142 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



placed against the wall. In placing 

 the sections, where they are piled from 

 four to six feet high, care must be 

 taken that they stand square upon 

 eacli other so that the weight will not 

 crusli the sections. 



To keep the sections bright and 

 clean, in case any should drip, I use a 

 strip of paper between every tier, as 

 they are piled on. For one pound sec- 

 tions, cut the paper six inches wide, 

 as that will give a projection of one 

 inch over the sections on both sides. 

 Newspapers are good enough for this 

 purpose, and will pay for the trouble 

 of using them, for every section is kept 

 dry and clean. I place the tiers about 

 three inches apart, so there will be a 

 free circulation of air, and place the 

 sections in the tier close together. 

 Keep all sections where the capping 

 is stained from old comb, and all that 

 may contain bee-bread, out of the gen- 

 eral pile, for such sections are the ones 

 that the worms will thrive in, and may 

 need looking after. As the pile in- 

 creases in size carry in a few dozen 

 spiders, and drop them in between the 

 tiers of sections, and they will get a 

 living there, and do no harm to the 

 honey, as all their webs will be be- 

 tween the sections and attached to the 

 papers, and if a worm gets large 

 enough to move, it will be sure to be 

 picked up by the first spider that sees 

 it, and tliey are always on the lookout 

 for a square meal. This way of keep- 

 ing honey has kept mine for many 

 years bright and clean, and quite often 

 I commence taking olf honey the first 

 of July, and keeping it until late in 

 November. The room should be used 

 for no other purpose, and of course it 

 should be free from flies and dust. 

 Use screens at all windows, so that 

 the bees cannot trouble in fine weather. 

 The sections should be cleaned from 

 bee-glue, and all ready for glassing be- 

 fore carrying in, but the glass should 

 not be put on until ready to case and 

 ship. 



•1. To get the bees from sections, I 

 used swarm-catchers, for the bees to 

 come out into. 



I place an empty honey-rack on the 

 ground, about four feet in front of the 

 hive, then take off the honey, all there 

 is, one, two or three sets of sections, 

 and place it on the empty honey-rack, 

 then set a catcher over it, and in a 

 short time all the bees will be in the 

 catcher, and can be dumped down in 

 front of the hive, and the honey taken 

 care of. By using eight or ten catch- 

 ers, one can make short work in tak- 



ing off the honey at the close of the 

 season. In the honey season, when 

 taking: off tilled sections to make room 

 for more, there is no need of protect- 

 ing the honey from the bees; all I do 

 is to take off the sections and shake 

 the bees in front of the hive, clean the 

 sections of all bee glue and carry it to 

 the honey room at once. 



There may be better ways for tak- 

 ing off honey, and caring for it, for sev- 

 eral months, but I have never seen 

 any in the market that looks brighter 

 than mine, and I have told you how I 

 have kept it. 



EXTRACTING, CURING AND CARE OF 

 EXTRACTED HONEY. 



1. Do you commence to extract be- 

 fore the new honey is capped? If so, 

 how do you cure the honey and prevent 

 it from fermenting? 



2. What will you do in case the 

 honey does begin to-ferment? 



3. Does not heating honey to a high 

 temperature (say, the boiling point) 

 destroy its flavor? 



4. How do you liquefy candied honey 

 and at same time preserve its original 

 flavor? 



ANSWERS BY G. W. DEMARKE. 



1. I do not extract until the honey 

 is all sealed, and properly evaporated 

 in the hive, although such leading 

 apiarists as L. C. Koot succeed well 

 by artiticial evaporation. In my opin- 

 ion, the safest way is to let the bees 

 prepare it for keeping. I believe the 

 defects of the old system, viz. : em- 

 ploying a full, upper story for full 

 sized standard frames, and the mis- 

 taken plan of extracting from the brood 

 chamber, suggested the necessity of 

 artificial evaporation. I saw this diflS- 

 culty besetting the old system years 

 ago, and to counteract its disadvan- 

 tages, 1 resorted to artificial evapora- 

 tion. I found that during settled, dry 

 weather artiticial evaporation suc- 

 ceeded well, but if the weather was 

 damp and showery, it did not succeed 

 so well, in fact, artificial heat was nec- 

 essary at times. After a fair trial, on 

 a small scale, however, I found it to 

 be cheaper and safer to employ bee 

 labor throughout the whole process of 

 curing the honey. This led to my 

 shallow-case system, on the tiering-up 

 plan. My extracting cases are so 

 made that the frames are stationary 

 when handling them, and I manipulate 

 them without ever moving a fiame, 



