84 
THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS' JOURNAL. 
however, the disease has a good hold of the 
colony, and it is weak in bees, the best course is to 
destroy the bees with sulphur, and burn all the 
frames and combs in a strong fire. Where it is 
necessary to make such a sacrifice as this, and it is 
sometimes the best policy to do so, the wax may 
be saved without risk of infecting other bees, in 
this way ; before opening the hive after suffocating 
the bees, have ready a large pot or copper of 
boiling water and plunge each frame in 
immediately on taking it from the hive, the wax 
will melt and float while the honey and refuse will 
mix with the water which, being boiling, will kill 
all germs. The chief danger is allowing robber 
bees getting at the honey in the combs before it is 
scalded in the water, for if they do other hives 
are almost sure to be infected. 
CRYSTALLIZED HONEY. 
A correspondent asks us how to keep honey in 
a liquid state, for he finds his crystallize and get 
solid in about three weeks ? 
When honey is first stored in the combs by the 
bees, it is very liquid, and can be easily drained 
out or extracted, but if left in the combs for a little 
time it thickens, and as the beekeepers say, gets 
ripe, when the bees at once seal it over. If this 
honey is extracted soon after gathering, and 
while it is very thin it is apt to ferment. So that 
the bees knowing this, wait till it is ripe before 
sealing, which prevents further loss of water by 
evaporation, for if evaporation were to continue 
after the ripe stage, it would become solid in the 
cells. Unripe honey goes sour ; over-ripe honey 
gets solid. 
Solid and crystallized honey is the richest and 
generally the purest. Nevertheless, there are 
several kinds of nectar-producing trees, notably 
some of the white and yellow box eucalypti and 
other river-side gums, and many shrubs which 
supply honey that seems never to crystallize. To 
imitate this kind of honey our bogus bees manu- 
factme a sham material, which will not crystallize, 
with a small percentage of honey and a large per- 
centage of a crude mixture of glueose and gum (or 
dextrine as it is called by chemists), the gum 
preventing any thickening or crystallization, and 
makes the compound about as fluid and soft, and 
about as nice as castor-oil Some honey crystallizes 
very readily, i. nd if we leave the extraction till 
the autumn, we generally find it solid in the cells, 
so that if we know that our bee forage produces 
quickly crystallizing honey, w'e must not leave 
extraction too late. But how about keeping 
honey fluid ? This is not an easy matter to do. 
Of course it can be done by blending with Corn 
Syrup as our adulterators do, but no beekeeper 
would descend to such a fraud. Honey solidifies 
because the water which kept the sugars in solu- 
tion has evaporated, and the colder the weather 
the quicker this takes place. More water or more 
warmth would prevent it, but here lies the diffi- 
culty. How much water should be added to 
keep the honey fluid in all ordinary temperatures 
without running the risk of fermentation ? This 
cannot be answered exactly, because no two 
samples of honey will be alike in this respect. 
The best way will be to experiment, thus : Take 
a pound of solid crystallized honey and put it in a 
vessel in a large saucepan of water, and place it 
on the fire till the water boils, the honey will 
quickly liquify, when a small wineglass full of 
pure water should be stirred in thoroughly, 
remove the honey from the saucepan ami boiling 
water, and continue stirring till nearly cool. 
Then place the honey in a cool place for a day or 
two If it does not recrystallize, that will be 
about the proportion of water to use, but if it does, 
repeat the process with another small glassful ot 
water until it is found the honey will remain fluid. 
Of course it will keep fluid with less water in 
hot than in cold weather. Some honeys are 
found which will crystallize when so fluid that they 
rapidly turn sour. 
In some samples of crystallized honey fluidity 
can be permanently restored by simply heating it 
as directed above, without the addition of water, 
and such a course should be tried before restoring, 
any of the water lost by evaporation. 
It must be remembered, however, that 
although little harm is done to honey by simply 
liquifying it in the water bath, as described, it 
will lose some of its aroma every time it is so 
heated, and if the heating be continued long, or is 
often repeated, the honey will lose much of its 
flavour. 
It sometimes happens that honey crvstalizes in 
the comb in the sections, or in the frames ; such 
combs can be saved for feeding the bees, or if 
desired it may be got from the combs if they be 
new ones, and have not been used for brood in 
way. Place the honey-comb, cut up small in a 
tin vessel with tapered sides, a cone-shaped vessel 
in fact ; place this vessel in a deep billy of hot 
water, and place it on the fire till all the comb 
melts down, when alter cooling the wax and 
honey are easily separated. Combs that are 
dark coloured from brood raising must not be 
treated this way, for the honey will be badly dis- 
coloured by the brown stain of the cells, which is 
really composed of the accumulated excrement of 
all grubs that have hatched out. For the same reason 
honey extracted from brood combs is never of a 
good quality, as it is turbid and dirty. No combs 
used for brood should ever be extracted if first- 
class honey is desired. We wish it to be clearly 
understood that we do not advocate diluting 
honey to keep it fluid ; but if it be reejuired in 
that state, the restoration of a little of the water 
which has evaporated from it is quite a legitimate 
operation. 
It is curious to find that what used to be ^con- 
sidered a true mark of purity in honey in Euro- 
pean and the English markets, namely solidifica- 
tion in cold weather, is here regarded as a sign of 
adulteration. The famous Narbonne honey was 
never bought, unless solid. Solid honey cannot 
well be adulterated honey, and is generally the 
purest, richest, and best ; for all this we still find 
purchasers who refuse crystallized honey, because 
they think it is adulterated with sugar, the real 
fact being that the buyer of crystallized honey gets 
more for his money. Honey consists of two kinds 
of sugar, with about one-fifth to one-sixth of its 
