272 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



August 



pressure), climbed over the fence, and, 

 framed in the cobwebby doorway, 

 stood smoking in sympathetic silence. 



"Why don't you Hoover it?" he 

 finally asked, with a comprehensive 

 circling of his fragrant pipe. 



"Impossible!" I told him, and exam- 

 ined again the old shed that bore elo- 

 quent testimony of prolonged private 

 interviews between the heads of for- 

 mer renters and their obstreperous 

 families. Broken glass everywhere, 

 and parts of furniture were stacked iji 

 one corner. One might easily trace 

 by the debris the descent from what 

 was originally a screened-in summer 

 kitchen, first to tool-house; from 

 store-room to a granary for chicken 

 feed, and on down to its present low 

 estate. "Besides," I concluded, "It's 

 too large for a beehive and too small 

 for a garage, even for our fliver.' 



"Why not an extracting house?" 

 suggested Uncle Bob. 



"Too near my neighbors,"and then 

 by way of explanation, "the bees 

 would sting the children." 



"Move it." 



Again I objected. It would surely 

 meet the fate of the wonderful 'One- 

 Hoss Shay," and our shiny new ex- 

 tractor would be swallowed up in the 

 general collapse. 



But Uncle Bob only waived his pipe 

 airily. "Leave it to me, leave it to 



me," he said. "Just tell me where you 

 want it." 



The very next day the offending 

 shed was moving sedately down the 

 garden path. Two men, two planks, 

 some rollers and a piece of strong 

 wire had turned the trick. Nor had 

 the building collapsed. Far from it. 

 Its walls proved to be strong and the 

 double floor and heavy sills held it 

 intact until it could be anchored to 

 the lean-to that served as a shelter 

 for honey catis and cases. 



"Propinquity," Uncle Bob called it. 

 "Of course honey must be extracted 

 near the cans and cases." 



Having gained his point, Uncle 

 Bob, with the aid of his helper, 

 jacked up the shed and rested it 'on 

 nine 4x4 posts, creosoted to discour- 

 age their use by ants and other small 

 insects. This arrangement brought 

 the floor of the extracting house to a 

 level with the Ford bed, so that "Liz" 

 can be backed to the door, and the 

 honey brought in from our two out- 

 apiaries, easily unloaded. New wire 

 screening tacked over the window 

 openings, a new screen door, quanti- 

 ties of whitewash applied within, and 

 patches without finally made the shed 

 bee-tight. 



"How about the roof?" I ventured 

 to inquire. 



"The Lord will provide," declared 



^fl 







I 





>t' X X0"X IS' 





I 







Uncle Bob, with the ready optimism 

 of the financially well-fixed. But it 

 was his helper (a junk dealer by pro- 

 fession) who, in "helping" himself to 

 the scrap iron uncovered by the re- 

 moval of the shed, dragged forth a 

 new roll of tar roofing paper, appar- 

 ently secreted so carefully by some 

 one of our predecessors that he had 

 never been able to find it. 



Thus there remained only the ar- 

 rangement of the interior of the 

 Hoovered shed. Our two-basket ex- 

 trac.or, elevated to allow the honey 

 to run by gravity directly into the 

 strainer, stands on one side. The 

 strainer itself, originally a 51-gallon 

 honey tank purchased for home use, 

 needed only a wire basket at the top 

 to hold the cheese-cloth strainer. 

 Five dollars seemed to be a large sum 

 to pay the hardware man for such a 

 basket — "best material" and the "most 

 expert labor" notwithstanding. So I 

 went forth seeking other worlds to 

 Hoover. A 65-cent circular wire 

 dish drainer, 6 inches deep, just fits 

 inside the top of the tank, and sus- 

 pended therefrom by picture-mould- 

 ing hooks, fills the bill perfectly. The 

 honey tank, or tank strainer, was 

 then let through the floor of the ex- 

 tracting house, so that the honey 

 gate is just inside the lean-to, and suf- 

 ficiently high above the floor to allow 

 a five-gallon container lO stand under 

 it. So the work of filling cans and 

 cases can also be accomplished by 

 gravity, and with a minimum of han- 

 dling. 



An uncapping box 18x20 in. by 4 ft, 

 mounted on a bench 13 inches high, 

 occupies the back of the extracting 

 house. This box will accommodate 

 30 frames of honey at one time. The 

 uncapping bo.x has a galvanized iron 

 bottom and the honey that drains 

 down, through the wire screen from 

 the cappings, runs through an open- 

 ing in one end of the galvanized bot- 

 tom, into a bucket underneath. To the 

 right of the uncapping bo.x is an oil 

 stove on a small stand. The stove, a 

 two-burner affair, also the pan that 

 holds the water for heating the un- 

 capping knives, were supplied by the 

 junk man in exchange for the ex- 

 humed scrap iron. 



An old cupboard, handed down 

 from summer kitchen days, scoured 

 and disinfected, occupies a corner 

 for the accommodation of sample 

 bottles of honey, feeding honey, 

 small tools, etc. After the floor had 

 been covered with scrap linoleum and 

 all woodwork painted white, I ven- 

 tured to include a description of the 

 enterprise, together with the follow- 

 ing fable of its cost, in the regular 

 monthly report to my convalescing 

 partner : 



Extracting House 



Wire screening for windows $2.65 



Roofing (labor) 2.00 



Creos'oted posts ^ .^J 



Lime for whitewash .SO 



Moving the woodshed 3.00 



New screen door, complete 3.4,t 



Uncapping box 6.33 



Bench 2.50 



Wire rack and galvanized bot- 

 tom for same 4.00 



Wire basket for strainer ,65 



