56 BEE CULTURE. 
Barrels are too heavy and cumbersome for convenient 
handling, and too large for rapid sales. No hard-wood 
barrel is safe to put honey in, till after it has been thoroughly 
waxed. Taking into account the value of the wax and time 
consumed in applying it, together with the price of the 
barrel, the cans or kegs are the cheapest, without considering 
their convenience and less liability of leakage. As the 
jobber never pays for the barrel, the shipper should use the 
cheapest—if the best. 
Many times jobbers and commission dealers decline small 
sales, rather than furnish smaller packages and give the 
time requisite for dividing up a large barrel of honey. The 
time is rapidly approaching when there will be a discrimi- 
nation of atleast one cent per pound in favor of the small 
packages, for the finer grades of extracted honey, whether 
for retailing or manufacturing purposes. 
HONEY MUST BE RIPENED. 
The nectar gathered from the flowers cannot be called 
honey until the evaporation and ripening process has so far 
gone on that the bees have commenced capping it over. If 
it be extracted before it is capped by the bees, as some 
apiarists recommend, on account of the quantity being 
thereby greatly augmented, then it should be ripened before 
it is placed in tight packages or shipped, or it is liable to fer- 
ment and sour. — 
The bee-keepers of California find it necessary to extract 
the honey as fast as it is gathered, but they thoroughly ripen 
it. Mr. Gridley thus describes his plan of ripening honey : 
mT A 
WI) 
Fia. 32.—Honey Evaporator. 
“ The honey from the extractor runs through a galvanized 
iron pipe (one-and-a-fourth inch) drain, a distance of fifty 
feet, emptying into a pan, 3x6 feet, four inches deep, made 
in this manner: This pan is put into a wooden case and 
covered with a glass sash ; set it at an angle of about forty- 
