GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Conversations with Doolittle 



^UNRIPE HONEY. 



" Is it best to leave honey on the hive as 

 long as possible, take it off as soon as it is 

 all sealed over, or tier it up before the 

 sealing has just begun? I am told that un- 

 sealed honey ripens much faster than that 

 which is sealed over ? " 



Years ago, especially, it was only natu- 

 ral for unthinking beekeepers to avoid the 

 work of uncapping the combs, and more 

 pounds of honey could generally be ob- 

 tained by extracting what had accumulated 

 in the combs every three or four days dur- 

 ing a good nectar flow than where the 

 extracting was not done till the most of the 

 honey was sealed over. This course gener- 

 allj brought thin unripe honey to the con- 

 sumers who soon became prejudiced against 

 all extracted honey. Nothing could have 

 been much more damaging to the sale of 

 extracted honey than this marketing of an 

 unripe article. To obviate this the bee- 

 papers advocated leaving all honey on the 

 hive until it was fully sealed over, the in- 

 ference being that honey was fully ripened 

 as soon as the cells were all sealed over. 

 But this part depends upon the flow of 

 nectar and the humidity of the atmosphere. 



During a bountiful flow of nectar from 

 clover when it rains nearly every night, and 

 there is what is called a " scalding sun " 

 during the day, the bees will rush the honey 

 into the combs pellmell and seal it over 

 before it is really ripe. In fact, at sueh 

 times I have often had section honey (taksn 

 off as soon as capped over, and while the 

 combs were of that snowy whiteness which 

 captivates the eyes of every consumer) so 

 thin that, on cutting the comb twenty-four 

 hours later, it would run about the plate 

 almost like water; and unless the sections 

 were stored in a warm, dry, well-ventilated 

 room to ripen, the cappings would soon 

 have a watery appearance. Then later the 

 soured nectar would leak out, to the disgnist 

 of all who had any thing to do with it. I 

 once saw hundreds of cases of such stuff in 

 the basement of a commission house in New 

 York. Under such circumstances as these it 

 is better to store all honey in a room where 

 the temperature holds for four or five weeks 

 at from 75 to 90 degi'ees F., the honey being 

 piled so that the air can circulate all about 

 and up through the combs. At the end of 

 this time the honey in both sealed and un- 

 sealed cells will become so thoroughly ripen- 

 ed that it will not even run out of the 

 unsealed cells, if the combs are laid doAvn. 



Then, if preferred, supers of combs for 



extracting can be tiered up just as the bees 

 begin to seal the first cells, thereby getting 

 the honey away from the brood-nest before 

 much of it is sealed. In this position the 

 bees are slower in capping it — so slow that 

 it often ripens up nicely before the bees get 

 it capped, and thus we are saved the labor 

 of uncapping. Honey ought to be thorough- 

 ly rij^ened before it is extracted from the 

 comb, and it may then be put into cans 

 very soon after it leaves the extractor. To 

 my taste the flavor is much better preserved 

 if the honey is sealed up in a can or barrel 

 than if left open to the air, as many think 

 necessary to ripen it thoroughly. 



Where honey is left on the hive for a long 

 time, or in a warm dry room for the proper 

 ripening, cool weather often comes on so 

 that this thick well-ripened honey is hard to 

 extract unless some provision is made for 

 warming the combs. By tiering the hives 

 containing the combs we wish to extract in 

 such a way that they are separated two or 

 more inches from each other in a small tight 

 room in which artificial heat can be applied 

 till the temj^erature of the whole is raised to 

 100 degrees, and held there for half a day, 

 honey can be extracted as easily in cold 

 weather as in warm, and in this way stormy 

 weather can be used. 



Of course I am writing from the stand- 

 point of central New York. If I am cor- 

 rectly informed, California and many of the 

 southwestern States have an atmosphere 

 where the humidity is so slight that honey 

 comes from the flowers, not as nectar, out 

 almost in a perfect state, so that it often 

 weighs much above that which is considered 

 thoroughly ripened here. Eleven pounds to 

 the gallon used to be considered a fairly 

 good weight, but that would hardly do at 

 the present time. New York requires 11 

 pounds specific gi^avity for a gallon of ma- 

 l^le syrup, and such syrup is much thinner 

 than any honey I ever could bring myself to 

 think suitable for market. One of the rea- 

 sons for not making maple syrup heavier 

 than this is that a heavier article will sugar 

 or crystallize in the can. This is something 

 not to be tolerated, as where such sugar 

 syrup is stored in glass jars the result is 

 that the jars are almost always broken m 

 trying to remove it. But with honey, the 

 thicker it is the less liable it is to candy or 

 granulate. Average extracted honey here in 

 central New York runs about 12 lbs. to the 

 gallon. At least after repeated weighing 

 for years, I have been in the habit of filling 

 a quart can and calling it three pounds. 



