CHAPTER X 

 PRODUCTION OF EXTRACTED HONEY 



With 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 



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