310 



American Vae Journal 



April 11 1907 



hatched out. Walking about among 

 the bees in Kansas, I think year before 

 last, I tried that sometimes and the 

 bees would not take to the queens in- 

 stantly, and would not accept them, 

 but I did not try this year, and do not 

 know how they would have received 

 them ; if it had been a fertile queen I 

 don't know what the result would have 

 been. I might say that the first time 

 I ever saw this done was in the apiary 

 of Mr. Langstroth, in Ohio, and when 

 she came out she was not yet colored, 

 and in a half or three-quarters of an 

 hour she had begun to turn and seemed 

 to be paying no attention. Mr. Langs- 

 troth said, as a rule, they were acepted 

 when they first emerged. But as to a 

 means of preventing swarming, I don't 

 know. 



Mr. France — That varies according to 

 the latitude and condition of the sea- 

 son. If a honey-flow is coming in rap- 

 idly, and the swarming fever has al- 

 ready advanced, it is pretty hard to 

 stop it. The time to check the swarm- 

 ing fever is before it has fully devel- 

 opend. I think a change would check it. 



Mr. Hatch — I have tried almost every 

 kind of method that has been sug- 

 gested, and all the methods I could 

 think of, and have always found fault 

 with every one of them. One plan 

 would weaken the colony so as to cut 

 off the honey-flow, and another plan 

 would weaken me so I was not fit to 

 get the honey, and so I let the bees 

 swarm. One plan is to put a queen- 

 excluder above the colony, and put a 

 hive on the lower box. 



PREVENTING HONEY-GRANULATION IN 

 GLASS JARS. 



"How can extracted honey be pre- 

 vented from granulating after being put 

 in air-tight glass jars?" 



Mr. Holekamp — There is being put on 

 the market honey from California that 

 is claimed doesn't granulate. Now, our 

 honey granulates, but there is a way of 

 preventing this granulation, because 

 this California honey doesn't granulate. 

 I would like to know if there is any 

 way of preventing granulation without 

 adulterating honey, without changing 

 the character of the honey? 



J. F. Teel — I was brought up in Ala- 

 bama, and in that country there is a 

 grade of honey that never granulates. 

 It is also true in Mississippi. While it 

 is not a real, firsT-class grade of honey, 

 it is fairly good, and people prefer it, 

 who are accustomed to it, and prefer 

 it to real white honey; but there is a 

 honey that is pure that doesn't granu- 

 late. 



Mr. France — I will say that of some 

 6o kinds of honey over the States I 

 have been learning something. I find 

 that the honey from the North has a 

 tendency to granulate much earlier than 

 that in the Southern States, as a general 

 rule, so I believe there is something in 

 the latitude. The flowers and the lo- 

 cality have something to do with the 

 granulation. 



Mr. Rouse — My experience is that ex- 

 tracted honey, well ripened, will not 

 granulate. I have had it in an open 

 room, that is, the shop or factory where 

 I work, and I have kept it there all 

 winter and it has never granulated at 



all. It was well ripened when it was 

 extracted. Sometimes it granulates and 

 sometimes it doesn't, but I cannot tell 

 you why. I think there is an element 

 in the honey or in the weather, or some- 

 thing. 



Dr. Bohrer — I think the kind of honey 

 has something to do with it. In Central 

 Kansas alfalfa honey will granulate 

 sooner than any other honey. I don't 

 eat anything sweet at the table except 

 honey, but at home I drink hot water, 

 and I season it to taste with alfalfa 

 honey. My folks have a large bottle 

 with a glass stopper, in which they pre- 

 pare this honey, but I have to superin- 

 tend it and put it in warm water every 

 two, three or four weeks, so it will not 

 granulate. Now, I have no other dis- 

 tinct and superior variety of honey that 

 I am able to speak of. The fruit 

 blooms are consumed during the breed- 

 ing season, preparatory to the main 

 honey flow. The kind of honey has 

 something to do with the granulation, 

 and I don't know of any preventive, ex- 

 cept warming it in warm water about 

 half an hour. 



Mr. Hyde — I have had a little ex- 

 perience with it. I find that there are 

 two conditions that will granulate our 

 honey; that is, the coming of the cold 

 weather will always granulate all of our 

 Texas honey ; but we have a honey here 

 we call the "catclaw," and we some- 

 times get what we call a crop of 30, 

 40, to so pounds to a colony and this 

 will granulate in July or August. We 

 always harvest it before the first day 

 of May, and it will granulate when the 

 thermometer stands at 90 or 100 degrees. 

 Our catclaw or mesquite honey will not 

 granulate until the coming of cold 

 weather ; so the cold weather has some- 

 thing to do with it, I think; but the 

 source from which it is gathered has 

 more to do with it. I had a vial of honey 

 shipped from Cuba, from one of our 

 Texas bee-keepers, W. W. Sommers. I 

 kept that honey for two years and it 

 never granulated, and the same can be 

 said of the California honey; it will not 

 granulate under two years. The granu- 

 lation is caused from the source from 

 where it is gathered. Is there anyone 

 here who knows what the honey is 

 gathered from in_ California? I would 

 like to hear. 



Dr. Treon — With reference to the 

 granulation of honey, I want to give 

 the bee-keepers my experience, while I 

 have not been in the business over four 

 or five years. I had an early crop of 

 honey that comes from the catclaw; 

 this is our first surplus crop, and some 

 of this granulated before it was all sea- 

 soned. I don't know of any other honey 

 that granulates as quickly as our cat- 

 claw honey. As Mr. Hyde just said, I 

 saw some that was brought from Cali- 

 fornia, gathered from sage-brush, and 

 it had been in a bottle and was as clear 

 as I ever saw. I saw it in Hot Springs 

 Ark., about a year ago. Now in ref- 

 erence to our other honey, the mesquite 

 honey is a little slow to granulate, but 

 as Mr. Hyde said, it will granulate on 

 the coming of cold weather. Horse- 

 mint honey will even granulate in hot 

 weather. 



Mr. Laws — My experience is that all 

 early honey will granulate much quicker 



than the honey produced in the Fall. 

 Our catclaw and waheah will granu- 

 late sooner. I pack the comb in S-gal- 

 lon cans, and unless I sell it soon it 

 will granulate. Our fall honey does not 

 do this. Our honey that is gathered 

 in rainy or moist seasons granulates 

 slowly. 



Mr. Teel — I went over into Uvalde 

 one day, and slept that night under 

 a catclaw tree. The next morning, 

 when I woke, the first thing I noticed 

 the bees were gathering honey from this 

 brush. By 12 o'clock the temperature 

 was warm and the honey was candied. 

 It candies every 24 hours in August 

 over there. 



J. M. Hagood — I think sudden changes 

 of the weather are the causes. If 

 we all had cellars to store our honey 

 in, I don't believe we would be bothered 

 with granulation so soon. 



Pres. Dadant — I personally have no 

 objection to this. My experience is that 

 early honey granulates before the fall 

 honey is gathered; it is something in 

 the time in which it is gathered, or the 

 quality. 



J. A. Stone — I want to offer an ob- 

 jection to the cellar; it will cause fer- 

 mentation of the honey. If you had a 

 furnace it will keep it all right; you 

 want a warm place. 



Mr. Teel — -The cellar won't work in 

 the South. 



D. C. Milam — I wish to say from ex- 

 perience, that the waheah granulates 

 quicker than the catclaw. I have ex- 

 tracted honey in the evening and next 

 morning it would be granulated. Cat- 

 claw blooms in May, and its honey hard- 

 ly ever granulates until some time af- 

 terwards. In regard to fall honey, I 

 have also extracted fall honey from 

 broomweed, and the next morning it 

 would be granulated, and wDuld not 

 run ; so the fall and spring honey granu- 

 lates alike; but in warm weather it will 

 not granulate as quickly as it does in the 

 fall. 



Pres. Dadant — In our climate the 

 early honey granulates and the fall 

 honey remains liquid. 



Mr. Jones — I am froin Uvalde County, 

 Texas, and I agree with Mr. Milam. 

 Our waheah honey granulates inuch • 

 quicker that catclaw. Now, our fall 

 honey granulates very quickly, and is 

 thick. This is my experience. 



Dr. Bohrer — What do you do to turn 

 it? 



Mr. Jones — Nothing, only to heat it. 

 As this man stated awhile ago about 

 unripe honey, it granulates on the bot- 

 tom, but it never granulates on the top; 

 you will always find the granulation 

 at the bottom. 



Mr. Parsons — We produce very little 

 extracted honey, but we pack our honey 

 somewhat like the Texas bee-keepers, 

 that is, a portion of it, that which will 

 not injure the comb honey that will do 

 to case, and ship it. We put that into 

 tin boxes and extract a portion of it. 

 I first fill the vessel full of the comb, 

 then pour around it the extracted honey, 

 and where I can put that honey into the 

 cans and seal them as soon as it comes 

 off the hives it does not granulate un- 

 til the next year, p( obably late in the 

 spring or the summer. If I wait un- 

 til cold weather comes, along at this 



