336 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



keeping honey in cool or cold weather, but 

 this seems to be one of the cases requiring 

 "line upon line and precept upon precept," 

 so I quote some excellent advice upon this 

 point as given by G. M, Doolittle in Glean- 

 ings. He says: — 



" Some seem to think that the cause of 

 honey becoming vyatery is because the bees 

 do not thoroughly ripen it before sealing it ; 

 but if they used a little more thought on the 

 subject it would seem that they must see the 

 fallacy of such an idea ; for, whether ripened 

 or not, the honey can only ooze from the 

 cells after being capped, on account of a 

 larger bulk of liquid being in the cell after- 

 ward than there was at the time the bees 

 sealed the cell. This can come from only 

 one source, which is always brought about 

 by either cold, damp weather or a non-circu- 

 lation of air, or both. Honey swells only as 

 it becomes damp ; and the first that will be 

 seen of that dampness will be in the unsealed 

 cells where the honey will have become so 

 thin that it will stand out beyond the cells, 

 or, in other words, the cells will be heaping 

 full. If the dampness remains, the sealed 

 honey will soon become transparent, while 

 the honey from the unsealed cells will com- 

 mence to run out, daubing everything below 

 it; and eventually, if the cause is not re- 

 moved, the capping of the cells will burst, 

 and the whole will become a souring mass. 

 In one or two instances I have seen honey 

 left in such cold rooms, where the moisture 

 was also very apparent, that it became so 

 very thin that it ran down from the comljs 

 and stood in puddles on the floor all around 

 the bottom of the nice white cases in which 

 it was stored. It was evident that this honey 

 had once been of the very best quality, from 

 the nice appearance of the cases : but the 

 grocer had put it in tlie cellar when it arrived 

 at his store, and there it had been left till it 

 had thus become very nearly good for 

 nothing. 



When I first commenced to keep bees I 

 stored my honey in a tight room on the 

 north side of the house, where it usually re- 

 mained from four to six weeks before crating 

 for market. In crating this honey I always 

 found the center and back side of the pile 

 watery and transparent in appearance. As 

 that which was stored first was always the 

 worst, I thought it must be owing to that 

 being the poorest or least ripened, until one 

 year I chanced to place this early honey by 

 itself in a warm, dry, airy room, when, to 

 my surprise, I found, upon crating it, that 

 this first honey had kept perfectly, while the 

 later honey stored in the old room was as 

 watery as ever. This gave me the clew to 

 the whole matter ; so, when I built my pres- 

 ent honey room I located it in the southwest 

 corner of the building I call " my shop." and 

 painted the south and west sides a dark color 

 to absorb the heat of the midday and after- 

 noon sun. On two sides of this room I fixed 

 platforms for the honey, as has been illus- 

 trated in one of the back volumes of GJean- 

 hujs. The sections were so i)iled on these 

 platforms that the air could circulate all 

 through the whole pile, even if it reached 



the top of the room. During the afternoons 

 of August and September the temperature 

 of the room would often be raised to nearly 

 or quite 100 degrees, which would warm the 

 pile of honey to nearly that degree of heat : 

 and as this large body of honey once heated 

 retained the heat for some length of time, 

 the temperature of the room would often be 

 from eighty to ninety degrees in the morning 

 after a warm day, when it was as low as 

 from forty to sixty degrees outside at six 

 o'clock a. m. By this means the honey was 

 being ripened each day, and that in the 

 unsealed cells became thicker and thicker, 

 when, by September 1.") or 20, or after being 

 in the room from four to seven weeks, the 

 the sections could be tipped over, or handled 

 in any way desired, without any honey run- 

 ning from even the unsealed cells that might 

 happen to be around the outside of the sec- 

 tion. By having the door and window open 

 on hot, windy days, the air was caused to 

 circulate freely through the pile, when I 

 found it took less time to thoroughly ripen 

 the honey than it did where all was kept 

 closed. In doing this, of course it is neces- 

 sary to provide screens, so as to keep flies 

 and bees out of the honey room. If I wish 

 to keep honey so late in the fall that the rays 

 of the sun fail to keep the room sufficiently 

 hot, or should I desire to keep it into the 

 winter, or at any time when the temperature 

 of the room falls below seventy degrees 

 while the honey is in the room, I build a fire 

 in the room, or use an oil stove to heat it up 

 to the proper temperature of from ninety to 

 one hundred degrees. In this way honey 

 can be kept perfectly for an indefinite period, 

 and can always l)e put upon the market in 

 the very best condition. 



Having once obtained our honey, it seems 

 very foolish to me to neglect it so that it de- 

 teriorates to the condition of a second or 

 third class article. We should all strive, not 

 only to see how large a quantity we can pro- 

 duce, but also to have it of good quality, 

 keep it looking well at all times, and put it 

 upon the market in enticing shape. 



G. M. Doolittle. 



BoKODiNO, N. Y., Nov. 4. 



[Doolittle's advice is sound, and we espe- 

 cially commend the point he makes, that, 

 after having secured a good crop, we do not 

 want to spoil it all by a piece of ignorance 

 or foolishness.] " 



Cardinal Points in Bee Keeping. 

 Some one sent a query to the A. H. ./. ask- 

 ing " What are the five cardinal points in 

 bee keeping ? " Some of the replies are ex- 

 cellent. For instance, Mr. Heddon says : 



"1. Select a good field, and keep it all to 

 yourself. 2. Get bees enough to stock it. 

 3. Keep them in hives that can be handled 

 rapidly. 4. Ripe honey, put up in attractive 

 form. 5. Watch the market, and hustle 

 around and sell honey at the right time, and 

 at the right place. Some will give us the 

 old chestnut, keep your colonies strong. 

 Any one knows enough for that." 



