40 



Bri -J;er p'inri in Virtnrin. 



Pollen S'r<iiiis. which are always present in honey, have no doubt 

 some influence in the granulation by acting as nuclei of crystalliza- 

 tion. At any rate, it is certain that the honey from plants producing 

 abundance of pollen for bees, such as the redgiun, grey box, and 

 stringybark eucalypts, and white clover, cape weed, and native 

 dandelion, granulates very quiekty; while that from yellow and red 

 box, producing little or no pollen for bees, remains liquid for a long 

 time. AAHien the modern method of removing the honey from the 

 combs by centrifugal action was iirst adopted, it was soon found that 

 the air bubbles incorporated in the honey by this process caused it 

 to granulate sooner than when the old method of crushing the combs 

 and straining was practised. How to remove this incorporated air. 

 and to delay granulation generally, will be dealt with in a succeeding 

 chapter. 



illlllliiiSisiria^*' jjill 

 Fig. 1. — Novice Extractor 



Fig. 2. — Cowan 2-Frame Extractor. 



Extracting Hqney. 

 Extracting the honey from the combs is in itself a simple enough 

 operation, consisting in first slicing the wax cappings off the sealed 

 honey-comb by means of an imcapping knife, then placing the frames, 

 two, four, or more at a time, upright into the comb-baskets of one 

 or other of the various styles of honey extractors, when by turning 

 the crank handle the baskets are revolved round a central shaft 

 inside a tin can, and the honey is thrown out from one side of the 

 comb against the side of the can by the centrifugal force produced. 

 The combs are then reversed; in the smallest kind of extractor (The 

 Novice), as shown in Fig. 1, the combs have to be lifted out and 

 re-mserted with the opposite side facing out. In the Cowan two- 

 frame extractor (Fig. 2), each of the comb-baskets is swung round 

 mthout removing the comb; while in machines of four or more comb 



