. — In the I3rst place, I must say that the fact 

 that bees are capping a comb of honey does not mean that the 

 honey is sufficiently ripe. I have often seen honey work, or 

 ferment, in such away as to burst the capping of the comb, 

 and I dare say every bee-keeper of experience has seen the 

 same thing. This happens more especially In hot and damp 

 summers, when it is very difficult for the honey to ripen, 

 owing to the dampness of the atmosphere. In an ordinary 

 season, honey may be considered sufficiently ripened when it 

 has been on the hive for a week or more. 



The greatest trouble with unripe honey comes from that 

 which is daily added to an unfinisht super by the bees. Dur- 

 ing the first two or three days after it is harvested clover or 

 basswood honey is usually so thin as to shake out of the combs 

 very readily, or even to drip out, if the comb is upturned. 

 Such honey will not do to extract, unless it is afterwards 

 ripened artificially. 



Messrs. Muth & Son, of Ohio (who are good judges of 

 honey, for they handle hundreds of barrels of it every year), 

 tell us that they ripen their honey by keeping it In open ves- 

 sels, after extracting, in a warm and dry room. Thus it is 

 quite likely that if the supers are taken off and placed where 

 they can have air and warmth, the honey will thicken and 

 become sufficiently ripe ; but we would prefer to leave such 

 supers on the hive, even if we had to tier up to such an extent 



