PRODUCTION AND CARE OF EXTRACTED HONEY. 7 
or can. This may be easily made at home to suit individual require- 
ments, or any one of the several types offered for sale may be used. 
The boxes are either made of metal or lined with tin to prevent the 
leakage of honey, and about halfway up is a heavy wire netting 
to catch the wax cappings and allow the honey to drain off into the 
lower compartment. This honey may later be added to what comes 
from the extractor. 
THE EXTRACTOR. 
The extractor consists of two or more baskets into which the combs 
of honey are placed and which are revolved inside or with a can. 
The rotation drives out the honey by centrifugal force, leaving the 
cells empty, provided the uncapping has been thoroughly done. 
While the extractor is a very simple machine in principle, its con- 
struction has been the subject of much experimenting, and various 
types have been made. The best type of extractor has been found to 
be one in which the surrounding can is stationary and the baskets are 
arranged to revolve inside it. Some types are now made so that the 
baskets may be turned and both sides of a comb emptied without 
removing the frame from the basket of the extractor. The more 
elaborate types, holding several frames and driven by power, may be 
found described in catalogues of the dealers in bee keepers' supplies. 
The extracted honey flies to the side of the can and then runs to 
the bottom of the machine; it then runs off through an opening at 
the bottom into a vessel or tank for the purpose. As it leaves the 
extractor it should be run through a cheese cloth to remove any par- 
ticles of wax or other foreign substance which may have got into it. 
The care of the honey will be described later. 
Empty combs wet with honey should not be returned to the bees 
while extracting is in progress, for fear of inciting robbing. They 
may be piled up in the extracting room until the work is almost com- 
pleted and, if any additional honey flow is expected, they may then 
be returned. If to be kept until the next year, they should be given 
to the bees for a short time to be cleaned of honey, and then removed 
and put away so that wax moths will not destroy them. The great- 
est essential in the production of the maximum amount of extracted 
honey is an adequate number of surplus combs. 
THE RIPENING OF HONEY. 
"When nectar is gathered from flowers by the worker bees, the 
amount of water contained in it is very high. It is generally sup- 
posed that, by the time bees reach the hive to deposit the nectar in the 
cells, part of this water has been removed; at any rate, during the 
process of ripening, the amount of water is very much reduced, until, 
in thoroughly ripened honey, it will not exceed 25 per cent and is gen- 
