ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 51 
If we could just reverse the prices of our honey I might see a profit 
in extracting nice comb honey; but as it is, and ever will be, to me it is 
the most foolish of all foolishness, and I doubt if any man in the United 
States can show and prove how he can enhance the price of extracted 
honey in the New York market, which handles more honey than all 
our other markets put together, a fourth of a cent a pound more than 
those large dealers can buy it for from other parts of the world. It 
is all right for you to make all the handle you can over this point to 
your customers who take only a few pounds in a retail way; but when 
your product goes into the markets of the world in carload lots, then 
you will find that all this nonsense about leaving your honey with your 
bees until it is nicely capped over amounts to naught. The dealers want 
honey of good flavor, thick and heavy, that, as soon as the weather gets 
cool, granulates solid, so if the head of a barrel should be knocked out 
it could be laid down and rolled across their storehouse the same as 
a box of cheese with the cover off. Sell them honey of that kind and 
they will not care whether it was extracted every day or left with the 
bees until Christmas. 
February, 1906. 
FEEDING BACK EXTRACTED HONEY. 
HOW THIS PLAN CAN BE MADE PROFITABLE IN THE PRODUCTION OF COMB HONEY; 
THE IMPORTANCE OF THINNING THE HONEY AND FEEDING 
DURING A NATURAL HONEY-FLOW. 
My first experience along this line was something over 30 years 
ago. The honey fed was thick extracted, and fed in its natural state 
after the August harvest was past. This I fed for the purpose of finish- 
ing up partly filled sections. I soon found this was a very unnatural 
time of the year for bees to build comb, as nearly every night was quite 
cold, with frequent frosts. I also found that it took on an average a 
little more than 3 lbs. of extracted honey fed in this way to produce 
1 lb. of comb honey, and it frequently granulated in the sections in a 
short time. 
I next tried thinning the honey with boiling water to about the 
consistency of nectar. This made a great difference in results. The 
bees took it from their feeders more readily, and it did not require 
nearly as much honey to fill their sections, and I was not troubled any 
more with its granulating in the combs; but I was not satisfied to stop 
here when I could see that it required nearly 2 lbs. of extracted honey 
to produce one of comb, and I realized that I was fighting natural law 
in trying to force my bees to produce comb honey decidedly out of 
season. 
My next step was to make extracted honey very thin with hot water, 
and feed it to certain colonies producing comb honey during the entire 
summer harvest, giving each colony about all it could handle during the 
night. At first I was afraid it would have a tendency to check their 
