44 Bi i-lce jtinri in Victiiiiii. 



It must here be pointed out that there is at least cue kind of honey 

 whieJi cannot be removed from the eombs bj' extracting; it is that 

 gathered from one of the tea-trees {Leptosperimi in scopnriiun) found 

 near the coast and in wet places elsewhere. In some localities it is 

 known as wild may. The honey from this plant is very dark, strong- 

 smelling, and rank in taste, and fit only for manufacturing piirposes. 

 The class of country producing this kind of honey should be avoided 

 by bee-keepers. When, however, it occurs in belts in some of the 

 best redgum and box districts, it provides a valuable stand-by for 

 the bees during the "off" season. This honey, although it appears 

 very dense, really contains a high percentage of water, but after being 

 stored in the cells it sets like jelly, so that it can be removed with a 

 pin in one piece. The only way of getting it from the combs is to 

 cut them out, and melt and separate in a cappings reducer; better 

 use can, however, be made of it by reserving it for the bees as winter 

 food, provided that it is not the only crop of the locality. 



Honey from the red box eucalypt is very dense, and it is almost 

 impossible to extract it without damaging the combs once it has been 

 allowed to become cold in the combs. In a lesser degree this may 

 also be said of yellow box honey. To extract dense honey without 

 flamaging the combs the extractor should be turned slowly till about 

 half the honey of one side of the combs has left the cells; the combs 

 are then reversed and the speed increased till that side of the combs 

 lias been emptied. Then the eombs are again reversed, when the 

 lionej' left in the cells on the other side is thrown out. 



X. — Uncapping Combs. 



Before the honey can be extracted from the combs of the modern 

 frame hive, the wax caps with which the bees have covered the cells oi 

 honey have to he removed. This is done hy means of what is known as 

 an uncapping, or honey, knife — a stout knife 8 to 12 inches in length with 

 two cutting edges, bevelled from one side, and an off-set handle. To 

 uncap quickly and without damaging the combs, the honey knife should 

 be as sharp as a razor and must he kept in hot water so that it will easily 

 pass the comb surface on one side and the sheet of cappings on the other. 

 Two knives may be used with advantage, so that while the operator is 

 working with one, the other is getting liot for the next comb. There are 

 .several different knife-heaters, one of which, seen in the illustration 

 (Fig. 3), is heated by a small lamp. When a cappings nielter is used, a 

 separate knife-heater is not required, the knives being hung into the hot 

 water of the apparatus as shown on the left in Fig. 2. 



The imcapping of the combs and the extracting of the honey should 

 be done as soon after the combs are taken from the hive as possible, if 

 the weather is at all cool, unless a warm room is available in which to 

 keep theni. Combs uncap and extract best at the temperature they are 

 in a hive crowded with bees. 



There are different ways of uncapping combs, cutting upwards or 

 downwards, crossways of the frame or lengthways; but in each instance 

 the bevelled edge of the knife is towards the comb, the severed cappings 

 passing over tlie broad face of the knife. The majority of operators use 



