28 
THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
If properly cared for, honey extracted 
when freshly gathered is equal in all 
respects to that ripened in the hive. 
If there is much uncapping to be 
done, it is worth while to have a can 
specially for the purpose, with a sieve fixed 
about halfway down to catch the cappings, 
and a gate at the bottom to draw off the honey 
which drains from them. The honey should 
be run from the extractor into a bucket or 
wide-mouthed can through a piece of fine net, 
which will catch any small pieces of wax 
which may have dropped into the extractor, 
and carried at once to the ripening cistern. It 
is convenient to have enough of these cisterns 
to keep each day’s honey separate. A capacity 
of about 4001bs. is a convenient size. Each 
should be provided with a honey-gate to draw 
off the honey from the bottom, as after stand- 
ing a few days there will usually be a certain 
amount of scum composed of fine particles of 
wax, which should be skimmed off. The room 
in which the honey ripens should be as warm 
as possible — one facing north-west or north 
will answer the purpose best. In such a room 
the honey will be thoroughly ripened in from 
about three to six days, according to its 
quality and the weather, when it may be run 
straight into the tins or glasses ready for 
market. Care expended in neatly labelling and 
carefully getting up the packages will be amply 
repaid. Hives should not be extracted too late 
in the season, unless they have also an abund- 
ance of sealed honey to winter on. This is 
not so important as in a colder climate, but 
late- gathered honey is usually of poorer quality, 
and if the flow ceases suddenly, the combs 
may remain unsealed through the winter, 
which I think injurious. In order to produce 
comb honey of the best quality it is necessary 
that honey should be coming in fast. Unless 
this is the case the boxes will not, as a rule, 
be well finished, and as they have to remain in 
the hive for a longer time the capping of the 
cells is often slightly soiled by the constant 
passing of the bees, and it loses the snowy 
whiteness which adds so much to the beauty 
of sections rapidly filled and removed as soon 
as finished. Little difficulty is usually found 
in inducing bees to commence work in boxes if 
there is plenty of honey to be gathered and 
they have a sufficient force of workers ; but if 
under these circumstances they still delay, 
they may usually be set to work by placing a 
few partly filled boxes from another hive, 
either with or without the workers which are 
clustering on them, among the empty ones, or 
by hanging a frame of sections in the lower 
storey, and as soon as they are partly filled 
moving them to the upper storey. Some bee- 
keepers claim that they can obtain more comb 
honey by reducing the brood nest to seven or 
eight frames when placing boxes on the hives. 
This may be the case when the season is short, 
but during a prolonged flow of honey I do 
not think that the strength of the colony 
would be properly kept up, and the sections 
are more likely to be spoilt witli pollen. The 
bees will usually enter and fill boxes more 
readily if hung in the lower storey, but they 
will not finish them off so quickly in that 
position as when they are at the top of the 
hive. After trying several patterns of section 
racks, I still prefer to make them in broad 
frames. Seven of these frames, each holding 
eiarht one-pound boxes, should just fill the 
upper storey of the hive, leaving about a 
quarter of an inch at the side to facilitate 
removing the first frame. It will be found 
advantageous to have a few half storeys, taking 
a shallow frame which holds four boxes. These 
may be placed on any colonies not quite up to 
the full working strength, and the boxes from 
them when nearly finished may form the upper 
layer in a full-sized storey, empty boxes being 
placed under them in the lower half of the 
frames. As hives are generally placed with 
the front about an inch lower than the back, 
the section combs should not run parallel to 
the frames below — that is, from back to front 
— to ensure their being built straight in the 
boxes. They also allow of ventilation much 
better when so arranged. When thin foun- 
dation made of pure wax can be obtained, I 
should advise the use of full-sized starters in 
all the sections, though very good boxes may 
often be obtained with strips an inch wide. 
Separators should always be used with the 
ordinary sections, which measure nearly two 
inches wide. It is said that narrower ones 
may be worked without, but I cannot speak 
from experience on this point. It is a good 
plan to rub a little clean grease on the under- 
side of the bottom bar of the broad frames ; 
what little comb is then built between them 
and the frames below will split off with little 
or no difficulty. It is not usually advisable to 
have more than two tiers of sections on a hive, 
unless an unusually strong one, as it increases 
the chance of having a number of unfinished 
boxes left when the season closes. These may 
be extracted and laid by for next year. The 
boxes should be removed as soon as possible 
after being finished, but not before. If kept 
through the winter, combhoney will some- 
times ooze or sweat. Some have thought that 
this is owing to its being taken from the hive 
too soon after being sealed. If left in the hive 
-for a long time, it certainly becomes much 
thicker ; but I think the sweating is caused by 
absorption of moisture from the air, and it 
will rarely occur if the combs are kept in a dry 
and tolerably warm place. If exposed to alow 
temperature, some kinds of honey will granu- 
