742 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1 



much more unripe and thin than they will 

 in other seasons; and the more unripe honey 

 is, even when capped over, the more liable 

 it is to grow thinner, and sour in a room in 

 which thoroughly ripe honey will keep 

 quite well." 



"That accounts for a part of it again, 

 for it was my very early honey which was 

 the worst." 



"I judged that would be so. But all 

 honey, if kept long enough in a cool damp 

 room, will sour after a while, as it will ab- 

 sorb the moisture from the room where the 

 same is cool and damp, like a lower room 

 on the north side of a house with no draft 

 of air through it." 



"That hits me again, for our parlor is in 

 the northwest corner of the house, over the 

 cellar, and the blinds and all windows have 

 been kept closed. And I thought that was 

 just as good as upstairs, where I had al- 

 ways kept it before. I had to calk some 

 of the cracks up there, they were so big I 

 feared the bees would get in. I shall know 

 better next year, you bet." 



"How did you pile the honey in the 

 room?" 



"Set it right down on the floor, of course. 

 How would you pile it?" 



"Not like that. I see you missed in your 

 piling one very important point in this mat- 

 ter. No one should ever place nice section 

 honey, nor any other, for that matter, on 

 the floor of any room, no matter what the 

 temperature, nor how thoroughly ventilat- 

 ed." 



"Why not?" 



"Let me give you a little of my experi- 

 ence. When I first began bee-keeping I 

 used a room q uite similar to what you say 

 your parlor is, and did just as you did in 

 putting the sections on the fl oor." 



"Well, it seems that others have been 

 caught the same as I. This is a little con- 

 solation, but it won't help the honey. Ex- 

 cuse my breaking in. I felt like it, that 

 was all; " 



"When I came to crating that honey I 

 found that the honey in the sections next 

 the wall and floor to the room had soured — 

 not only that in any unsealed cells next to 

 the wood that chanced to have honey in 

 them, but that the honey was bursting from 

 the sealed cells, while that next the outside 

 of the pile, and higher up in the room, and 

 out from the wall, had not grown thin or 

 watery at all. I took the hint at once, and 

 the very next year found me with a tempo- 

 rary platform fixed in a room on the sunny 

 s ide of the house, and screens over the win- 

 dows, the windows being left open fair days. 

 This platform was made of slats of suffi- 

 cient strength to hold the honey, the same 

 being spread apart enough so that the edges 

 of the sections j ust caught on them, said 

 platform being raised a foot from the floor. 

 When another tier of sections was to go on 

 top, strips were placed between, and so on 

 clear to the top of the pile, and in this way 

 there was no hindrance to the air from cir- 

 culating all through the pile, and up along 



the face of every section, on both sides, and 

 also above and between each row of the 

 same." 



"Did this work?" 



"Certainly it did; and I have never had 

 any honey sour — no, not even the honey in 

 any unsealed cells that might happen to be 

 along the wood of the section." 



"Well, that is worth knowing, and I am 

 glad I could have this talk with j'^ou. But 

 what can I do with my honey that is watery 

 now?" 



" If you will fix such a platform up in 

 your upstairs room you used to store honey 

 in previous to this year, and store the 

 watery honey there for a few weeks, I think 

 it will improve so as to be salable; but that 

 which has soured can not be brought back 

 very well again — not well enough to be 

 salable at least, according to my experi- 

 ence. You can use it for early feeding of 

 the bees next spring, if you desire; but I 

 should not want to feed it this fall, for the 

 bees might not winter well on it." 



"Then you would not try to sell it?" 



"No. I would extract the honey out of 

 the combs this fall, allow the bees to clean 

 up the combs by putting a whole superful 

 over a strong colony, and, after cleaning, 

 store the combs away till spring, when they 

 can be used for bait sections next year. In 

 this way it will not be an entire loss to 

 you." 



"Won't that which the bees get by clean- 

 ing the sections harm them?" 



"I do not think so, as there will be very 

 little honey left after extracting, as the 

 honey will be so thin it will nearly all 

 leave the comb." 



"But suppose the bees should not have 

 honey enough for winter. Is there no way 

 I can use this honey for feeding?" 



"You can scald it, or cook it until it is 

 suflicientl}' thickened so as to be like other 

 good honey, all but the flavor, when it 

 might do for winter feeding. But I would 

 go a little slow on it." 



Let me urge again the very great impor- 

 tance of getting your comb honey to market 

 as early as possible. Why it should sell 

 better from August on till January than 

 from January till August I can not say ; 

 but the honey-buyers and commission men 

 know that this is a fact. 



NO-DRIP CLEATS TOO THIN. 



Mr. R. a. Burnett is reported in the 

 American Bee Journal as saying that the 



