GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1 



A" farm boiler can be purchased for perhaps 

 $25. In the absence of anything to furnish 

 steam, the arrangement next shown by A. 

 J. Burns would be very satisfactory.— Ed.] 



WARMING HONEY IN A LARGE TANK 

 B the Use of an Oil-stove. 



BY A, J. BURNS. 



I have read with interest Mr. Greiner's 

 method of warming honey, page 597, and 

 quite agree with him on the desirableness of 

 warming honey before being drawn from the 

 tank. We used to have a saying back in 

 Ohio, "Slow as molasses in winter. ' ' I found 

 that honey, thick as mine is, is so slow, even 

 in this warm country, that my patience ran 

 out long before the honey would; and while 

 my honey goes through a screen with meshes 

 six to the inch in the bottom of the extractor, 

 to keep chunks of comb out of the pipe that 

 conducts the honey into the tank in the 

 basement. As it leaves the pipe it passes 

 through a fine wire screen, thence through 

 a pretty heavy cheese-cloth before it drops 

 into the tank ; and even then enough particles 

 of comb go through to cloud the honey very 

 much, and it takes a number of days stand- 

 ing to bring all this to the top. Three or 

 four years ago I finally hit upon a plan that 

 I like better than Mr. Greiner's, which is 

 shown in the accompanying drawing. Mr. 

 Greiner's tank, when full, weighs 400 pounds; 

 mine, when full, weighs 4000, which weight 

 must have a solid, smooth bottom to rest on. 





I heat with hot water, which almost entirely 

 obviates the danger of burning or over-heat- 

 ing. In brief, my tank has a double bottom 

 in which are arranged a series of partitions, 

 which, in connection with a coil of pipe out- 

 side the tank, under which I put a wickless 

 oil-stove, I keep a current of hot water 

 passing continually between the bottoms, 

 much upon the plan of a water-back and 

 pressure boiler used in furnishing hot water 

 in houses, but I don't need the pressure 

 boiler. 

 Lusardi, Cal. 



[The plan of your honey-tank to be heat- 

 ed with hot water is excellent, although I 

 must say that I am surprised that so small 

 a stove would be capable of heating or warm- 

 ing up 4000 lbs. But if you have tried it, 

 and it works (and I have no reason to doubt 

 your word), then any one else can safely 

 make one like it. A honey-heater like yours, 

 or the one illustrated above, would be a very 

 valuable adjunct to an apiary, especially 

 where large crops of honey are produced. 

 Generally speaking, an oblong or square 

 tank is much more expensive to make than 

 a round one of the same capacity. The 

 same method of heating could be applied to 

 a round tank as well as to one oblong like 

 the one here shown. —Ed.] 



A GOOD HONEY-STRAINER. 



Honey-evaporating Tanks ; Importance of Not 

 Extracting too Close; a New and En- 

 larged Building. 



BY E. W. ALEXANDER. 



This is one of the handiest and best strain- 

 ers that was ever used for straining honey. 

 A tin-smith can make them by cutting off 

 the top of a stout tin pail 2 inches, then 

 make a frame of folded strips of tin, solder- 

 ing these strips to the top rim of the pail 

 you cut oif , then line the inside of this frame 

 with the same fine copper wire cloth that is 

 used for milk-strainers, and you will have a 

 strainer that will never clog or run over, as 

 the honey can run through the sides all 

 around as well as the bottom, and it will 

 take out every particle of foreign matter 

 from your honey, and with proper care will 

 last a lifetime. I now have three that I 

 had made over 25 years ago and they are 

 apparently good for 25 years more. The 

 way we use these strainers is this. Our 

 honey-tanks are covered with sheeting ex- 

 cept about two feet at one end; this has a 

 board on with a hole cut in the center that 

 will let the strainer go down through as far 

 as the rim that has the wire cloth fastened 

 to. Then the pipe that conveys the honey to 

 the tanks has an elbow on, that we turn 

 down over the strainer. This conducting 

 pipe is made in sections about 12 feet long, 

 of heavy tin, and has a bore of about 2 inches. 

 We keep it painted on the outside to pre- 

 vent rusting. Now when all is ready we 

 start the extractor and our honey is deliver- 

 ed and strained into the tanks and we don't 

 have to pay any attention to it whatever. 

 This way of handling large quantities of 

 honey is one of the corners we must cut 

 which I spoke of in my last article. 



Now in regard to these buildings you saw 

 in last issue. They are cheap and movable, 

 put together with iron bolts, and were used 

 years ago in our out-yards, when I had that 

 foolish idea that, in order to get good results 

 from our bees, it was necessary to have 

 them scattered around the country, in apia- 

 ries of only about 100 colonies in each. But 



