55 
they are cooled the honey will thicken, rendering its extraction 
difficult, and increasing the liability of breaking combs. The 
following articles should be in readiness in the extracting room : 
The extractor (49), ripener (50), strainer (51), two uncapping- 
knives (52), or one uncapping-knife and one table-knife, a 
wooden table, one or two large earthenware or enamelled iron 
dishes, and a tin or galvanised iron or wooden pail of about 14 to 
24 gallons capacity, with a wooden lath laid across its mouth and 
tied to the handle lugs on each side. If the extractor has not 
been used before, or has not been thoroughly cleaned out since 
use, scald and rinse it out with two or three gallons of boiling 
water to clean and heat it; in any case it must be rinsed out 
with hot water to heat it, and if the room is cool it is well to 
keep it near a fire and to turn it from time to time. Place the 
uncapping-knives in a jug of hot water; then take a frame out 
of the frame-box, and hold it by one shoulder in the left hand, 
resting the opposite lower corner on a dish, and, with the knife 
in the right hand, cut upwards from the bottom with a 
sawing motion, thus paring off the cappings, which after a little 
practice can be cut off in sheets quite dry. When two frames 
have been uncapped, place them ends up in the extractor cages, 
and turn the handle so as to revolve the cages, slowly at first, but 
increasing the speed until it is just sufficient to cause the honey 
to be flung out of the cells ; after revolving the extractor for one 
minute, most of the honey will have been removed from the 
outer side of the combs; the frames should then be reversed in 
the cages, and the operation repeated to clear their other sides, 
revolving the cages a little faster than before, until these sides of 
the combs are quite clear: the frames should then be again 
reversed in the cages, to complete the clearing of the sides first 
extracted. The reason for not completing the extraction of the 
first side in one operation is, to avoid the possibility of the comb 
being broken by being too rapidly revolved while containing a 
considerable weight of honey. Ifthe combs are soft or new, it 
is best to extract only about half the honey from the side first 
treated, and to clear it after all has been extracted from the other 
side; this will lessen the chances of breaking the comb. When 
extracting is over for the day, the extractor should be placed 
on a stand at such a height that the ripener, with the 
strainer on it, can be placed under the tap of the extractor, the 
honey in which should then be strained jinto the strainer, 
in which it should be left for at least one day; the ripe 
honey may then be run off into tins (163), and any unripe honey, 
which may be distinguished by its thinness, should be left in 
the ripener or some similarly shaped vessel, covered with butter 
muslin or some other porous material, in a place where it can 
be kept at a temperature of not less than 80° F., under 
which conditions most of it will ripen ; any which does not ripen 
may be kept for feeding bees. When the honey is ripe its con- 
sistency will closely approximate to that of honey obtained from 
sealed combs taken from the doubling-box, and it willthen remain 
