EXTRACTED HONET. 461 



763. To secure the greatest possible amount of extracted 

 honey, the colony should never he left without some empty 

 comb. 



As soon as the combs of one of these supers are about three- 

 fourths full, we put another super under the first, and some- 

 times a third under the second. All this without waiting for 

 the honey to be sealed; but we never remove the honey, to 

 extract it, until the crop is at an end, for we want to get our 

 honey entirely ripened. 



Honey is evaporated, or ripened, by the forced circulation of 

 air, caused by the fanning of the bees through the hive, in 

 connection with the great heat generated by them. As ho.iey 

 evaporates, it dim'inishes in volume, and as long as the bees 

 continue their harvest, they constantly bring in unripened, or 

 watery honey, which they store in the_ partly filled cells that 

 contain honey already evaporated. It is for this reason that 

 unsealed honey, after the crop is over, is as ripe as honey 

 sealed during the crop, and sometimes riper. If the crop ia 

 abundant, they often seal their combs too soon, and the, honey 

 thus sealed may afterwards ferment in the cell and burst the 

 capping. 



Extracted Honey. 



764. Some Apiarists extract the honey as fast as it is 

 harvested by the bees, and afterwards ripen it artificially by 

 exposing it to heat in open vessels. We do not like this 

 method, and prefer to extract the whole crop at once. It is 

 much more economical, for, with our system, one skilled man 

 attends to as many as five or six apiaries during the honey 

 crop, and extracts at leisure afterwards, with almost any kind 

 of cheap help. Since honey now has to compete in price with 

 the cheapest sweets, the question of economical production is 

 not to be disregarded. 



"He who produces at maximum cost will fail. He who pro- 

 duces at minimum cost will succeed."— (Jas. Heddon.) 



