AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



185 



Queries ajid Replies. 



Fermentation of Comli-Honey, 



Query 751.— My honey-house is made 

 entirely of wood, with floor quite up from 

 the ground. It has side-shelves on which 

 to store the honey in crates, made of slats, 

 to secure thorough ventilation ; yet with 

 the best care I can bestow, I find over 300 

 pounds of my gilt-edged honey spoiled for 

 the market, by fermentation. In lifting 

 the honey from the hives, in July, I found 

 the same state of things on some of the 

 strongest colonies. Why is this, and 

 whence comes this damaging condition 'i — 

 Ohio. 



I do not know. — H. D. Cutting. 



I simply do not know.— J. M. Ham- 



BAUGH. 



I give it up. Without knowing any- 

 thing more about it, I should suspect the 

 source of the honey.— C. C. Millee. 



Your honey-house certainly lacks suf- 

 ficient ventilation, and accumulates too 

 much dampness. — P. L. Vialloist. 



I cannot tell at this distance, unless 

 the sections had comb in them, kept over 

 from last year.— E. L. Taylor. 



Quite likely the trouble was more with 

 the prior quality, or watery condition of 

 the honey than with the house. — J. P. H. 

 Brown. 



It is evidently in the season, both as 

 regards the nectar-secretion and the 

 condition of the atmosphere on the 

 honey, direct. — James Heddon. 



On account of dampness. Formerly I 

 had much trouble in this way. ^ A hot, 

 dry and airy place suits honey the best. 

 — Mrs. L. Harrison. 



Dampness, L suppose. I presume a 

 little fire in the honey-house, occasion- 

 ally, would have been a good thing ; or, 

 perhaps, the ventilation is not perfect. — 

 Eugene Secor. 



The honey was harvested very fast 

 and sealed before it was ripe. This hap- 

 pens in some seasons, when the honey 

 is very watery during harvest. — Dadant 

 & Son. 



The room was too cool and damp. If 

 the honey had remained longer on the 

 hives it would have been less likely to 

 ferment, though, possibly, it would have 

 been soiled some by the bees. — A.J.Cook. 



Who can tell ? I cannot, from the 

 data given. As a "Yankee" I could 



guess ; but the guess would be a guess 

 only, and the chances are that it would 

 be wrong.— J. E. Pond. 



Your honey-room is not warm enough. 

 Keep the temperature from 85o to 100^ 

 by artificial heat or otherwise. The 

 honey on your hives did not ferment, but 

 was capped "watery" by the bees.— G. 



M. DOOLITTLE. 



I believe it to bo due to the very damp 

 weather we had in Ohio all through the 

 season. A stove should have been put 

 into the honey-house, to be fired up, on 

 damp days. If the honey-house had 

 been kept dry and well ventilated, no 

 honey would have spoiled in it.— G. L. 

 Tinker. 



Your honey-house is probably all right, 

 and the trouble is with the honey. In 

 wet weather, the honey gathered is quite 

 thin, and the bees often cap it when it 

 will not keep. If such honey is stored 

 in fully-drawn combs, it is much more 

 liable to spoil, and the bees themselves 

 cannot prevent it.— C. H. Dibbern. 



Unless I had a more perfect knowledge 

 of the facts, I could not answer. I guess 

 that your hives were not sufficiently 

 ventilated, and that the honey, when 

 sealed, was thin. Ventilation in the top 

 of the hive, above the sections, improves 

 the quality of the honey more than any 

 one, who has not tried it, can imagine. 

 — M. Mahin. 



I have noticed for a number of years 

 that the state of the atmosphere at the 

 time the honey is being gathered and 

 cured by the bees, has much to do with 

 the quality of the honey. I can tell, the 

 minute the uncapping knife opens the 

 cells, if any fermentation is present. If, 

 when the cells are exposed, little bead- 

 like bubbles are visible to the eye, there 

 is more or less of the fermentation pres- 

 ent, and the honey should be kept by 

 itself. In the past season I had about 

 100 pounds of honey, including two sec- 

 tion-cases of comb, that showed slight 

 fermentation when taken from the hives 

 and tested. Fortunately it is a rare 

 occurrence, for there is no remedy for it. 

 Whether the fermentation in such cases 

 begins while the nectar is exposed to the 

 atmosphere in the tubes of the flowers, 

 or after the bees have collected and 

 stored it in the combs, will probably 

 never be known. According to my ex- 

 perience, honey of good quality, free 

 from fermentation when taken from the 

 hive, will not spoil when kept in a place 

 like that described by the querist, though 

 the comb may condense moisture, or 

 "sweat," as we express it, and damage 



