642 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Oct. li. 



\ 



Where Should Comb Honey be Kept? 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



\^^A correspondent writes me regarding his honey sweating, 

 or, as he words it, his " honey in some of the sections has 

 turned watery, apparently, as the comb looks transparent, 

 and there are drops of water or thin sweet standing In many 

 places on the combs." Then he wishes to know whether I 

 can explain to the readers of the Bee Journal what the matter 

 is. This is a matter which has been often discust and written 

 upon, but as It Is one that will bear " line upon line," perhaps 

 it will not be amiss to say a few words more on the subject. 



Only a few days ago there was a m^n at my house from 

 one of the Western States, who seemed surprised that I stored 

 my honey in so hot a place, and when askt where he would 

 store it he said he took the coolest room in the house, suppos- 

 ing that the cooler honey was kept the better for it, the same 

 as for fruit and other things. This is one of the most common 

 mistakes made, either by bee-keepers or those purchasing 

 honey, and one that has much to do with the limited sale of 

 our product. Some seem to think that the cause of honey 

 becoming watery is because the bees do not thoroughly ripen 

 it before sealing over ; but if they used a little more thought 

 on the subject it would seem that they must see the fallacy of 

 such an idea; for, whether ripened or not, the honey can only 

 ooze from the cells after being capt over, on account of a 

 larger bulk of liquid being in the cell afterward than there 

 was at the time the bees sealed the cell. This can come from 

 only one source, which Is always brought about by either cold, 

 damp weather or a non-circulation of air, or both. 



Honey swells only as It becomes 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 will stand 

 out beyond the cells, or. In other words, the cells will be heap- 

 ing full. If the dampness remains, the sealed honey will soon 

 become watery or transparent, while the honey from the un- 

 sealed cells will commence to run out, daubing everything 

 below it; and eventually, if the cause is not removed, the cap- 

 ping of the cells will burst, and the whole will become a sour- 

 ing mass. In one or two instances I have seen honey left in 

 such cold rooms, where the moisture was also very apparent, 

 that it became so very thin that it ran down from the combs 

 and stood in puddles on the floor all around the bottoms of 

 the nice white cases in which it was stored. It was evident 

 that this houey had once been of the very best quality, from 

 the nice appearance of the cases ; but the grocer had put it in 

 the cellar when It arrived at his store, and there It had been 

 left till it had thus become very nearly good for nothing, 

 while he was wondering why the bee-keeper who produced it 

 could not have left It on the hive till it was " ripe." 



When I first commenced to keep bees I stored my houey 

 in a tight room on the north side of the house, where it 

 usually remained for from four to six weeks before crating 

 for market. In crating this honey I always found the center 

 and rear side of the pile watery and transparent in appear- 

 ance. As that which was stored first was always the worst, I 

 thought that it must be owing to that being the poorest or 

 the least ripened, until one year I chanced to place this early 

 honey by itself in a warm, dry, airy room, when, to my sur- 

 prise, I found upon crating it that this first honey had kept 

 perfectly, and was better and nicer than when first taken 

 from the hive, while the later or more perfect honey, as it 

 came from the hive, stored In the old room was as watery as 

 ever. 



This gave me the clew to the whole matter ; so, when I 

 built my shop I located the honey-room In the southwest cor- 

 ner, and painted the whole of a dark color to absorb the heat 

 of the midday and afternoon sun. On two sides of this room 

 I fixt platforms for the honey, and the sections were so piled 



on these platforms that the air could circulate all through the 

 whole pile, even if it reacht the top of the room. During the 

 afternoons of August and September the temperature of the 

 room would often be raised to nearly or quite 100-, which 

 would warm the pile of honey to nearly that degree of heat; 

 and as this large body of honey once heated retained the same 

 for some length of time, the temperature of the room would 

 often be from SO to 'JO- in the morning after a warm day, 

 when it was as low as 50 to 60° outside at 6 o'clock a.m. 



By this means the honey was being ripened each day, and 

 that in the unsealed cells became thicker and thicker, when, 

 by Sept. 15 to 20, or after being in the room from four to six 

 weeks, the sections could be tipt over, or handled in any way 

 desired, without any honey running from even the unsealed, 

 open-mouthed cells that might happen to be around the out- 

 side of any of the sections. By having the door and window 

 open on hot, windy days the air was caused to circulate freely 

 through the pile, when I found that It took less time to thor- 

 oughly ripen the honey than it did where all was kept closed. 

 In doing this, of course it is necessary to provide screens, so 

 as to keep flies and bees out of the honey-room. 



If I wish to keep honey so late in the season that the rays' 

 of the sun fail to keep the room sufficiently hot, or should I 

 desire to keep it into the winter, or at any time when the tem- 

 perature of the room falls below 70 while the honey is In the 

 room, I build a fire In the room, or use an oil-stove to heat it 

 up to the proper temperature of from 90 to 100^. In this 

 way honey can be kept perfectly for an indefinite period, and 

 can always be put upon the market In the very best condition. 

 We should all strive not only to see how large a crop we can 

 obtain, but also to have the crop, whatever it may be, of good 

 quality ; keeping it looking nicely at all times, and put it 

 upon the market In enticing shape. • 



It seems foolish to me to neglect our honey, after once 

 having obtained It, till it deteriorates to the condition of a sec- 

 ond or third class article. Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



Final Reply to C. B. Bankston. 



BY DR. C. C. MILLKB. 



Mr. Bankston, I have carefully read your reply on page 

 596, and am glad to take your word for it that I am not ut- 

 terly hopeless in the matter of mendacity. I confess, how- 

 ever, that when you speak very strongly about writing from 

 imagination, and telling that which is not true, and then 

 quote as an Illustration what I said — well, whatever you 

 meant, I think the bulk of readers would understand it as I 

 did. If I understand you properly now, you want me to write 

 from my own knowledge (the very thing I did), but you want 

 me not to tell what I have actually seen with my own eyes 

 unless I know that it accords sufficiently with what others 

 have observed that no one can be misled by it. I supposed if 

 I told the whole truth I would not be very far out of the way. 



In a nut-shell, the case is, that I wrote exactly from my 

 experience, and you condemned me for writing from imagina- 

 tion, and I supposed when the case was plainly put before you 

 that you would hardly want it to stand in that way. But you 

 start out by saying, " I do not regret anything I said." I'm 

 sorry you don't. I thought you would. 



McHenry Co., 111. 



No. 3. — Establishing a Standard for Queens. 



BY DR. E. GALLUP. 



There Is a great difference In different strains of bees. I 

 had one queen that was prolific enough, but her bees were 

 small, short-lived, and no honey-gatherers. In fact, they 

 would have starved last spring If I had not fed. I kept her 

 quite awhile to see what I could make of her, but her bees 



