Producing Good Honey 97 



of oil in about eight hours, ahhough much less can be burned. This 

 is the first oil-burning stove, using a wick, that I ever saw that could 

 not be made to smoke. It has a cylindrical wick, and just above the 

 wick is a round plate of iron called the "flame-spreader," and the wick 

 is turned up until it strikes this spreader, when it can go no higher, 

 and it won't smoke, and can't be made to do so. 



One end of the honey-house or cellar is partitioned off, making 

 an "oven," as we call it, large enough to hold fifty or sixty supers. We 

 fill this up at night, for instance ; light the stove before we go to bed, 

 turning the wick up part way so that the temperature in the upper part 

 of the room will stand at about 100 degrees. In the morning we refill 

 the stove, turn it on full blast, and go to extracting, taking the first 

 supers from the top of the room. As some of the piles are lowered, 

 more supers are taken from other piles and added to these, thus bring- 

 ing more honey up into the heated "zone." As fast as there is vacant 

 room, more supers are brought in; and a sort of routine is followed 

 whereby one always has hot honey to work on while more is heating. 



UNCAPPING BARRELS AND TANKS. 



A cheap cracker barrel set down into a tub makes an excellent 

 uncapping outfit. Some grocers give the barrels away, if you are a 

 customer ; some ask five cents apiece for them, and I never paid over 

 ten cents. The cappings can be allowed to stand and drain for weeks 

 and weeks — no hurry about the barrel ; simply pay ten cents for another 

 one. 



I bore three or four holes in the bottom of the barrel for the honey 

 to run out. This may not be necessary, as such barrels are not water- 

 tight; but it is a wise precaution to be sure there is a place for the 

 honey to get out. Then I nail a wooden cross-piece just inside the top 

 of the barrel ; but before nailing the cross-piece in place I drive through 

 it a ten-penny nail ; and when putting the cross-piece in place I turn 

 the point of the nail upward. 



In uncapping a comb the end of the frame is rested upon this nail- 

 point, which comes as near being a universal joint as any thing with 

 which I am acquainted. The frame can be turned "every which way," 

 and it will not slip about. The barrel is supported over the tub, or 

 slightly below the top, by means of double hooks made of heavy wire. 

 In the accompanying engraving one of these hooks is hung outside, 

 upon one of the handles, to show its shape and make-up. Four hooks 

 are used, placed equidistant around the edge of the tub, and the barrel 

 lowered down upon them, the hooks catching just inside the "chime." 

 There is still another plan of supporting the barrel that has the ad- 

 vantage of furnishing handles with which to lift the barrel, and that 



