48 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION 
and is handy to carry combs to and from the extracting room. 
Where one intends to keép ten or more hives of bees it is ad- 
vantageous, unless a special preference is held for honey in the 
comb, to procure an extracting outfit and install it in the room de- 
signed for use as a honey room. The principal piece in the outfit 
is an extractor. This consists of a can twenty to thirty inches in 
diameter and the height of an ordinary table, fitted with a faucet _ 
at the convex bottom which causes the honey to drain out through 
the faucet. Mounted on a pivot in the center of the bottom and 
connected with a crank at the top is a comb basket holding from 
two to six Langstroth combs and capable of being revolved rapidly 
by means of a crank. The modern extractors are arranged with 
reversible comb baskets so that the honey can be thrown from both 
sides without removing the combs from the extractor. For the 
small apiary the Cowan reversible. extractgr, holding two combs, 
is a convenient and popular size. The extractor should be stood 
upon a box or low bench high enough to permit the honey to be 
drawn off below. As the honey will have particles of wax in it, 
a thin cheese cloth sack, should be provided to tie over the faucet 
and strain the honey through. This cloth should be wet before 
tying on, as otherwise the honey is slow to pass through. A cover 
ct similar cloth or heavier to fasten down over the top of the ex- 
tractor prevents dust from settling in the extractor when not in 
use. 
There are several styles of honey or uncapping knives used to 
remove the cappings, prepatory to placing the combs in the extrac-. 
Figure 12—The Quinby uncapping knife. 
tor. They are designed along general principals. The first, of 
which, the Bingham knife is an example, is a narrow thin blade, 
capable of being bent, with the tip curved up and the handle elevat- 
ed so that the blade can be brought parallel to the combs, the idea 
being to be able to reach all the little indentations of the comb. The 
second type is heavier, broad, and with a pointed tip at a greater or 
