114 ADVANCED BEE CULTURE. 



^xtractei 



'HAT is it that gives to honey its value ? It is not simply 

 its sweetness, which is of low power; but it is its fine 

 flavor and rich aroma. These are the qualities which 

 make honey what it is — a luxury — and, if we wish its 

 use continued as a sweet sauce, we must learn to produce and care 

 for it in such a manner as to preserve its ambrosial, palate-tickling 

 qualities. Freshly' gathered nectar is one of the most "silly" tasting 

 and sickening of sweets. To be sure, it has the flavor of the flowers 

 from which it was gathered; but that smooth, rich, oily, honey taste, 

 that lingers in the mouth, must ht furnished by the bees. Honey ex- 

 tracted when "green," and evaporated in the open air, is not only 

 lacking in the element that comes from the secretions of the bees, 

 but its blossom-flavor is half lost by evaporation. To be sure, 

 evaporation must take place if left in the hive, but evaporation in the 

 open air, and evaporation in the aroma-laden air of the hive produce 

 different results. 



One reason why comb honey is, in so many instances, found to 

 be more delicious than the extracted, is because the former is more 

 thoroughly ripened, and then sealed up from the air. Seldom do 

 we find extracted honey equal to that dripping from and surround- 

 ing the section of comb honey that is being carved upon a plate. 

 Many of those who produce extracted honey in large quantities, ex- 

 tracting it before it is thoroughly ripened, admit that such honey is 

 inferior, as a table sauce, to that ripened by the bees, but they say 

 they cannot afford to produce the best article possible. The 



