BEE MANUAL. 145 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE HONEY-EXTEACTOR AND MANIPULATION OF 

 EXTRACTED HONEY. 



Next in importance to the movable comb-hive itself, as an api- 

 arian appliance, ranks undoubtedly the honey-extractor. By its 

 means we are enabled to obtain the liquid honey in perfect 

 purity from the comb, in the form best suited for storing and for 

 transport, and without injury to the combs themselves. These 

 can in this way be made to do duty over and over again, a matter 

 which has an important effect upon the quantity and the cost 

 of the honey produced each season by one colony of bees. 

 Without the extractor the improved form of hive could not 

 have developed half its real advantages. It would, of course, 

 have enabled us, as it does now, to raise comb-honey in the 

 best condition, but the importance of honey as an article of 

 general consumption and of commerce could never have been 

 anything like what it is at present if we had been obliged to 

 follow the old system of obtaining it in a liquid state from the 

 combs. 



STRAINED OK PRESSED AND MELTED HONEY. 



Formerly, when it was required to separate the honey from 

 the comb, the bee-keeper had his choice of two methods — the 

 one consisting in squeezing or pressing the honey out of the 

 comb in its cold state, the other in melting or boiling down the 

 honey and comb together and separating the wax, etc., which 

 would settle on the surface, as soon as the mass cooled. By 

 both these processes the comb must of course be sacrificed or 

 reduced to the state of melted wax, and it will easily be under- 

 stood that by either process the original delicate flavour of the 

 honey would be partially or wholly destroyed. Those who 

 have had any experience in separating honey from the combs 



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