CHAPTER X 
PRODUCTION OF EXTRACTED HONEY 
WirH proper equipment, extracted honey production is a 
pleasant and profitable pursuit. Without it, it is dirty, mussy 
and disagreeable. Less skill and labor may perhaps be required 
in specializing in extracted honey. If the market is properly 
developed, it may be as profitable or more so than comb honey. 
As generally handled, much more extracted honey will be pro- 
duced than comb honey, but skillful apiarists who know how to 
make the most of the opportunity will get very nearly as many 
pounds of comb honey as extracted where honey flows are very 
rapid. If one wishes to do business on a large scale, and to run 
a series of out apiaries, there are less difficulties to be overcome 
in the production of extracted honey. 
Proper Equipment.—The kind of equipment that will be 
needed will depend much on the extent to which one wishes to 
develop the business, and whether one plans a central extracting 
house, where all honey is brought to be cared for, or whether one 
uses a portable outfit with a small honey house at each apiary. 
Which is the better plan, the author is not prepared to say, for 
there are extensive honey producers some of which prefer one and 
some the other. 
In any case the extractor is an important article. Larger 
extractors can be used in the central plant than are practicable 
to carry from place to place. For portable outfits, the four-frame 
reversible extractor is usually used. For a small home apiary, 
a two-frame extractor will do very well, but if there is any idea 
of extending the business, nothing short of the four-frame capac- 
ity should be bought. 
Extractors.—Until the invention of the extractor in 1865, 
the nearest approach to extracted honey was strained honey. 
This was a common method until but a few years past. Surplus 
honey was removed from the hive by cutting out the combs and 
165 
