Producing Good Extracted Honey 



What is it that gives to honey its vahie? It is not simply its 

 sweetness, which is of low power, but it is its iine flavor and rich aroma. 

 These are the qualities which make honey what it is — a luxury — and if 

 we wish its use continued as a sweet sauce, we must learn to produce 

 and care for it in such a manner as to preserve its ambrosial, palate- 

 tickling qualities. Freshly gathered nectar is one of the most silly-tasting 

 and sickening of sweets. To be sure, it has the flavor of the flowers 

 from which it was gathered; but that smooth, rich, oily honey taste that 

 lingers in the mouth must be fiiriiishcd by the bees. Honey extracted 

 when "green," and evaporated in the open air, is not only lacking in the 

 element that comes from the secretions of the bees, but its blossom flavor 

 is half lost by evaporation. To be sure, evaporation must take place if 

 left in the hive ; but evaporation in the open air and evaporation in the 

 aroma-laden air of the hive produce dififerent results. 



One reason why comb honey is, in so many instances, found to be 

 more delicious than the extracted, is because the former is more thor- 

 oughly ripened, and then sealed up from the air. Seldom do we find 

 extracted honey equal to that dripping from and surrounding the section 

 of comb honey that is being carried upon a plate. Many of those who 

 produce extracted hone)- in large quantities, extracting it before it is 

 thoroughly ripened, admit that such hone\' is inferior, as a table sauce, 

 to that ripened by the bees, but they say thc\- can not afford to produce 

 the best article possible. The quantity of honey is not materially lessened 

 by thoroughly ripening it ; if larger crops are secured by extracting it 

 "green," it is the result of the stimulus given the bees by furnishing 

 them such an abundance of empty combs. By the use of plenty 

 of store-combs and supers, the same results, or nearh' the same, may 

 lie obtained, and the ripening of the honey secured, b\ tiering up. The 

 interest upon the cost of extra combs and supers is a small thing com- 

 pared with the putting of unripe honey upon the market. By the use 

 I if plenty of combs, tiering them up, the work of extracting may be put 

 oft" until the busy season is over. The great trouble is the lack of in- 

 centive for producing well-ripened honey for the general market. The 

 production of extracted honey to be shipped away for some commission 

 merchant to sell is much like making butter to be sold at a country store. 



