78 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



empty combs inside, are piled upon one 

 another till sun down, when they are re- 

 turned to the bees and left on tlie hives till 

 about the last of September. We extract 

 from 1,000 to 2,500 lbs. a day, according to 

 the abundance of the crop. 



For storing the crop we use alcohol barrels. 

 As they are coated inside with glue they 

 never leak. We keep these barrels either in 

 our cellar or in our barn ; or rather in l)oth, 

 especially when we have, as last year, more 

 than eighty of them to house. Since our 

 first year of extracting, we were opposed to 

 the idea of selling liquid honey in winter. 

 Most of our customers are now so convinced 

 that all pure honey candies in winter that 

 they would consider liquid extracted honey 

 as adulterated. 



If all the bee keepers had tried and insist- 

 ed as we did, to overcome the prejudice of 

 the consumer, there would not be more dif- 

 ficulty, in this country as in Europe, in sell- 

 ing granulated honey. What we have done 

 others can do. Unfortunately the editors of 

 most of our bee journals advise their readers 

 to liquify their honey before delivering it. 

 They do not consider that this liquified 

 honey, unless boiled and deteriorated by the 

 heat, will granulate again, sometimes in less 

 than a week, either in the store or in the 

 cupboard of the consumer, who will imagine 

 that he was cheated. No worse advise could 

 be given, for it has caused to the bee keepers 

 who followed it more vexation than a frank 

 statement of the changes experienced by 

 honey in a low temperature. If a consumer 

 desires liquid honey he can easily liquify it 

 by putting the can in warm water. ^Ve give 

 this direction on our labels. 



As to the idea o!' the editor that extracted 

 honey is not as good as the drippings of 

 comb honey, we are sure that some of these 

 drippings, after winter, are far from being 

 equal to our extracted honey, since we put it 

 directly in tight and bunged barrels. For 

 years we have granulated honey on our table 

 at every meal ; sometimes our ladies take 

 the trouble of melting some of it for a 

 change ; we are our largest retail consumers. 



Hamilton, 111., April 2(!, IBSX). 



Producing Extracted Honey by the "Whole- 

 sale " in California.— How the Work 

 is Done. 



J. F. m'iNTYBE. 



^ITH our present knowledge and 

 j[Y system of producing comb honey, 

 I think the production of extract- 

 ed honey is less complicated. 

 The swarming question does not cut any 

 figure in the production of extracted honey, 

 while it is the great bugbear in the produc- 

 tion of comb honey. Nearly all the money 

 I have made in the last fifteen years has 

 come through the honey extractor. I aim to 

 produce the greatest possible amount of 

 good honey at the least expense, and have 

 got it down where I can produce thirty to 

 forty tons in a good year with the help of 

 one man fifty days. I say good honey be- 

 cause the same amount of labor would pro- 



duce a much greater quantity of poor, thin 

 honey, and a much smaller quantity of that 

 superior article which has been thoroughly 

 ripened and flavored in "the aroma-laden 

 atmosphere of the hive." I agree with all 

 you say about the honey getting its best 

 flavor from the bees, and for my own use I 

 like to leave it on the hive about three 

 months. I do not think it would be practi- 

 cal, however, to produce such a fine grade of 

 honey for the general market, on account of 

 the extra labor, and the large number of 

 super combs required to hold the honey 

 while it is being evaporated and flavored. 



All of my supers are full-story, and in a 

 good season I extract each one five or six 

 times, once every eight days, if the weather 

 is fine. That is about the length of time it 

 takes the bees to fill a super and seal it about 

 half way down. To leave all the honey on 

 the hives until the crop is at an end, as the 

 Dadauts do, would be out of the question 

 here, as it would require five or six full-story 

 supers for each hive, to hold it : then each 

 one of those supers would weigh sixty lbs. 

 gross, and to lift up four or five of them and 

 put an empty one under would be quite a 

 task. You say, "Just notice with how little 

 labor this can be managed." I can't see it. 

 Then your superfine honey would not bring 

 one-quarter of a cent per pound more than 

 honey extracted when half sealed over and 

 evaporated in tanks. 



I believe it is better to make a specialty 

 of either extracted or comb honey, than to 

 try to produce both, because, if a man adopts 

 the best hive, and outfit, for one, he will not 

 have the best for the other. I know it is 

 better to have a larger brood chamber for 

 extracted honey, than is best for comb honey. 



I am trying the bee-escapes but am not 

 yet satisfied that 1 can save time and labor 

 by their use. My home apiary outfit consists 

 of 4,'>0 colonies in two-story, ten-frame Lang- 

 stroth hives, with zinc queen-excluders be- 

 tween super and brood-chamber. There are 

 two honey carts, each of which holds four 

 supers full of honey, and these carts are run 

 right into the honey house. ( )ne man ex- 

 tracts the honey from the cart inside, while 

 the other fills the one outside. It takes from 

 fifteen to twenty minutes to fill a cart and 

 about the same time to extract it. The un- 

 capping box is about six feet long, two wide 

 and two deep, and lined witli tin. A screen 

 holds the cappings up from the bottom and 

 allows the honey to drain off, while a pipe in 

 one end allows the honey to run into a 

 strainer sitting on the floor, at the end of 

 tlie box. The extractor is a four-coml) re- 

 versible in which the four comb-baskets re- 

 verse at the same time without hitting each 

 other. The honey from the extractor also 

 passes into the strainer mentioned above, 

 and from the strainer to the galvanized iron 

 tanks outside. I have five tanks : one holds 

 14,000 lbs, and the other four 7,000 lbs. each. 

 These tanks are covered with cloth to keep 

 out dust, yet allow evaporation. Each tank 

 has a molasses gate at the bottom to draw 

 ofl" the honey into five gallon cans, with 

 screw caps. 



After the honey has drained from the cap- 

 pings, they are put into the sun extractor, a 



