30 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



makes an excellent brush. When it gets sticky throw it away and 

 get a fresh one. 



EXTRACTING. 



At best, extracting is a stick}' and laborious joId. It comes when 

 the weather is hot and often when other work is pressing. It may, 

 however, be deferred until some more convenient season, if one has 

 plenty of surplus combs. Also the longer honey remains in the hive 

 the richer and better it becomes. All one has to look out for is to get 

 the crop of light-colored honey off before the dark honey begins to be 

 gathered, and herein the value of knowledge of the honey yields (pas- 

 turage) of the locality becomes apparent. 



After the combs are safely indoors they may be left in some warm 

 and dr}' room shut up from bees and ants until it is convenient to 

 exti'act, or the honey may be extracted at once and the emptied combs 

 returned to the bees. Give such combs at as near night fall as possi- 

 ble. Combs fresh from the extractor create great excitement among 

 the bees, and if given in the day time are liable to cause trouble. 



UNCAPPING. 



Uncapping the combs is done with a keen stiff-bladed knife, a 

 butcher 's knife with a twelve-inch blade is excellent. A pan or tub 

 is used to catch the cappings. The frame rests on a strip of wood 

 placed across the tub and while the frame is held by one hand, the 

 other slices off the capping with a downward sawing stroke. Deep 

 cutting does no harm as the bees quickly repair the combs. 



If the honey is very thick or not very warm it may throw out very 

 slowly. If so, throw it partly from one side, then all from the other, 

 and then finish the first side. This procedure avoids crushing the 

 combs into the wire baskets of the extractor. 



For a limited amount of honey an extractor is not necessary. If 

 the combs are newly built and are filled above a queen-excluding 

 honey board, they will be free from young bees and contain little or 

 no pollen, hence may be cut from the frames, crushed in a bag of 



