COMB HONEY, TO PRODUCE 
245 
A corner of a se< tion of honey enlarged to show the dust of wood and propolis scattered over the surface 
of the cappings. This trouble is caused by carelessness in cleaning the propolis from the wood. 
eannot be done and it becomes necessary 
to haul the supers home to lie sorted, .un¬ 
less there is a small portable honey-house 
at the apiary. When the supers are sorted 
at home, the unfinished sections can be 
taken to another apiary to be visited the 
next day, or given to any colonies that 
will finish them. 
STORING COMB HONEY. 
It was formerly advised that comb honey 
be stored in a well-ventilated room and the 
supers piled in such a manner that the air 
could circulate freely among the sections, 
the theory being that this arrangement 
would permit a further ripening of the 
honey after being removed from the hives. 
The plan is open to the serious objection 
that honey so exposed may absorb moisture 
if subjected to any great variation in tem¬ 
perature, for warm air which may contain 
considei*able moisture coming in contact 
with cold honey, if chilled sufficiently, will 
give up some of its moisture, causing con¬ 
densation on the surface of the honey. 
Honey that is well ripened is usually safer 
if the supers are piled in tight piles, the 
piles being closed at top and bottom. Its 
aroma will be better also. 
SCRAPING SECTIONS. 
In order to make sections present a clean 
and marketable appearance all the propolis 
should be scraped off. Some and perhaps 
most beekeepers prefer for this purpose a 
common case knife, and others a sharp 
jackknife. Sometimes the edge of a scrap¬ 
ing-knife is ground square, and the scrap¬ 
ing is done with a corner of the knife. 
But the general practice seems to favor 
the ordinary edge. Others prefer to use 
No. 2 sandpaper. A sheet of it is laid 
flat, on the table; and the section, edges 
down, is rubbed back and forth on the 
rough surface. If the day is not too warm, 
nor the propolis soft, the sandpaper will 
do faster work than a knife. But the edges 
of the sections are a little roughened, and 
more or less fine dust at times gets on the 
surface of the comb. Sometimes a dealer 
on receiving such honey objects to this 
dust, thinking it to be the excrement of the 
moth worm. (See cut.) The objection is 
also made that the sandpaper fills up with 
