436 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



November 



will have to discard the case of two 

 60-pound cans, for such a case 

 weighs 135 pounds and has to be 

 lifted or slid along on skids, also. 

 There is considerable heavy lifting 

 about a crop of two or three tons of 

 honey. 



The objection we have to the use 

 of 60-pound cans is that we want to 

 put up our honey in small recepta- 

 cles as the orders come. So we would 

 need to empty those 60-pound cans 

 of the honey put in them. The av- 

 erage honey producer knows that a 

 CO-pound can which has been filled 

 and emptied is only a second-hand 

 package aftei-wards, for it is difficult 

 to rinse it and have it again per- 

 fectly dry. That is why we prefer 

 the barrel, which is just as good, after 

 having been filled and emptied several 

 times, if we care for it properly. We 

 must never put water in it, or if we 

 do, just to wash out the small parti- 

 cles of honey, we should drain it at 

 once and keep it in a dry place, and 

 tighten the hoops before using it 

 again. 



Ripening 



But let us come to the first ques- 

 tion of this article: ripening honey. 



It is unnecessary to advise the bee- 

 keeper not to extract his honey until 

 it is as fully ripened as the bees can 

 give it. But, unfortunately, even 

 capped honey is not always fully ripe. 

 If your honey is not ripe and you do 

 not have tanks in a warm, di'y build- 

 ing, in which you may leave it during 

 the hot weather, you will need to 

 ripen it artificially. This may be done 

 at the time of putting it up in small 

 packages, if it is not so green as to 

 ferment before that time. 



How am I to know that my honey 

 is ripe? Ha! This is a hard question. 

 You will have to trust your judgment. 

 Much depends upon the heat of the 

 day in looking at the flow of the 

 honey. But if you leave it long 



Shallow stilling latiks used by R. \ 



.Wnv V, 



bctke 



enough on the hives, there will be very 

 little chance of having it too green. 

 I* do not remember getting unripe 

 honey more than two or three times, 

 and I soon found it out. If you have 

 a gallon measure and an exact scale, 

 you may weigh it. Or you may use a 

 hydrometer. . I never did. 



If you are not provided with large 

 heating tanks, you may liquefy or 

 evaporate honey by using a few large 

 pails in a wash boiler on the stove, or 

 in some flat boiler, which may con- 

 tain several deep pails. Place a cou- 

 ple of slats of wood under each pail 

 so that it will not rest flat on the bot- 

 tom of the boiler. Fill your pails 

 to convenient depth with honey. Place 

 them in the boiler. Then put enough 

 water in the boiler to reach up about 

 two-thirds the height of the pails. If 

 you do not have a special stove, ana 

 must use the kitchen stove, you should 

 leave enough room at the front for 

 the housekeepers' service, or you may 

 hear from her. 



The water in your melting boiler 

 must not come to a boil. After a lit- 



.Stiaiiici- ill |»l;u f Tu. lilliiiK li.ifui 



tie while, the honey in the pails will 

 begin to melt along the edges. Stir it 

 and it will melt more quickly, for the 

 center of the mass would be slow to 

 heat. You need not get it all melted 

 before taking it off. A little experi- 

 ence will indicate to you when it is 

 melted enough to finish melting from 

 its own heat, off the stove. Heating 

 things over water in this way is what 

 cooks call "bain-marie." 



Have some sort of a tank ready, 

 h'gh enough from the floor so that 

 you may put a scale and any of your 

 retail receptacles under the faucet. 

 An extractor can is very convenient, 

 if you are through with the extract- 

 ing. Usually the retail i-eceptacles 

 are filled to the brim, so that they do 

 not need to be weighed, but it is best 

 tc have a scale so that you may be 

 able to weigh any quantity, small or 

 large. 



One thing you must remember: The 

 quicker you melt the honey and cool 

 it, the less color it will gain and the 

 less flavor it will lose. If you heat it 

 too hot, you will evaporate all those 

 fine essential oils which gave it the 

 flavor of the blossoms and distin- 

 guish honey from molasses, and even 

 maple syrup. But whenever you heat 

 it, if it is ever so little, it will give 

 ofl' steam and become thicker. It will, 

 of course, lose in weight. Better 

 melt it too slowly than take risks of 

 overdoing it. Good honey should not 

 go less than 11% pounds to the gal- 

 lon. The regular weight of ripe 

 honey is 12 pounds to the gallon. 



Honey that has been heated will us- 

 ually not granulate again. The riper 

 honey is, as a rule, the less readily it 

 will granulate. This statement was first 

 made to me at a beekeepers' meet- 

 ing, in IS-S.'S, at Syracuse, New York, 

 by our old friend L. C. Root, the son- 

 in-law of Moses Quinby. When I 

 heard this assertion. I shrugged my 

 shoulders in irony. But I learned af- 

 terwards that he was right. However, 

 some grades of ripe honey granulate 

 very readily. I will mention alfalfa 

 and heather. The latter, we are told, 

 is usually so thick when harvested by 

 the bees that it cannot be thrown out 

 by centrifugal force. I never had a 

 chance to test this myself. 

 Straining 



The heading of this article says 

 something about straining honey. I 



