80 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



when that honey shower begins to fall you 

 are ready for it. 



When little bits of white comb are being 

 built along the top bars of the brood frames, 

 put on a slatted honey board, or, better 

 still, a queen excluder, and one set of ex- 

 tracting combs. When these are two-thirds 

 tilled, raise them up and slip in another 

 set of empty combs. Repeat the process 

 until two days before basswood opens, and, 

 in the afternoon, take enough Reese, or other 

 bee escapes, to go on one-half the colonies. 

 Raise all supers, place an escape with a set 

 of empty combs under each lot, and let them 

 rest until the next morning, when the coml)S 

 will be found free of bees and can be car- 

 ried into the honey house, extracted and 

 returned to the hives ready for the basswood 

 flow. The next day repeat the process with 

 the balance of the colonies. Care should be 

 taken not to allow buckwheat to become 

 mixed with the basswood, as that would spoil 

 all the basswood as white honey. With me, 

 basswood opens about the 8th of July and 

 lasts six to ten days. Sometimes buckwheat 

 opens about the same time, but bees will not 

 notice it until basswood closes, then the 

 white honey must be hustled off quick. 



Fall or dark honey I treat in the same 

 way. When taking it off I see that each 

 brood chamber is well supplied with winter 

 stores, and those that are short I give frames 

 of sealed honey. After extracting all honey 

 from the surplus combs I return them to 

 colonies to clean up, which they will do in a 

 day or two, then I take them otf and store 

 them away secure from mice. 



The extractor, I wish to be reversible and 

 to carry eight of the shallow combs : to hold 

 from three to four hundred pounds under 

 the basket. I draw off into tall, tin, settling 

 tanks holding six to eight hundred pounds 

 each. All bits of comb and other impurities 

 will raise to the top and are skimmed off. 

 Let the honey stand two or three days, then 

 draw off from the bottom into small pack- 

 ages for the market. 



By this process I have always been able to 

 secure A No. 1 honey, such as will command 

 the highest market price and hold customers. 



Glenwood, Mich., April 2G, 1890. 



When to Extract. 



DAN. WHITE. 



*ILL it do for me to find fault with 

 Prof. Cook's advice. When to Ex- 

 tract Honey ? In your issue of 

 Nov., 188!), he says he always ex- 

 tracts the early honey before it is capped. 

 He says it is more easily done and saves 

 uncapping. We can all agree on that {loint. 

 Possibly Prof. Cook is careful to put such 

 honey in open vessels and see that it is just 

 right before any of it gets in the consumer's 

 hands. Possibly his honey is hard to tell 

 from other that has been capped for a month 

 before extracting. I am aware that the 

 Professor is considered good authority, and 

 the faith that is in him he can easily instill 

 into others ; but is the Professor aware that 

 honey, tons of it, is being sold that is all the 

 way from a poor, thin, unripe article to a 



fairly good one, two thirds ripe ? You see 

 we have all grades of honey. While one 

 man is careful and uses judgment in this 

 matter, ten others will go it on the sink or 

 swim principle. When they get to extracting 

 they are anxious to give the bees room, and 

 will decide that this comb and that one will 

 jKiss, until the hive is emptied, or nearly so. 

 Then the honey will not be confined to 

 open vessels like those the Professor tells 

 us about, l)ut like those I have seen ; cans 

 with an inch hole with cheese cloth tied over. 

 Yes, and lOU-pound cans go through the 

 same process. This honey, sooner or later, 

 (and generally sooner) gets into the con- 

 sumer's hands. 



I believe the time is coming, if not already 

 here, when we want everybody to eat honey. 

 We must educate the people up to this point, 

 and the question is, can we do this with the 

 present state of affairs ? Would it not be 

 well for every bee master to be confined 

 strictly to the task of uncapping every pound 

 of extracted honey ? Or declare extracted 

 honey unfit to put upon the market if a 

 measured gallon weighed less than 11)2 

 pounds ? 



Comb honey, I believe, is limited to noth- 

 ing but finished sealed sections. I have 

 wondered why some one does not devise a 

 plan to dispose of unfinished sections that 

 so often become a burden to comb honey 

 producers. Why not go through the cheese 

 cloth process with them ? 



I have not forgotten the tons of honey-dew 

 (so-called by some) that we got here a lew 

 years ago ; and how careless so many bee 

 keepers were to sell the stuff for table use. 

 It caused a reaction in the honey trade in 

 this section of the country that we are out- 

 living by degrees, and the only way we can 

 outlive it is to put honey on the market that 

 will bear the test. I run my apiary entirely 

 for extracted honey, have had very little ex- 

 perience with comb honey, therefore I will 

 close by asking a question for Prof. Cook, 

 or any one i)osted, to answer : Is comb 

 honey taken from the hive before it is cap- 

 ped as good as if capped ? If not, can it be 

 made just as good by simply keeping it in a 

 warm room ? 



New London, Ohio. 



Nov. 25, 1889. 



Using Large Hives ; Having Few Swarms ; 



Raising Lots of Good Honey and 



Selling It at Good Prices ; A 



Common Sense Article. 



J. A. BUCHANAN. 



^lOiDITOR REVIEW:— As you have au- 

 (j«|o nounced for discussion in the May 

 ,j!^j^ issue, "How to raise good extracted 



^^ honey," I am tempted to join in the 

 "palaver." 



How to produce good extracted honey 

 equal in flavor to the best comb honey is an 

 easy matter, but as I have bought great 

 quantities of extracted honey from many 

 producers it is understood without saying 

 that but few do produce a gilt edge article. 



As the majority who produce lioney in this 

 form ship to dealers, and as there is not 



