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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Oct. 23, 1902. 



That which has been left on the hive till Ihoroug-hly 

 ripened by the bees will be so thick that it will " almost 

 stand alone " when a dish of it is turned over, and any 

 artificial ripening which leaves it short of such thickness is 

 faulty, to say the least. Of course, it is more work to ex- 

 tract such thick honey, but by keeping' it in a room whose 

 temperature is nearly or quite 100 degrees hot for five or 

 six hours, or by extracting on some very hot day, it will 

 come out of the comb very nicely. Then, when extracting, 

 all honey should be stored in tin or earthen vessels and 

 kept in a dry, warm atmosphere that is free from odors. 

 Loosely cover with some thin fabric like cheese-cloth, 

 something which will let the air circulate somewhat freely 

 over it, and at the same time keep out the dust, and let it 

 stand in this dry, warm storeroom till all of the air-glob- 

 ules have disappeared, the scum which arises being skimmed 

 ofi^, when the honey can be put into glass or tin vessels, 

 ready for market or family use ; and it will retain its fine 

 flavor for years, if kept in a proper place. 



WAXING KEGS .\ND BARRELS. 



This same correspondent wishes also to know what is 

 the best method of waxing kegs and barrels for holding 

 extracted honey, and whether it is necessary that all bar- 

 rels and kegs should be waxed when used for storing honey. 

 Before waxing any keg or barrel it should be kept in a dry, 

 hot room, or out in the sunshine on hot days for two or 

 three weeks till it is thoroughly dried out. In other words, 

 the barrel should be as dry as it is possible to make it. or 

 for it ever to become, at the time of waxing. 



Having it thus dry and warm, the hoops should be driven 

 as tight as possible, and short nails, or those broken off so 

 they will not reach through into the inside of the barrel, 

 driven a foot or so from each other at the rear of the last 

 hoop, so that the hoops shall not get loosened or misplaced 

 in handling. 



Now pour in, at the bung-hole, from five to ten pounds 

 of very hot, melted wax, or, what is much more preferable, 

 paraffine, and quickly drive in the bung. Now, turn the 

 barrel over and over, and twirl it around on each end till 

 you are sure all cracks are filled. Then take out the bung, 

 pour out the wax, and heat it over again for the next. 



The reason for having everything as hot as possible is, 

 that the hotter the wax the more it penetrates the wood, 

 and also so as to use as little wax as possible, as the waxing 

 of kegs and barrels is quite costly at best. 



It ma)' sound a little strange to talk about saving wax 

 by having it soak into the wood, but far less is used in this 

 way than where everything is cooler so that a coating is 

 taken on all over the inside of the barrel, with not nearly so 

 good a job being done, either. 



In removing the bung be careful to see that it does not 

 strike you when it flies out, as the heated air sends it out 

 with great force, sometimes. 



Now, having told how to wax barrels, allow me to ask. 

 in answering the latter part of the query, why not use those 

 made of soft wood, which need no waxing, providing the 

 cooperage is good ? Leaky kegs and barrels can never be 

 made entirely safe by waxing them. The shrinking and 

 swelling of the wood, as exposed to wet and dry, will sooner 

 or later break the wax, and sometimes a heavy jar in hand- 

 ling something so heavy as a barrel of honey will often 

 crack the wax, especially if the weather is somewhat cold, 

 and start the honey to leaking. Good workmen with soft 

 timber can make tight vessels, and they cost no more than 

 leaky ones. A keg or barrel properly made of the right 

 kind of wood needs no waxing, so this expense is saved. 



And in conclusion I will say that I prefer properly- 

 jacketed tin cans to anything else for either storing or 

 shipping honey. Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



Our Wood Binder (or Holder) is made to take all the 

 copies of the American Bee Journal for a year. It is sent 

 by mail for 20 cents. Full directions accompany. The Bee 

 Journals can be inserted as soon as they are received, and 

 thus preserved for future reference. Upon receipt of SI. 00 

 for your Bee Journal subscription a full year tn advance, 

 ■we will mail you a Wood Binder free — if you will mention it 



Queenie Jeanette is the title of a pretty song in sheet 

 music size, written by J. C. Wallenmeyer, a musical bee- 

 keeper. The regular price is 40 cents, but to close out the 

 copies we have left, we will mail them at 20 cents each, as 

 long as they last. 



\ * The Afterthought. * \ 



The' 



Old Reliable" seen through New and Unreliable QIasses, 

 By e. B. HASTY, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, O. 



WHEN TO CUT ALFALFA. 



A story of the bear and the fiddle, begun and left off 

 before it got to the middle, we find on page S9S. We'd like 

 to know how those four bunches of steers weighed up. 

 Then we would have something to set before the alfalfa- 

 raising neighbor who proposes to cut it all before it gets to 

 blooming. Howsomever, it's not always wise for mani- 

 festly' interested parties to reason with a farmer — might 

 make him learn still more t'other way — some men being so 

 got up. 



BEES BUILDING QUEEN-CELLS. 



Mr. H. H. Hyde, of the Texans, removes a film, if not a 

 hide, from my eyes by what he says of starting bees to 

 building cells, on page 596. Mr. Aten (as most of us would 

 have done, I surmise) made his bees queenless and brood- 

 less at night, and gave them the wherewith to rear queens 

 in the morning. Mr. Hyde claims that their first and best 

 enthusiasm to replace their loss is on in only two or three 

 hours; that at that time they will have work begun and 

 royal jelly visible in half an hour after the needful start is 

 given them. Wonderful, isn't it ? If this is correct, of 

 course dilatoriness causes a double loss, loss of hours, and 

 loss in the amount of work done each hour. But may this 

 not be another case of "sometimes" — sometimes ready to 

 do the best kind of work in two hours, and sometimes in- 

 clined to rush around and neglect the young larvje given 

 them fur many hours? (Didn't think to notify professional 

 queen breeders that they might skip this paragraph. Now, 

 they've gone and read it, they may skip with wrath if they 

 want to — yes, sir, they may.) 



KEEPING A COLONY ON SCALES. 



I'm ferocious at that fellow on page 597, who asked. 

 Does it pay to keep a colony on scales? Did he contem- 

 plate the queen as coming out with a couple of nickels and 

 paying the weigh-master. Apparently his question was 

 simply a plea — a plea against investigation and study. 

 Some people are so constituted that knowledge kind o' hurts 

 'em. Anxious to keep clear of it as far as possible. They 

 do not tell us %vhat then it is vrhich they expect to put into 

 that great emptiness — that great emptiness which they 

 actually want us to call a brain. It may be that some such 

 persons actually gain in dollars by exactly that course — re- 

 fusal to see anything else but the paths which visibly lead 

 to the dollar. Sorry. As a piece of my mind, however, 

 two of them lose dollars and sense both for each one who 

 gains dollars by the sacrifice of sense. The man who has a 

 fund of general knowledge in his knowledge-box is the man 

 more likely to succeed, I think — not to speak of its being 

 more enjoyable to know a few things. We don't want to 

 forget entirely that man was made in the image of God. 

 How would it sound to inquire whether it pays God to keep 

 a world on the scales ? See Isaiah 40:12, and Job 28:25. 



MISS WILSON'S SMOKER-FUEL. 



Yes, Miss Emma Wilson, if you start with nice, indus- 

 trious coals (more lazy coals you get the worse you are off), 

 but get the right quantity of industrious coals, put on fine, 

 dry-chip fuel, and " blow it up good," and you have "got 

 there " for the time being. But, strange to say, I incline 

 to turn my aft-think-atorial smoker on the whole proceeding 

 and " blow it up good." What's the use of those of us who 

 live in the country makeshifting along with anything else 

 than the standard good fuel — rotten wood ? I know wood- 

 lands are getting small and few, and that the superabun- 

 dance of rotten wood to be found anywhere no longer sur- 

 rounds the most of us. What then? Just " watch out " a 

 little, and keep the subject on your mind, and seasonable 

 supplies will turn up, if you seize them when they do turn 

 up. Every stump is wood, and sooner or later will be rot- 

 ten wood. 



As to their decay, most of the thousand and one kinds 

 of tree seem to fall in two grand divisions. The rotten 

 wood of one division is ash-colored, soft, and breaks up as 

 a mass of fiber. The other kind is brown, hard, and its 

 fracture rudely approximates to cubical blocks. The first 



