78 



EIGHTH ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE 



to have drifted into extracted honey 

 alone. A short time ago a lady said 

 to me, "I have bought some comb 

 honey, in sections" — I won't give the 

 person's name, as she might be pres- 

 ent— "and I find the honey is 'sugared,' " 

 she called it. I don't know much about 

 comb honey "sugaring," but I mention 

 this to show that there may be gran- 

 ulated or "sugared' honey in comb 

 honey, and I would like to know if that 

 should be taken back. 



Mr. Wilcox: I have handled a great 

 deal of comb honey that is granulated, 

 and I know it will granulate as readily 

 in the comb as it will out of it, if you 

 store it in a cold room, cold enough to 

 crack the cappings. 



Pres. York: Would you take it 

 back? 



Mr. Wilcox: If I told them it would 

 not granulate, I would take it back or 

 make a tag to correspond. It would 

 not be as good. It would not be worth 

 as much in the market. 



Dr. Miller: Mr. Wilcox raises a 

 question right there, an interesting one, 

 and if it will not be switching off too 

 far, I would like to have the views of 

 the n-embers present. He says that 

 comb honey under the same conditions 

 will granulate as readily as extracted, 

 Mr. Wilcox: If frozen hard; if it 

 cracks the capping to admit the air. 



Dr. Miller: That is another thing. 

 It is not comb honey then, if you open 

 into the cells with a crack. 



Mr. Wilcox: It will if it is frozen. 

 Dr. Miller: There are several very 

 interesting questions right there, and I 

 wish we could get more light on them. 

 There are some things that I am sure 

 some of us don't know. Why does not 

 honey in the comb granulate as readily 

 as it does out of the comb? 



Mr. Whitney: This is an interesting 

 question, and I discovered by mere ac- 

 cident that I could keep comb honey 

 right through zero weather out in a 

 honey-house all winter without granu- 

 lating, out at Lake Geneva, Wis. I 

 used to go out when the weather was 

 very cold, below zero, and take , a case 

 of comb honey out of my honey-house — 

 no heat whatever, had not been — open 

 it, and there was not a particle of gran- 

 ulation. I don't think there was a sin- 

 gle section in two or three hundred 

 pounds that I had there that I discov- 

 ered granulated at all, right through 

 the winter. 



Mr. Wilcox: Mr. Whitney, you have 

 not touched the point yet. 



Mr. Whitney: I will admit thai. I 

 am satisfied with your point, that if the 

 capping should break it would granu- 

 late. 



Mr. Wilcox: If you had kept tliJ^t 

 honey a month after it thawed out you 

 would have found it granulated, but if 

 you take it while frozen and use it, it 

 is not granulated. 



Mr. Whitney: I think that I took 

 some out in the spring 'after the winter 

 had broken up, and the honey was as 

 liquid as at any time in the fall. It 

 was very fine. I was surprised to find 

 it so. 



Mr. Moore: This is certainly a very 

 interesting question. I have handled 

 honey over twenty- one years, and one 

 of the troubles I have h§id, first, last and 

 all the time has been ifhe granulation 

 of honey. A variety of things causes 

 honey to granulate. When a man saves 

 his comb over from the last year, my 

 experience is that all the honey in ih^it 

 comb becomes solid and useless lor 

 sale. Ordinarily, there is no trade 

 for granulated comb honey. You will 

 find that if you take a sample of huney 

 that is not mixed with any other it will 

 not granulate so readily. For instance. 

 you take honey from Iowa, from Wis- 

 consin and Colorado, and mix the three, 

 there is a stirring motion in handling 

 them, a motion which causes granula- 

 tion. The same thing is true of maple 

 syrup, if you take it and commence to 

 stir it, it granulates readily. If you 

 don't stir it, it "waxes." 



The mixing causes it to granulate, 

 does something to the grain that 

 causes it to granulate readily. Honey 

 in the comb being agitated or moved 

 stays liquid longer. Bees cap honej' 

 with a porous cover for youijg brood, 

 and they cap it, as near as, I can tell, 

 with an air-tight cover for comb 

 honey, and the air-tightness keeps the 

 atmosphere away. It is a little bit 

 like canning up fruit hot and air- 

 tight, as the ladies do in canning time. 

 It seems to md those are some of the 

 principal reasons for the granulation 

 of the honey, exposure to the air and 

 agitating it in handling it, and admix- 

 ture with old candied honey of the 

 year before. I don't know if there is 

 any cure for it. Speaking about tak- 

 ing granulated honey back from the 

 customers, if the customer says he 

 doesn't want it, if it is against rea- 

 son, you take it back if you are a 



