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ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOOIATION. 



163 



out from the honey-sac on the partly 

 doubled tongue, and then drawn in 

 again until, by the movement of 'the 

 lieat and air of the hive, the nectar 

 is sufficiently reduced to be deposited 

 in the cells of the comb. 



"Another change of considerable im- 

 portance which takes place while the 

 Tioney is in the honey-sac of the bee, 

 and also probably during evaporation 

 and storage in the comb, is the in- 

 versiion of a considerable part of the 

 sucrose in the nectar through the ac- 

 tion of the inverting enzym secreted 

 by the bees. 



"Another modification produced in 

 "the nectar by the bees is the introduc- 

 tion of a mimite quantity of formic 

 acid. This acid is wanting in the 

 pollen and nectar of the flowers, and 

 is supposed to be introduced into the 

 honey by the bees just before the cap- 

 ping of the cells. The formic acid 

 thus introduced by the bees is sup- 

 posed to act as a preservative, and 

 prevent the honey from fermenting." 



I am a great admirer of E. W. Alex- 

 ander, and have his writings that I 

 have studied carefully. 



As far as I have tried his methods 

 I find them well suited to the condi- 

 tions in this locality, with one ex- 

 ception, and that is his method of 

 extracting the nectar from the combs 

 before it is sealed, or even well .evap- 

 orated. 



In Mr. Alexander's locality, and 

 with his equipment and methods, this 

 process may work out; but in this 

 locality, and with the equipment that 

 the average or even extensive bee- 

 keeper has, I believe the plan is worse 

 than a failure — it is a damage to the 

 honey market. I am of the opinion 

 that no producer of extracted honey 

 should try it unless he wants to enter 

 quite extensively into the manufac- 

 ture of honey- vinegar; and I doubt 

 > if the nectar would make as good vine- 

 gar as ripe honey would. 



Some bee-keepers favor the fre- 

 quent extracting of the green honey 

 on account of the apparent economy, 

 believing that it will save them some- 

 thing in the way of investment for 

 fixtures; such as extra supers, frames, 

 . foundation, etc. But from the econom- 

 ical standpoint alone, to say nothing 

 of the quality of the honey, I find that 

 it is easy to prove that having the ex- 

 tra fixtures and allowing the honey to 



stay on the hive until the end of the 

 season, and then making a business 

 of extracting it at one time, rather 

 than to be dabbling in it at intervals 

 during the season, is the •cheaper 

 method, for much more time is sure 

 to be wasted at each small extracting 

 than would be wasted if the work was 

 left, to be done all at once. 



Some argue that frequent extracting 

 of honey from the combs stimulates 

 the bees to greater effort to gather 

 more honey to replenish their scanty 

 store. On this question Mr. Dadant 

 thinks that the more stores the bees 

 accumulate, the more thej- will con- 

 tinue to gather, provided they have 

 the combs to store it in; that is, they 

 are not unlike human beings in that 

 thej- work the hardest when they are 

 prosperous; . but if their hard earn- 

 ings are taken away continually they 

 become discouraged, and are more 

 likely to give up trying to get ahead. 



The all-important question with the 

 consumer is the flavor of the honey 

 that he is eating; and if we want him 

 to eat more honey, we must give him 

 the thick, delicious honey with the 

 bouquet of the flowers in it; and we 

 can not get this from nectar, nor can 

 man ripen the nectar so that it will 

 be equal to the honey that the bees 

 have finished. There is a fair demand 

 for good honey, and I predict that the 

 consumption of honey will not in- 

 crease until a good article is put on 

 the market universally. . ^ 



Four years ago I extracted a lot of 

 choice clover honey which I supposed 

 was ripe enough, and I wanted to get 

 it out of the hives before it should 

 become mixed with dark fall honey. 

 This honej' was put into cans and 

 pails very soon after it was extracted, 

 and sold. Later in the fall I was try- 

 ing to sell some honey to a man to 

 whom I had sold some of this choice 

 early honey, and he objected very 

 strongly, saying that the otlier honey 

 that I had recommended to him so 

 highly, had fermented, so that he had 

 to throw it out. This was where I got 

 my first intimation of what it means 

 to produce good honey. Some of that 

 same nice clover honey that I had in 

 the house I noticed was changing 

 rapidly, and it soon spoiled. I know 

 now that I can produce good extracted 

 honey, and I know that all the bee- 

 keeping fraternity can do it. The ma- 



