8 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS ON APICULTURE. 
erally not more than 20 per cent. Some very ripe honeys will have as 
little as 12 per cent of water in them. If more than 25 per cent of 
water remains in the honey at the time of extraction, it will probably 
ferment. The ripening of honey consists not only of the evaporation 
of the surplus water of the nectar, but especially of the transforma- 
tion of the sugars of the nectar into the levulose and dextrose of 
honey. Unripe honeys contain a larger proportion of sucrose or cane 
sugar, and it is probable that the longer the honey remains in the hive 
the less of sucrose will be found in the honey. \Yhile honeys vary all 
the way from zero to 8 or 10 per cent in their sucrose content, the pur- 
est honeys are those which contain the least. The official honey 
standard of the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists allows 
8 per cent of sucrose in honey. 
It is the policy of most bee keepers to allow this ripening to take 
place in the hive by waiting until the honey is almost all or entirely 
capped, and this is undoubtedly the preferable method. It is a matter 
of common observation that honey which remains in the hive for a 
long time has a better " body " and has more of the characteristic 
honey aroma. By ripening in the hive honey gets its characteristic 
flavor to a greater extent than is possible in evaporation outside the 
hive. 
Several machines have been devised for the artificial ripening of 
honey which has been extracted " green." that is, with too great a 
water content. The principle on which all of these are constructed 
is the application of heat, not to exceed 160° F., for a sufficient time 
to reduce the amount of water present to about 20 per cent. Either 
sun heat or artificial heat may be used. In the western part of the 
United States honey may be, and usually is, extracted before it is all 
capped, because it is the general practice of bee keepers to run the 
honey directly from the extractor to large tanks, sometimes holding 
several tons, out in the open, covered with porous cloth tightly tied 
down to exclude bees. Many of these tanks are contracted at the top, 
leaving only a comparatively small opening. On account of the 
extreme dryness of the atmosphere and total lack of rain during the 
dry season, this partial evaporation outside of the hive takes place 
very rapidly. 
The advocates of ripening outside of the hive argue that, if honey 
is extracted before all the water is removed from it, the bees have 
less to do inside the hive and can devote almost all their time to 
gathering nectar in the field. This obviously would result in an 
increased amount of nectar and, consequently, provided the forage 
will produce it, in an increased amount of honey. They argue that 
it is impossible to detect any difference between honey ripened inside 
the hive and that ripened outside, as far as flavor is concerned, but 
this is a point on which many other bee keepers and experts in honey 
