70 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



April, 



will cli'sappear before June and in its 

 place yon will have a rousing swarm,' 

 ready to take advantage of the honey 

 flow* when it comes. It is surprising 

 how those gi-eat solid slab* of honey 

 will disappear during tue height of the 

 breeding season of spring, with a good 

 prolific queen; and when bees were 

 properly wintered I have never seen a 

 colony where they had so much honey 

 that it was a detriment to them dur- 

 ing the spring. 



The gentleman over the river had 

 evidently not handled his bees to the 

 best advantage during the season, or 

 they would not have been clogged 

 with honey so that they had no room 

 to breed up for winter. If he had 

 made his supers a little more attract- 

 ive by gi'i'lng them some bait sections, 

 and had used full sheets of foundation 

 in his sections and thus got them to 

 work, as he should, he would not have 

 had this trouble. Bet a cooky his 

 comb honey crop was short. 



Remus, Mich., Feb. 11, 1905. 



THE RIPENING OF HONEY. 



By Adrian Getaz. 



IN THE Bee-Keeping World De- 

 partment of this paper, is an 

 item translated from the Revue 

 Eclectique concerning the experiments 

 of Mr. Huillon on the ripening of 

 honey in the hive; Or rather, on the 

 evaporation of the surplus watex% for 

 it must be remembered that the ripen- 

 ing of the honey means more than 

 mere evaporation. 



To vsay that I was a-stounded at the 

 results obtained, or if you prefer, the 

 assertions made, would not be a great 

 exaggeration by any means. I did 

 not realize the full impoii; of them un- 

 til the second reading. Then I hesi- 

 tated. But I had already commenced 

 the translation and the articles really 

 worth trauvslating are very few in 

 number and far apart in time; soi I 

 finally decided to let it go in. 



Since then I have lost some sleep, 

 studying the matter and have aiTived 

 at some conclusions. But let us first 

 recall Mr. Huillon's experiments. He 

 gave three colonies new sets of empty 

 combs early in the morning, taking 

 a-\vay all those that contained honey. 

 The combs of colony No. 1 were taken 

 up as soon as the day's work was clos- 

 ed. Those of colony No. 2 were not 



taken out until early the next morning. 

 Colony No. 3 was shut in the cellar 

 three days and then the combs taken 

 out. The honey was extracted from 

 all, and the density ascertained. The 

 honey, or nectar, of colony No. 1 Avas 

 found of a density of 1.394. That 

 from colony No. 2 1.413 and that from 

 colony No. 3 1.432. This last is some- 

 what heavier than the fully ripened 

 honey i« generally which is 1.424. 

 Admitting that this last contains 2C 

 per cent of water and 80 per cent ol 

 sugars (sucrose, dextrose and levulose; 

 and calculating the percentage of thf 

 others from their densities, we fim 

 that the nectar or honey at the end o) 

 the very day it has been gathered con 

 tains already 74 per cent of sugars anc 

 only 26 per cent of water. By nex 

 morning the percentage is reduced t( 

 22 per cent of water and a day or tW( 

 later it is ripe honey so far as evapor 

 ation is concerned. 



Evaporation. 



This 20 per cent of water at the em 

 of the first day is what stunned m( 

 The nectar as found in the flower 

 contains only 20 per cent of sugars an 

 So per cent of water. To bring i 

 down to 26 per cent of water, it : 

 necessary that over nine tenths of th 

 water originally contained in the ne( 

 tar should be evaporated. 



That's not all. Evidently thes 

 figures represent the average for tb 

 whole day's gathering. As the las 

 gathered could not have the time t 

 evaporate, the rest must be sufficien 

 ly advanced to make it up. In fac 

 most of it should be completely evi 

 porated within a few hours after bt 

 ing brought in. That is simply impoi 

 sible. Even with the help of the be* 

 boiling apparatus and a brisk fir 

 such a reduction could not be made. 



We are then confronted, not by 

 theory but by an impossible conditioj 

 Either Mr. Huillon committed a 

 egregious blunder, or the trae e: 

 planation lies in another direction. '. 

 is not likely that Mr. Huillon made 

 mistake. All that he had to do w£ 

 to measure one liter of the honey an 

 weigh it. The weight in grains wou) 

 give the density at once since one Iit( 

 of water weights one thousand gram 



Some corrections might be introdu 

 ed. The honey having a density < 

 1.424 might not be exactly 20 pi 

 cent of water. The nectar gathers 



