276 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



The next essay was by D. White, 

 as follows : 



PRODUCTION, CAKE AND SAI,E OF EX- 

 TRACTED HONEY. 



I received a notice from Mr. New- 

 man, a few days .since, saying we 

 shall depend npon you for that part of 

 the programme, namely: "Tlie Pro- 

 duction, care and sale of extracted 

 honey." I believe this subject should 

 be discussed freely, and, no doubt, 

 some one else could have been selected 

 that could come nearer doing justice 

 to the subject than myself. 



For the past three years it has been 

 my hobby to procure' almost entirely 

 extracted honey. The first season I 

 took all my honey from brood-cham- 

 ber. Second season, from brood- 

 chamber, and some from surplus 

 chamber. At the commencement of 

 the season, or when I commenced ex- 

 tracting, would take all I could get 

 from each colony, but after that com- 

 menced, being careful by taking about 

 half each, so on until the last work 

 was to take only one side comb from 

 each colony ; this I would keep up as 

 long as they were able to fill the empty 

 comb. This was my plan of working 

 safe, and in case the honey How should 

 shut off (as it frequently does without 

 any warning), I would have plenty of 

 honey left for winter purposes. 



I fancy a great many who have used 

 an extractor, have done so without 

 using any judgment. Hence, their 

 bees were compelled to go into winter 

 quarters with nothing but late un- 

 sealed stores, and the consequences 

 were heavy losses during the winter. 

 The honey procured during the two 

 seasons mentioned, was about 7.5 

 pounds to the colony, on an average, 

 each season. I was obliged to work 

 ■very hard, and compelled to visit a 

 hive too often ; but had no notion of 

 going back to comb honey. I use 

 chaff hives that take Langstroth 

 frames, 10 frames below and 13 above, 

 and, last spring, 1 was ready with 

 enough wired frames filled with foun- 

 dation to fill the surplus chambers to 

 80 hives. 



We must take into consideration 

 the amount of comb work that had to 

 be done ; about 1,000 sheets of foun- 

 dation was worked into comb. My 

 extracting, last season, was entirely 

 from above, and I procured enough 

 honey so that I sold 8,000 pounds with 

 enough left to winter— and 1,000 

 pounds held in the combs to use this 

 spring, if needed — I call this a reserve, 

 and expect hereafter to have plenty 

 of honey in the same shape every 

 spring. "The bees gathered it, and if 

 they fail to need it to carry them until 

 the honey comes again, they will cer- 

 tainly have enough, so that the first 

 day's work they do will be done for 

 me. I weighed what I extracted from 

 one of my strongest working colonies 

 and it gave me 213 pounds, and I 

 think I had several that did equally 

 as well. 



My theory, to procure plenty of ex- 

 tracted honey, is first, strong colonies; 

 second, plenty of room for the bees to 

 work, and the next thing is for the 

 bee-keeper to roll up his sleeves and 

 work too. It is no place to put a man 



that does not like to work. I was en- 

 tirely alone with my 80 colonies last 

 season, and I worked hard enough so 

 that only 3 colonies cast natural 

 swarms. 



1 do not tell this, wanting you to 

 think that 1 like to work so dreadful 

 well — for 1 do not — but, last season, I 

 was forced. 1 think I am safe when 

 I say I could have procured at least 

 1,000 pounds more honey than I did, 

 had I had good help ; that is. I lacked 

 that much of working the bees for all 

 there was in them. This loss came 

 from not getting around to extract 

 the second and third times as soon as 

 I should, by from three to four days, 

 which makes a great loss, when be- 

 hind that way on a large apiary. 



I believe we all want to make this 

 business as remunerative as possible. 

 I read and hear a great many splendid 

 leports from men that produce en- 

 tirely corab honey ; am glad to know 

 that such is the case. I believe it our 

 duty to supply the demand for both 

 comb and extracted honey. It would 

 be too much like all belonging to one 

 church for us all to procure one kind 

 of honey. 



We that procure extracted honey 

 must get about double the weight that 

 our brother bee-keepers do that pro- 

 cure comb honey. If we fail to do 

 this, they will get more money than 

 we do. Then another thing we must 

 make up our mind to do ; we must 

 work harder than they do, for while 

 we are working early and late, carry- 

 ing heavy combs 'and wielding and 

 uncapping knife, they are doing what 

 I call put:ering around, hiveing now 

 and then a swarm, and the rest of the 

 time waiting for section boxes to be 

 filled and completed. We do not want 

 to make them feel bad, and do not 

 think we shall, but I believe we have 

 got a large per cent, the advantage 

 over them in a short honey flow, and 

 I believe it the characteristic of this 

 section of the country to usually give 

 us short seasons. 



Now, suppose we have plenty of 

 nice straight combs in wired frames 

 (and they must be wired for we do 

 not want the combs tumbling out and 

 smashing to pieces), and we have 

 filled our surplus room, ready for the 

 first honey to be found in white clover 

 — all our bees have to do the en- 

 tire season is to gather honey and de- 

 posit it in our empty combs — then I 

 believe bees will work stronger on 

 large combs than on small combs in 

 section boxes. It must be an ex- 

 tremely short season if we cannot ex- 

 tract, at least on an average, 75 pounds 

 to the jolony of good, ripe honey — 13 

 combs once filled will more than do 

 this. Now, how would it be with SO 

 pound sections in one of these hives ; 

 a few completed out of the number 

 ready for market, and the rest all the 

 way from not being touched at all to 

 half and two-thirds completed, and a 

 lot of unsalable nubs, I call them 'i 

 This is in a short honey flow, under- 

 stand, and season shut off, leaving 

 everything as I have tried to explain it. 



I may be wrong, but we are here to 

 learn, if possible, from each other, 

 and if we can tread on the toes of our 

 brother bee-keepers that procure cotub 



honey, it may be the means of fetch- 

 ing out something that will be a 

 benefit and do us all good. I believe 

 there are too many men that keep 

 bees that think they know it all. Any 

 how, it seems to be my lot to run 

 across such men ; especially men that 

 have always kept bees and will not try 

 to learn what they call new-fangled 

 things. I'ou will see these men with 

 a rag rolled up for a smoker and drum- 

 ming a tin pan when a swarm is out. 

 I mention this, for I believe we are 

 never too old to learn. When I first 

 conunenced with bees I learned to 

 play quite well on a tin pan, cut ofiE 

 virgin queens' wings, and several 

 things that I do not do now. 



Care of extracted honey occupies 

 but little of ray time. I have tin cans, 

 capacity about -500 pounds, with large 

 gate to draw out the honey. I tie 

 over cans securely, cheese capping 

 cloth, letting it bag enough to hold a 

 large pail full ; and when that much 

 comes from extractor, I carry it into a 

 dry honey house and empty into cheese 

 cloth to strain, while I am filling the 

 next pail of honey. I believe it a 

 good plan to store in 10, 15 and 25 

 pound cases ready for market. Ex- 

 tracted honey will candy in from 4 to 

 6 weeks after extracting, and I be- 

 lieve it will not be very long before it 

 will sell best in a candied state, es- 

 pecially when people learn that c.mdy- 

 ing is a positive proof that it is pure 

 unadulterated honey. We know of 

 no other liquid sweet that will candy. 

 Candied honey can be put back to a 

 liquid state by warming gradually, as 

 often as desired, without injuring the 

 flavor, but must not come to a boiling 

 point. 



The sale of extracted honey seems 

 to be the great trouble with some, but 

 I believe it can be more readily sold 

 than comb honey, and in very much 

 larger quantities, for the following 

 reasons : It is sold for about half the 

 price of comb honey, and comes w-ith- 

 in the reach of every family. But the 

 most important thing of all is, never 

 to sell a poor article. Never extract a 

 comb unless it is sealed as nice as any 

 section-box honey. It takes elbow 

 grease, and will give most anybody 

 the backache. But we must come to 

 it, if we expect to build up a trade on 

 extracted honey. 



It is very easy work to empty combs 

 of thin, unsealed honey, and not a 

 very hard task to extract when only 

 half of the combs have to be gone 

 over with an uncapping knife ; but my 

 opinion is to not sell such honey. I 

 do not believe any one can build up 

 an extensive trade with such stuff, 

 and know he cannot if he comes up in 

 my territory. I have built up a good 

 trade, and have done so with a first- 

 class article. 



About 4,000 pounds were taken from 

 my door, last season, by customers 

 that came with pails, cans, crocks and 

 jugs to carry it in, and they kept com- 

 ing long after my honey was all gone. 

 I had a wagon on the road peddling 

 about one week, and could dispose or 

 about 300 pounds a day in this way. 

 Go where you will, you will find more 

 or less peo))le down on strained honey, 

 as they call it ; but my plan from the 



