676 



GLEANINGS IN liEE CULTURE. 



July 



watery honey, having- risen to the top, was uot 

 drawn ott with the rest. Of course, this was uot 

 curing or ripening houey, but simply a process that 

 all extracted honey should pass through. No hon- 

 ey should ever be run directly from the extractor 

 into l)arrels. 



It is impossible to answer this question so it will 

 be a guide to all locations and conditions; and, ex- 

 cept the experiments made by Mr. L. C. Koot, I 

 know of none on an extensive and thorough enough 

 scale to enable anyone to answer it by a decided 

 yes or no. O. O. PoppliETON. 



Well, I declare ! I did uot know that any 

 experiments had ever been made of so 

 much value as those meutioued by friends 

 Wilkin and Poppleton. !So, friend W., you 

 have really put into practice this matter 

 that has been so often talked about. IJe- 

 sides, you have given us a reason that I 

 have never thought of before, for evaporat- 

 ing houey by artificial means. No one can 

 for a moment say that this reason is m^t a 

 good one. Get out the common houey, by 

 all means, in order to nuike room for the 

 sage. Very likely it would be better to 

 throw it away than to have it mixed. When 

 it is out, we certainly want to make the 

 best use of it possible, and in such an emer- 

 gency I can think of nothing better than 

 your four tin pans, arranged as you men- 

 tion. Why, the idea is a grand one, and I 

 verily believe that, even in our vicinity, we 

 can with such an apparatus, greatly im- 

 l)rove the biggest part of the extracted honey 

 on our markets. 1 shoitld think there would 

 be one objection to covering the cans with 

 cloth. The cloth, even if very coarse and 

 porous, would interfere with the circulation 

 of the air ; and without this circulation of 

 air we can not evaporate honey or any thing 

 else to good advantage. As our greenhouse 

 is extremely hot in summer, I thought it 

 would be a good place one fall to evaporate 

 green corn. Well, to my great surprise and 

 disappointment it did not work any thing 

 like as well as to pitt the corn outdoors in 

 the wind. The corn in the greenhouse got 

 very hot ; but instead of evaporating, it just 

 soured. When the bees send a draft of air 

 through the hive on a hot day, they know 

 exactly what is needed. While we are con- 

 sidering this subject, we should be very 

 glad indeed to have friend L. C. Root give 

 us an article on this matter of -evaporating 

 raw nectar. It may help us a good deal to 

 know the ground he has gone over. 



QuKSTioN No. i\Q.— If an affirmative is rendered on 

 Question 6'.), could more, and about how much more 

 lUiuid honey be secured than by the other methods of 

 waitino for the bees to seal the combs? 



See No. 65. H. K. Boaudman. 



No more if the plan I suggest is adopted. 



A. J. Cook. 

 Not any more ripe honey will be secured by 

 either method. Dauant & Son. 



Yes, I think so— perhaps one-third of honey, but 

 not more money in a long run. E. France. 



1 think some more honey would be obtained, and 

 I will guess about 30 per cent more. 



K. WxiiKlN, 



At present I could only guess at this. Sometime 

 I hope to be able to say definitely. 



James A. Green. 



No more honey can be obtained at the same cost 

 (no, not as much), as by the tiering process, rightly 

 managed. James Heddon. 



This is a matter for experiment; and as I am con- 

 vinced of the non-advisability of it, I would not 

 think of giving it a trial. Paul, L. ViAr.LON. 



Where the honey-crop is moderate or small, I am 

 rather incredulous about any more pounds of a 

 well-ripened article being secured. E. E. Hasty. 



It is impossible to give a correct answer to this 

 question, as it depends so much on the varying 

 characters and durations of the honey-Hows. 



O. O. Poppleton. 

 I can only shut my eyes and guess. 1 think not 

 such a great deal more would be obtained, but you 

 could get along with fewer combs. 



C. C. Miller. 



More honey can be secured by extracting before 

 sealing begins; how much more is hard to tell, as it 

 must necessarily vary with the temperature. 



Geo. <Jrimm. 



It is possible that more honey can be produced by 

 extracting uncapped combs, but T am not certain 

 that it is true. But labor is saved, and not at the 

 expense of the quality. Chas F. Muth. 



I have demonstrated, beyond a doubt, that more 

 honey can be secured. I think about 20 per cent 

 more. I think it much more desirable to keep a 

 few more bees, and allow them to do the work. 



L. C. Root. 



What I think is something strange, is that, while 

 this honey will thicken up, as I speak of in Ques- 

 tion 65, yet, as far as I ever could detect, it does not 

 decrease in bulk any. Others about me have no- 

 ticed the same thing; yet why it is so, neither they 

 nor I can tell. G. M. Doolittle. 



There would be more honey. Bees usually work 

 with more energy when extracting is done fre- 

 quently; and unless the hive is large, extracting 

 helps in furnishing a large surface for storing and 

 evaporating the thin honey. Some hone.v is also 

 saved by not having to seal the comb. It would be 

 diflicult to tell, without experiments, how much 

 difference there is in yield of honey; but the great 

 difference between the two methods is usually in 

 selling thin honey instead of thick. 



P. H. Elwood. 



Like many of the rest of the friends, I can 

 only add that I do not know positively that 

 any more honey will be secured by taking it 

 out when thin — that is, good honey. You 

 will get more pounds as well as more gallons 

 of the thin watery stuff, and a great deal of 

 water may be taken out of thin honey. A 

 few days ago my wife complained that a 

 can of maple syrup just opened was not as 

 thick as it ought to be. So she boiled it 

 down a good lot. But some of the children 

 suggested that it wotdd be better still if it 

 were boilefl down more, and so she boiled out 

 another good lot of the water it contained. It 

 was then just splendid, but we did not have 

 any thing like a gallon. What we did have 

 however, was heavy, like lead, compared 

 with the thin stuff we started with. 



