BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
In order to preserve extracted honey in packages it must be canned or bottled, and the air entirely excluded. There are two methods of accomplishing this: First, the honey is heated in bulk, and run off into hot cans or bottles. Second, the honey is put in the bottles first and then heated; in both cases the honey is heated by hot water. Perhaps the easier method is to heat it in bulk, and if there is not at hand a double boiler, one can be improvised by using a wash-boiler in which pains containing the honey may be set. In any case the honey and the water surrounding it should be of the temperature of the room to begin with; then a s\({}_{3}\)sw, steady fire is needed to bring the temperature of the water up to 160\({}^{\circ}\) F. Mr. Root advises the use of a gasoline stove for this purpose as the heat may thus be carefully regulated, and it is very important that the process be a slow one. After the temperature of the
**Extracting-room** showing extraordin, strainer, uncapping can, bee-stage, smoker, uncapping knife, gloves, funnel, sqers and sections, extractor pocket containing extracted sections, partly filled sections as yet uncapped, extracting frame with comb, etc.
**PLATE.XVIII**
honey reaches \(160^{\circ}\) F. it may be poured into freshly scolded cans or bottles and sealed, air-tight. If bottles are used, the corks should have paraffine poured over them so as to make sure of excluding the air.
packages for extracted ironely. (Plate XXI.)
Mason fruit jars are extensively used for this as they are practical, cheap and useful afterward. The No. 25 honey-jar, somewhat resembling the Mason can, is made purposely for putting up honey, and is attractive in appearance. The Muth bottles are made in four sizes for extracted honey; the largest holding two pounds, and the smallest a quarter of a pound. These bottles are decorated with a design of an old straw skep, and bear the prophetic inscription "pure honey" moulded into the glass. Jelly-glasses are often used and paraffined paper is placed over the honey, just as it is placed over jelly to exclude the air before the tin cover is put on. Glass packages are by all means the most attractive for extracted honey in small quantities. However, tin pails of various sizes are in use, and may be serviceable for a cheap and inferior grade of honey, which is thus made ready for the consumer who is willing to buy "aside unseen." But a fine quality of honey rejoices in the light of day and in the scrutiny of eyes which may look at it first critically and then longingly.
The most practical packages for shipping honey in quantity are the large, square cans in common use which hold sixty pounds each. These are convenient for shipping and for measuring and are safe from breakage.
The advantages of extracted honey over that of comb-honey are: Almost double the honey may be produced, because the bees having no comb to build, devote their energies to storing honey; and also the honey from the brood-combs may be extracted; it is more easily and safely handled and shipped; it is more easily produced, since the bees work more readily in the emptied cells of the extracted combs than in sections where they are obliged to build new cells; swarming is more easily controlled, because the bees more readily accept the enlargement of their quarters when the supers contain fully made comb, also larger hives may be used.
The disadvantages are: It is more "'mussy" and requires special apparatus; and unless 'great care is given, the bees will be starved through this convenient way of pilfering their stores.
maxims for the producer of extracted honey
Use glass or tin, rather than wood, for honey receptacles.
Be careful not to expose the honey as you take it out of the supers, lest the bees begin robbing..
Honey should be canned while hot, and kept from the air.
Heating honey to a higher temperature than \(160^{\circ}\) destroys its flavour.
## Chapter XI points about beeswax
how to make it
Beeswax is a unique product; the little socialists of the hive have formed a trust for its manufacture, which for many and good reasons has never been infringed upon. The special value of beeswax is that it retains its cohesiveness and ductility, under both higher and lower temperatures, than do other kinds of wax. It has a specific gravity of 960-972, and melts at 143-145\({}^{
m o}\) F.
Beeswax has been in demand in the world since ancient times, being put to many and diverse uses. Now, however, the making of foundation-comb is the most important of these uses and most affects the beeswax market of to-day. Countless thousands of sheets of wax-foundation are manufactured yearly in America. When foundation was first used it was thought that it might be adulterated safely with paraffine, but it was soon found that beeswax thus adulterated, when subjected to the heat of the hive in summer, would invariably bulge, buckle and sag. We know an apiarist who lost money, honey, bees and temper through trying to use this kind of foundation, which did not stand firm.
We were wont to make beeswax as follows: The broken combs were packed in a muslin bag which was weighted by a sinker and hung in the washboiler by tying the bag to the poker, which was placed crosswise the top. By this contrivance the bag was completely surrounded by water, which filled the boiler, and yet did not touch the bottom, and so there was no danger of burning; the cloth acted as a strainer and the bag was pressed occasionally; this act being judiciously performed by means of the tongs, which had previously been cleaned. After the wax had boiled out the boiler was taken off and the whole contents cooled, after which the wax was taken from the top in pieces and remelted in a dish set on the back side of the stove so as not to burn, then poured into oiled bread-tins, and thus caked for the market. Some of it was clarified for special use thus: It was allowed to simmer on the back of the stove for some hours in water to which vinegar had been added, and then was dipped off into scalloped patty-tins and a neat little loop of cord inserted at one side. These cakes when cooled had a long though scarified existence ensconced in work-baskets with spools of thread, for wax thus cleaned and prepared made very pretty little gifts for lady-friends. But the experience of rendering wax was never complete without spilling some of it on the stove, which spread with fearful rapidity and smoked with stifling smoke; because of the certainty of this accident we always made the beeswax in the late fall, lest our bees regarding the pungent smoke as a direct invitation should come visiting in embarrassing numbers.
Sundry old pieces of rag carpet were spread on the floor around the stove to keep the yellow paint intact from the wax, which was so hard to clean off. We had no benzine in those days, and our only resort was boiling hot water, which cleaned off the paint as well as the wax.
One privilege that was always granted to us children on this day was that of having "our fingers made." As the wax was cooling the finger was dipped in it, and the film was cooled while the finger was held very still; then the film was slipped off, a crucial point in the process, and used as a mould into which was poured the cooling wax; and presto! there was the finger as natural as life to every crease and wrinkle, but with a death-like pallor that rendered the row of fingers thus made a fascinatingly gruesome collection, as if they had been chopped off with a hatchet.
This old process of rendering wax in the washboiler is still practised where apiaries are small. Mr. Root advises the following modification: Sticks are placed crosswise the bottom of the boiler on which the bag is placed; the bag is packed very full of wax by pressing the comb into balls with the hands before it is put in. Water is added and the whole is placed upon the stove and brought slowly to a boil, then a board that acts as a follower on the bag is placed on top with a heavy weight upon it;this acts as a press and decreases the bulk in the bag, leaving the wax floating on the surface.
The solar wax-extractor
There are many modern and up-to-date methods advised for extracting wax. The most common is through the use of the Solar wax-extractor, which was invented for extracting honey in California, where the sun can be depended upon to do its work unfinchingly day after day. There was more than myth in the story of Icarus who fastened his wings on with wax, and then dared to face the sun. The ancients evidently knew that no other substance of the sort is so susceptible to the sun's rays. I shall never forget my amazement at the efficiency of the first Solar extractor that I ever saw; it was homemade and there was naught in its appearance to indicate its power. The comb was hard and blackened and full of dirt, while the wax that oozed out and hardened below was as shining and yellow as if the sun itself had exhaled it. A Solar extractor ought to be in every apiary where twenty colonies or more are kept, and into this every fragment of comb should be put instead of storing it to become infested by the bee moth, or leaving it around to incite the bees to robbing. 'The fragments thus are saved and without any expense or trouble are made into a beautiful product for the market.
There are several of these Solar extractors made and sold by dealers. 'The Doolittle, the Rauchfuss and the Boardman are the three commonly used.
The Doolittle is small and all right for a small apiary. The Rauchfuss has a clever arrangement by which the wax in flowing out overflows from one pan to another and thus cleanses itself automatically. The Boardman is especially adapted for large apiaries, and is on rockers so that it may be tilted to face the sun. The general plan of the Solar wax-extractor is as follows: It consists of a shallow box lined with sheet-iron on which is a frame for holding the comb with a strainer below it, and a place where the wax thus extracted is received. The box has a tight-fitting glass cover, and all the woodwork on the box is painted black so as to absorb all the heat possible. The box is tilted so as to get the direct rays of the sun, and it is important that the cover be of one pane of glass, or several panes matched without cross sash, as such sash interferes with the rays of the sun. Here in the East this extractor works excellently during the summer months. If the wax does not look clean as it comes from the extractor, it may be put through again. The only difficulty with the Solar extractor is that here in the East it works only in the summer time, and that it does not extract all the wax from the refuse which bears the graphic and euphonious name of "'slumgum."
The swiss wax-extractor
There are many patent wax-extractors which are run by the heat of a sove. The best of these utilise steam for heating the wax, though some of them use hot water in a sort of a modification of the old wash boiler method. The best of these machines for a small apiary is the Swiss extractor, which may be set over a kettle of hot water, like an ordinary vegetable steamer, which it resembles. The comb is placed in a wire basket, which has a cone-shaped bottom, over which the wax flows down as it melts and drains off through a spout into a pan in which it is to be caked. This machine costs only three or four dollars and is simple and excellent; though it takes but comparatively little comb at a time, it keeps up a continual performance and there is no danger whatever of burning the wax. The basket may be replenished from time to time, and a large amount of wax may be extracted in a day while other work is being performed in the room. Mr. Root has an improved Swiss extractor and so has Mr. D. A. Jones, and both of them are most satisfactory. Mr. Jones's machine is the larger and may be used as an uncapping can as well; the cappings when taken off falling directly into the extractor.
## 11.7 The wax-press
Wax is such a precious product in these days of the manufacture of foundation-comb that every particle of it should be saved. This is quite impossible with any of the extractors; as the slumgum always holds much wax, to extract which a wax-press is needed. All wax-presses are necessarily rather expensive machines when bought, and not very easily manufactured at home. In some of them the comb is melted by steam and in some by hot water; in others the heated wax is dipped from a kettle of hot water and poured into the press.
The German steam wax-press is in general use in America, Mr. Root having an improvement on it. It is a strongly built can, at the bottom of which is a place for water, and above it an arrangement to receive the wax drippings. A basket of perforated metal holds the comb and occupies the larger and upper part of the can; a follower worked by a screw presses"down upon the heated comb and forces the wax down and out through a spigot. This machine weighs sixty pounds and costs fourteen dollars, and if the apiary contains more than forty hives of bees, such a wax-press will pay for itself soon with the wax which would otherwise be lost.
We have seen one home-made press constructed from a half barrel worked by the machinery of a cheese-press. The follower was cleated on the under side, and the barrel was filled with boiling water; the wax as it was pressed out was run off by a spout at the top. Another which was used successfully was simply a box with pleated bottom and a cleated follower into which the hot wax was poured and pressed out most successfully. One of the wax presses used by many is called the Hatch-Gemmill press, which is run on the principle of dipping the hot wax off hot water and squeezing it through the press.
either paraffine or cerasin it will still float. Another test but not so exact is made by chewing the wax; if it is pure it will be brittle and break as it is chewed, but adulterated wax is cohesive like gttm.
maxims for bees wax making
The wax-market is always good, and the wise beeskeeper saves every scrap of this precious material.
Do not be mussy when making beeswax, or it will take longer to clean up than to make the wax.
Do not use galvanised iron vessels for boiling wax as the quality is thus injured.
Clean wax off with hot water or benzice.
## Chapter XII Feeding Bees
WIEN to feed
Ar least twice during the season bees are likely to need more food than they can get in the fields, if the bee-keeper is to do a profitable business. Once early in the spring when for some reason the nectar supply fails, and it is desirable to stimulate the rearing of brood; again, late in the season when the colony has not enough honey for winter use. When the cupidity of the bee-keeper leads him to extract too much honey, then must he forsooth open his pocketbook and buy expensive sugar to feed back to those whom he has robbed. However, bees should be watched closely; they may need feeding at any time, for it is hard to predict when the honey or pollen harvest may fail in a given locality.
When food is given the bees in the spring, it is largely for the sake of stimulating them to extra activity; and thus develop large, strong colonies ready for work as soon as the harvest occurs. The brood-chambers should be closely watched in the early spring and if there is not sufficient food for the brood present, it should be provided. In the fall the hive should be examined by the middle of September or the first of October. A colony of ordinary size ought to have at least thirty pounds of capped honey. The ordinary Langstroth frame, when filled on both sides, contains about five pounds of honey; therefore, there should be an equivalent of six filled frames in each hive. If the swarm lacks this amount, an estimate should be made of how much more it needs, and this amount should be fed.
Bees are usually fed upon honey or syrup made from the best granulated sugar, although some have claimed that the best grade of coffee-sugars make a good syrup; but the consensus of opinion is in favour of the granulated. The syrup is made in two ways: First, by heat. Melt the granulated sugar in its own weight or measure of water; it should be heated slowly, and never reach a temperature higher than 180\({}^{\circ}\) F. lest it burn, for scorched syrup fed in winter is as fatal to bees as so much poison. The mixture should be stirred until the sugar is entirely dissolved, then allowed to cool slowly, and it is ready for use. If there are many to feed, a wash-boiler is a very convenient utensil to use, as it is easier to make a large quantity at a time. Because of the danger of scorching a cold process has been evolved. It consists of taking equal measures of sugar and water; the latter should be boiling hot and the two stirred together until the sugar is dissolved. This may be done in a churn or in the honey extractor. In following this process it is best to add the sugar a bowlful at a-time, while stirring the mixture indistushould be thin when finished, as it is better to let the bees attend to the ripening of it.
How to feed
There are two general plans for feeding bees. One is to place the syrup outside the hive, and the other to place it within the hive. The first is much more convenient for the apiarst, but unless the work be done very carefully or in the evening, and the syrup well guarded, the bees may become demoralised and begin robbing. Feeding outside the hive can be done only during warm weather. There are several simple feeders in which the syrup is placed at night, and taken away in the morning; but the method most generally followed is to fill a Mason fruit can with the syrup and place on it a perforated cover, then invert it in a box in front of the hive; the entrance to this box is so connected with the entrance to the hive that robbing is impossible. The box and cover are sold under the name of the Boardman feeder. As there is very little air in the can, the syrup oozes out very slowly through the perforated cover, and the bees take it as fast as it comes. This feeder is satisfactory in that we can tell at a glance when it needs replenishing.
However, most apiarists follow the custom of feeding within the hive, and strive to accomplish this without loss of warmth in the brood-chambers, and without disturbing or daubing the bees. Of all the devices for feeding within the hive, the division-board feeder is the most practical. It con sists simply of a division board made to hold the syrup, which is placed in the hive instead of a frame Plate XII. There is a hole at the top so that it may be refilled by simply pushing back the cover, and pouring in the syrup from a pitcher. The only objection to this feeder is its size, as it does not hold more than two pounds of syrup, and if used for fall feeling would need to be filled many times. This feeder is especially useful for stimulating the bees in the spring, and is also most practical in developing nuclei. In a small apiary it is quite practical for all purposes.
Of the larger inside feeders the Smith, the Heddon and the Miller are generally used. These are alike in one respect; they are flat boxes placed directly above the frames and beneath the quilts. The Heddon and the Miller each take a certain specified number of pounds of syrup, so that when we use them we can tell just how much we are feeding. The Miller is especially convenient in this respect, and has one advantage over the others in that the entrance for the bees is directly above the centre of the brood-chamber, so that the bees may enter it easily without loss of heat. This fact renders it an excellent feeder for cold weather. Some still use the pepper-box feeder, which consists of a tin can with perforated cover, inverted above the frame, but this lifts the quilts and lets in the cold, and is awkward to use; and as it does not hold very much it is quite inconvenient to manage.
Some altruistic people take the frames of comb from which honey has been extracted and fill the cells with syrup. This is done by laying the comb flat and letting the syrup into it through a fine sieve, or by using a force-pump with a spray nozzle. After the frame is filled it is allowed to stand on edge until the drain has ceased and then it is hung in the hive, and presto! the bees never know that they have been robbed.
In the happy days, when we were getting our first experience, we fed some colonies for the winter by introducing chunk honey into the bottom of the hive, and it worked like a charm, except that we were obliged to lift the hive to put in the honey, and again to remove the beautifully cleaned comb. One never realises how beautiful empty honey-comb may be unless he has had the privilege of examining a freshly made comb or one which the bees have cleaned. Bee-books advise putting in the chunk honey above the brood-frames, using IIill's device above it so it will not be crushed by the quilt. We have done this, setting the comb in every direction, and our bees ignored it in a most provoking way; but when they found it at the bottom of the hive, they carried it up at once. We never knew why our bees were so contrary in refusing to take the honey from above because other people's bees seem to like it administered in that way.
how and when to feed candy
If necessary to feed the bees in midwinter many people use candy. This is made by boiling granulated sugar in a double boiler until it is brittle when dropped in cold water. It is then taken off and stirred and poured into flat dishes to harden, from which it can be taken as a cake and placed on top of the frame at the centre of the hive. Some pour the candy into the wooden butter-trays and after it hardens invert the tray over the middle of the broodnest. Some, instead of caking it thus, mould it in a brood-frame by holding the frame flat on a table or board covered with oil paper and pouring the candy in; it thus hardens fast to the frame, and may be put directly in the brood-nest. The famous Good candy, so called because it was invented by Mr. Good, although the excellence of the product would have given it that name anyway, is made by taking extracted honey, and heating it until it is quite thin, but not allowed to boil, and mixing into it confectioner's sugar until the spoon can no longer stir it; then the mixture is taken out, and placed on a board and more sugar kneaded into it until it is of firm consistency. In hot weather more sugar is needed than in the winter. In making this candy skill is evinced in getting it as soft as possible, and yet stiff enough so that it will not flow. Only the best honey is used for this; and if the confectioner's sugar seems impure, then granulated sugar should be bounded in a mortar or rolled under a rolling-pin until fine and used instead. The confectioner's sugar may be tested by putting a little in a glass of water and noting if there is a sediment.
who invented the best entrance-feeder practises this, with the result of getting more honey than other beekeepers of his neighbourhood, who do not feed at this time. It is especially valuable in years when the honey is scarce, for then the bees store all the honey they gather in the supers. However, there is one thing to consider carefully in this feeding, and that is the relative price of syrup and honey. If the market is glutted and honey is plentiful and cheap, this sort of feeding would better be practised cautiously; but when honey is scarce and dear, it is certainly a safe experiment.
## feeding back
When the sections are not well filled in the late season, it is the practice of some apiarists to feed extracted honey in order to fill them. For this only the best honey is used; it is mixed with water, ten pounds of honey to one of water, and heated so that it is a fluid and then poured in the larger kind of feeders, and is put in at night, as the smell of the heated honey particularly incites bees to robbling. However, the flavour of honey which has been fed back is inferior to that which is only once made, and but a few apiarists practise feeding back successfully.
## watering rees