22 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



Amid mucli laughter the subject was 

 hiid on the table, and the next order of 

 the day taken up ; viz. : an essay by Mr. 

 C. P. Dadant, ou 



EXTUACTKD HOXKY. 



Comb honey is nice, but it is a fancy 

 article, and is too costly for the gen- 

 eral public who want an article not 

 costing more than sugar, with which it 

 competes, and if honey can be supplied 

 as cheaply as sugar, it will, to a large 

 extent, supersede it. In their exper- 

 ience, their sales had largely increased, 

 and the home market now readily con- 

 sumes all their crop. Extracting honey 

 checks swarming, without a doubt. It 

 enables the apiarist to take care of a 

 larger number of colonies. A larger 

 quantity of honey can be obtained, and 

 much outlay for coml)s, crates and 

 boxes is saved. Mr. Dadant considered 

 it a mistake to suppose that there is an 

 over-production of honey. It is only 

 beginning to be considered a staple. 

 When honey is as common on the tables 

 of the farmer, and even laborer, as 

 sugar, and when it is found as common 

 by the keg and barrel in wholesale 

 stores as sugar, then only shall we pro- 

 duce as much honey as the country can 

 use. The revolution in beekeeping of 

 which Father LangstroUi speaks has 

 come into efl'ect, but beekeepers are 

 only beginning to find out all the ad- 

 vantages and all the growth which the 

 bee-business must derive from the in- 

 vention. 



Dr. Mason described his method of 

 getting extracted honey, but com- 

 plained that he could nofget more than 

 ()5 pounds per colony. He was asked 

 how many combs he used, and replied, 

 "eight." 



Mr. C. F. Muth could not compre- 

 hend how the Doctor could manage 

 with so few frames. He wanted at 

 least ten frames for the brood-nest, and 

 then another story for extracting. Even 

 his bees, kept on the house-lop in the 

 city of Cincinnati, had given him aver- 

 ages double and even treble what Dr. 

 Mason had obtained, and from hives in 

 the country Avhere tliey had not so far 

 to fly, he got far more honey. 



Mr. W. E. Clark said that the Presi- 

 dent had been the most successful pro- 

 ducer of extracted honey in the east, 

 and he would call on him to explain his 

 methods. 



Pres. Root, in response, said that it 

 was perfectly true, as Mr. Clark had 

 said, that Mr. Doolittle's requisites for 

 producing comb honey were just as 

 applicable to the production of ex- 



tracted honey. A good queen, for 

 example, was just as necessary for the 

 one as the other. In both cases wise 

 manipulation was needed, and it takes a 

 large amount of study to know what is 

 wise manipulation. Certainly we must 

 have large colonies of bees "to gather 

 the honey, then we must extract it at 

 the time when it can be done to the 

 best advantage and with the least hin- 

 drance to the bees. It was hard to lay 

 down specific rules— every beekeeper 

 must be a law to himself, and tind out 

 the methods best adapted to his own 

 locality. Pixperience must be bought 

 by practice, and at a considerable ex- 

 pense ; he only hoped that it would not 

 cost others as much as it had cost him. 

 Pres. Root gave the stereotyped direc- 

 tions for the production of extracted 

 honey, but said that these were subject 

 to modification in individual cases. 



Mr. S. T. Pettit gave his experience 

 iu producing extracted honey. He 

 liad missed it by not leaving the honey 

 in the hive long enough to ripen. One 

 season his honey was all of an infer- 

 ior quality, owing to this cause. He 

 did not believe that we could ripen the 

 honey as well as the bees themselves 

 do it. He said that we should have at 

 least one-third of the honey capped 

 before extracting, and he believed it 

 was better if all was capped over. 



Rev. L. L. Langstroth did nol know 

 that he could add much to the ocean 

 of intelligence that was tiding all 

 around, but he wished to say a word 

 or two. He believed there Avere 

 many things that the bees could do — 

 certain things belter than we can — 

 and ripening honey was one of them. 

 There was too much artificial work iu 

 beekeeping. One beekeeper had in- 

 vented nippers to pull dead bees out 

 of the cells, but live bees would do it 

 better. 



Dr. Mason said that the " big-bugs" 

 of the Convention had been poking fun 

 at him for getting only sixty-five 

 pounds of honey per colony, but they 

 would find it impossible to get an av- 

 erage of three hundred pounds in his 

 locality — a city on one side and a wil- 

 derness on the other. Small as his 

 average yield was, it was larger than 

 that of any of his neighbors. He 

 wished that his critics would show 

 him how to produce three hundred 

 pounds per colony, but the trouble 

 was, as Mr. Clarke said, they did not 

 care to disclose their secrets. 



Rev. W. F\ Clarke wished to ask if 

 formic acid in honey was not the ele- 

 ment which gave it its keeping quali- 



