1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



437 



■was about to forget it. The first ex- 

 tractoi-s made were supplied with a 

 strainer just above the faueet or 

 honey gate. In less than half a day 

 ol practice we had to take this out, for 

 it clogged. We use a large strainer 

 over the barrel or receptacle in which 

 the honey is to rest. This is made of 

 a flour sieve with a broad rim to en- 

 able it to take a good amount of 

 honey. If you use a tank and a pipe 

 to run the honey to it, you must have 

 this sieve above it. Only small parti- 

 cles of wax which have passed through 

 the sieve fall into the honey, and will 

 float on top. If you expect to keep 

 the honey in barrels until after granu- 

 lation, you should set the barrel "on 

 end" in the honey room. The wax 

 will come to the top and you can read- 

 ily scrape it off after taking out the 

 head. If you draw out the honey 

 while liquid, there will be wax in the 

 last gallon or so that you draw out. 

 The same may be said of a closed 

 tank. This is put into a small recep- 

 tacle and skimmed off after the honey 

 settles. We can keep on di'awing the 

 honey off until there is only a gallon 

 Of so of skimmings from several bar- 

 rels. If it is your own honey and you 

 know it is free from germs, you may 

 feed it to some needy swarm. If you 

 are not acquainted with it because 

 you have bought the honey from some 

 stranger, better make this stuff into 

 vinegar. No need of losing anything. 

 By heating it above 145 degrees you 

 will melt the wax and it will cake 

 over the surface. 



By following the method which I 

 have just mentioned you will have 

 your honey, in liquid form, in the 

 very best shape to put it up into all 

 sorts of small receptacles, from the 

 "individual package," of an ounce or 

 less, to the 10-pound pails. It will 

 always be clean and thick. It will 

 keep the flavor of the blossoms. You 

 may "blend" it, if you have two or 

 three different crops. To do this you 

 must heat it. This is sometimes ad- 

 visable. But if you sell to the con- 

 sumer or to the small retailer who 

 know you, it is as well to supply the 

 special bloom which they will learn to 

 know: white clover, sweet clover, 

 raspberry, basswood (by the way, 

 basswood may give its flavor to a 

 large amount of honey), persicarias, 

 Spanish needles or bur marigold, sev- 

 eral kinds, or if you live in the West 

 or the South, you may have cotton 

 honey, catclaw, sage, orange, etc. 



By this time, if the large producer 

 has followed me, he will have noticed 

 that I am writing for the man who has 

 none of the expensive conveniences of 

 the big establishment. The man who 

 has a two-story honey house, with a 

 four-ton tank in which to pour the 

 honey and which he can heat at will, 

 has no need of instructions. As I 

 have already stated, he has his meth- 

 ods. 



One little hint: If you have leaky 

 cans (sometimes a can will have ah 

 imperceptible hole which would not 

 leak water but from which honey will 

 ooze), do not trouble yourself with 

 emptying the can to repair it. Just 

 have a little handful of beeswax or 

 parafline melted with a little tallow. 



about half and half. Then rub a lit- 

 tle of this over the leak. The can will 

 be repaired, in this way, until it is 

 washed with boiling water. I have 

 often repaired even large tanks with 

 this material, and I remember when a 

 plumber could not stop leakage in a 

 kad water tank of 25 barrels in my 



PRIZE CONTEST 



We want to know what kind 

 of material is of greatest inter- 

 est to our readers in order that 

 we may be able to publish a 

 better Journal. To find out, we 

 make the following offers: 



Contest No. 1 



For the best letter of not 

 more than 300 words, telling 

 what you like best about this 

 year's American Bee Journal, 

 and your reason therefor, we 

 will pay 



$10 in Cash. 



For the second best letter, $5 

 in cash, and for third prize, 

 choice of any book published 

 by our firm. Look over all the 

 numbers of the year 1921 and 

 tell us what article pleased you 

 most or was most helpful to you 

 or what particular feature was 

 most worth while. 



Contest No. 2 



We want more good pictures. 

 It is true that we already re- 

 ceive far more pictures than we 

 can possibly use, but these we 

 file away with the name of the 

 person from whom they come, 

 in the hope that they will later 

 be of use. The more we have 

 to select from, the better the 

 variety we can use in each num- 

 ber. W^e want at least ten to 

 choose from for every one that 

 we can find room for. For the 

 best photograph illustrating any 

 phase of beekeeping we will pay 



$10 in Cash. 



For the second best, $5, and 

 for the next five, choice of our 

 dollar books on beekeeping. 

 Only good, clear photographs 

 suitable for reproduction are of 

 interest to us. New methods of 

 manipulation, new items of 

 equipment, attractive ways to 

 arrange an apiary, or anything 

 of interest to the iieekeepers, 

 may be shown. 



Contest closes January 1. 



Address letters and photos in- 

 tended for this coniest to Con- 

 test Editor, America.n Bee Jour- 

 nal, Hamilton, 111. 



attic, and I came to the rescue with a 

 little of this tallow wax. We did not 

 know exactly where the leak was, but 

 the wax found it when we rubbed it 

 over the surface. The plumber said 

 that was a good way to humbug the 

 customer. It was a good way, sure. 

 This was my own discovery after 

 emptying hundreds of leaky cans, to 



solder the holes, sometimes making 

 it worse than before. If the tender- 

 foot has ever tried the soldering iron, 

 lie knows some of the tribulations of 

 the apprentice tinner. 



May I say a word in favor of selling 

 as much of granulated honey as pos- 

 sible? I know that most beekeepers 

 avoid the task of explaining that 

 granulated honey is absolutely pure 

 and that, with only a few local excep- 

 tions, consumers imagine that granu- 

 lated honey is adulterated. But it is 

 not so very difficult to convince them, 

 if we go at it right, and it helps the 

 sale of honey greatly. We have a 

 trade in granulated honey and many 

 people learned to prefer it to liquid 

 honey. Why not? 



If the beekeepers wish to increase 

 the sale of honey, they must make an 

 effort to convince the public of the 

 best way to recognize its purity. They 

 must also instruct the customers on 

 the methods by which honey is ex- 

 tracted. Some people have so little 

 idea of its manipulation that they call 

 extracted honey "extract of honey," 

 giving the impression that the honey 

 in that shape is not pure bees' honey. 

 I will never forget my disappoint- 

 ment, when I made my first attempt 

 at selling extracted honey, clover 

 honey, to a druggist, in 1869, just af- 

 ter the invention of the honey ex- 

 tractor. At that time druggists were 

 the only people who handled honey 

 in the Central West, and they were 

 accustomed to the "strained honey" 

 taken by either killing the bees or 

 driving them out and crushing the 

 combs to strain the honey out of the 

 pollen, brood, etc. My honey, the first 

 that we had ever extracted, was clear, 

 light-colored; well, you know how 

 white clover honey looks. I came to 

 the druggist with all the confidence of 

 an 18-year-old boy who has something 

 of excellent quality for sale, a brand 

 new product. The druggist took up a 

 sample of that honey, looked at it, 

 then with a frown he said: "We don't 

 buy sugar syrup. We know how to 

 make it when we want it." I tried to 

 explain, but he would not even listen. 

 That man bought extracted honey 

 from me later, granulated honey, af- 

 ter he found out that there was in- 

 deed a new way to take honey from 

 the bees. But it was a hard task to 

 convince him. Nowadays, the bee- 

 keeper can provide himself with some 

 "Facts about honey" which are print- 

 ed for the benefit of the trade, and 

 show his customer that this is not a 

 new-fangled swindle, as my druggist 

 thought at first. We had no c ne to 

 back us in our sales, since we were 

 the first in the country to adopt the 

 honey extractor. 



There will be more demand for 

 honey than the beekeepers of the 

 world can fill when the public is fully 

 convinced that they can buy pure 

 honey, for no one doubts the value of 

 honey as food. 



Price of Hubam Seed 



Hubam annual sweet clover seed is 

 starting this fall at a price of about 

 •^120 per bushel, or $2 per pound, 

 only about one-fourth of the price of 

 the seed last year. 



