BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Again, new honey has, many times, a rank, disagreeable odor and taste. We have been told that in the Eastern States much honey is sometimes obtained from the fields where onion seeds are raised for the market, and that this honey, when first gathered, is so strong of onions that it can not be used. In a few weeks, however, this rank and disagreeable flavor has all gone, and the honey is very fair. Few persons can tolerate the strong, aromatic flavor of basswood honey when first gathered, and some of the jars we have mentioned, when opened, gave one the impression that something akin to turpentine had been mixed with the honey. This was because it had been closely corked when first gathered; had it been left in the comb until sealed, the unpleasant tastewould havemostly disappeared. We say mostly, for even sealing does not seem to remove entirely the rank flavor, until the combs have been some weeks in the hive. We remember we once took a beautiful-looking piece of comb honey out of a jar that was found in the market. On opening the cells we found the honey had such a rank basswood flavor that it was, to us, quite disagreeable,and yet we are fond of the basswood honey. Very white new comb honey is seldom of the fine, pure, sweet flavor of honey that has been long time capped over, such as is found in the dark-looking comb. To which shall we give the preference -- looks or taste? We once were so busy that we could not attend to extracting, and so we raised the filled stories up, andpart some filled with empty combs just under them over the brood. This occupied little time, and the bees were not hindered in their work a single moment. We have never seen hees amass stores faster. Some colonies filled four stories to repletion,and the whole was left on the hives until the latter part of the summer. In fact, we left them on so long to be safe from the depredations of the moth, intending to ent out the honey and sell it in the comb, or to extract it, whichever form should prove most matchable. This honey was cut out of the frames and sold the following winter; and it was the nicest and richest honey we ever saw or tasted. To our astonishment, the liquid portions, that ran out when the combs were cut, would not candy at all, even when exposed to zero weather. The honey was so thick that a saucer full could be turned over without spilling.
Extracted honey, if taken out while "green" (as we have often termed the unripened state), has a greenish tinge, which well-ripened honey has not.* Some specimens have a turbid or cloudy look, and we believe such honey is never really line-flavored. We are well aware that we are condemning the very honey we once sold, by these remarks, but we can not help it. If we had now some extracted honey such as was taken from those well-ripened combs, we would feel that it was preferable, at l2ets, to that which sells at 5 or 6 cts. Properly ripened basswood or clover honey has a sparkling cleamess, of a slightly yellowish tint, and the flavor is pure and exquisite. We have never seen any nice-looking comb honey equal to it, for the market always demands comb honey that is white, and has not remained on the hive a long time. We do not mean to say that extracted honey should be without color, like water, for it usually has a transparent pale yellow tint, or it may be quite yellow. After it has candidied, if it does candy, it should be hard, and free from any liquid portion, like that in unripened honey. This thin liquid portion is the part that usually changes and gives it the bad taste. In fact, if the liquid portion be drained off,the solid portion may be melted, and it will be found very nearly like that ripened in the hive.
ispening honey is artificial means. The most that is done in the way of evaporating honey that is not entirely ripe is to put it in large tanks, covering the top with a semi-porous cloth tightly tied down over the edge of the can to prevent rubber hees from getting in. In California these tanks hold anywhere from 20 to 30 tons. In some cases the tanks are contracted toward the top, leaving an opening of about 18x24 inches. In other cases the tank has a large diameter of about eight feet, and only four feet high. This presents a large surface of honey, and the evaporation, therefore, won'd go on more rapidly. These great honey-reservoirs are usually set down outdoors, and covered as before explained. As it seldom or never rains in California during the dry season the honey will evaporate down to a good thick body, even if it was a little green when taken out. Mr. B. W. Alexander, of Delanson, N. Y., uses ollong tanks in small buildings painted a dark color to draw the sun's rays. In these he stores his partially ripened huckwhent until it thickens up.
Whether such evaporated honey is equal to that which has been ripened entirely in the hives, we have our doubts. We have sampled both kinds, not knowing which was which, and we believe that in every case we have been able to tell the natural from the evaporated article. Commi-sion men and producers strongly urge that no honey be extracted except that which has been capped over; that while a few experts may practice artificial ripening, the average beekeeper should leave that wholly to the bees.
## How to keep extracted honey.
Unless the crop has been secured early it is best to dispose of it at once, when the market is at the highest; but it is sometimes advisable to hold the honey until the price aga'n goes up, which it is likely to do after the berry season is over, when every one is thinking of the holidays, Christmas and New Year's: for it is then that honey comes into fresh demand again, and the market becomes firmer.
Extracted, or comb honey either, for that matter, should be kept in a room about as near summer temperature as possible. The mercury ought not to drop below 65, and it may go as much higher as ordinary summer weather will permit--even 90 or 100 in the shade. Extracted, if kept, should be stored in 'g'g tin cans, or, better still, in a large tank--one capable of holding eight or ten barrels, if the apriast is so extensively engaged in bee-keeping that he is likely to have that amount of honey on hand at one time. Where the cans hold more than 500lts., it is customary to have them made of galvanized iron; and while some objection has been made to this metal because of its alleged poisonous quality, yet in the large-sized cans no injury to the honey has ever been noted ; for it is the custom in California, Arizona, Colorado, and other States of the West, where great quantities of extracted honey are produced, to have the honey stored in large galvanized storage-tanks, some of them practically good-sized cisterns have ground.
In those hot climates the honey will remain liquid for some time, and then be kept perfectly clear until cool or cold weather comes on. If the honey has a tendency to granulate very soon after extracting, it would not be advisable to have it stored for any great length of time in these large tanks. It should be drawn off into the marketing tin pails we have described under Candied Honey, and allowed to candy hard. It may be kept in this condition for it year or two, without detriment: and whenever it is used it may be liquefied by the directions that go with the package.
Ordinarily we would not advise the storage of honey for any considerable time in barrels: but when no other storage room is admissible, barrels may be used, but they should be watched to see that they do not start to leaking in the honey-room ; and occasionally the hoops should be driven down to compensate for the slight shrinkage that may take place ; for it is a fact that the staves of barrels, even when filled with honey, will shrink somewhat in dry hot rooms, with the result that there will be a leakage, and possibly robbing on the part of the bees. If honey be stored in barrels they should be waxed on the inside as described under Bareels. The bugs should be left out, and the barrels be kept in a hot dry room. When ready to ship, the hungs should be driven in, and hoops driven tight. In California, ten to twenty ton galvanized tanks, as shown under the heaor, are used very extensively. These are covered with cheese-cloth to prevent insects from getting in. While honey is in storage it should always be exposed to the air, providing, of course, that the atmosphere is not heavily charged with moisture.
Some bee-keepers in the East use an "oblong shallow tank like an ordinary cheese-vat, covered with cheese-cloth. The Alexander tank, shown in the drawing above, is a type. Others store their honey in square cans with the screw tops left off; then when ready to ship, the caps are put on. This plan is excellent, because a large surface of honey is exposed to the air; then when ready for shipment all that is necessary is to put on the caps and box the cans.
various packages for shipping and selling extracted honey.
The variety, style, and kind of packages that have been used in putting up extracted honey for retail purposes are almost unlimited. It is the usual rule that, for any thing less than 3 lbs. capacity, glass should be holding honey. Molded right into the glass itself is the image of an old straw hee-hive and the words' Pure Honey." These bottles are square in shape, and very nice for shipping and for retailing small quantities.
The smallest size is especially adapted for holding a time's worth of honey, and, all in all, it is a very pretty size.
The Hershiser jar is of the same general style, but with an aluminum screw-top. It is made of clear heavy glass and is especially adapted for shipping and exhibition.
Another package much used is the jelly-tunbler, and this, like the Mason jar, has the advantage that it is useful in the house.
With each one there is usually a little circular piece of parafined paper. After the tumbler is filled with honey this paper is placed on top, after which the tin cap is crowded down over the whole, making an almost hermetical sealing.
Another favorite package, especially for display purposes, is what is known as the
accurately any liquid, going down to as small a quantity as half a pint, and as large a quantity as a gallon, where one has a complete nest. Of course, suitable labels are to be used on these quils when they are full of housewife has too large a supply of these very articles already in the house, and does not care to buy any more packages which she can not use. For this class of trade we know of nothing better than the different forms of paper milk bottles, which, during recent years, have been put on the market. They are self-sealing, and if tight enough to hold milk, ought to be good enough to hold honey.
They are very cheap, for a box of them containing two dozen bottles or packages can be purchased for the insignificant price of 25 cents. \(\Lambda\) quart of honey, or a pint, could be sold in such packages very cheaply, and if the purchaser objects to the more expensive glass and tin containers, furnish these.
For large quantities of from 200 to 500 hbs., keys and barrels may be used. All such should be perfectly tight and _bone dry_; and to prevent the honey from soaking into the wood and wasting; or to prevent the taint of thewood fromgoing into the honey, the barrels should be coated on the inside with paraffin or wax, as explained under Bareels. But wooden packages can be used only in the Eastern or Middle States. In the Western States, especially Arizona, Colorado. New Mexico, and California,square tin coins holding about 60 lbs, of honey are about the only shipping-package that can be used ; for the dryness of the climate will cause the wooden packages to shrink so us to be entirely useless with any kind of treatment.
The square tin cans of the West have come to be so popular that they are now, to some extent, displacing barrels in the East ; for the wooden packages have a fashion of
the ordinary cooling-range or cook-atouse, using either _coal_ or wood, may be used for heating honey preparatory to building, a gasoline-atouse with three burners is far better -- better because the heat _can be perfectly controlled_. A wood or oral fire is apt to burn too strongly at one time or go down at another. If the honey be overheated it will run it -- that is, it will have been swoched or the flavor so impaired that it will sell at a moderate price -- in fact, it will be slow-tails might not be hotling- and would alter-for-law to be hotrended up and sold at a low price-to the large taking concerns which can use an interior or off grade of honey. Then it should be said that, on account of the danger from overheating from a coal or wood store, we _a gasoline-atouse_ for all means_. If you can not get steam.
There are two methods in vague for heating honey to be put in glass. One is, to draw it off from a large-scale, while cold, into cans or tombers, and heat while in the bottles. The other is, to heat the honey in bulk, all at one, in the filling-tank. Draw is off into the bottles while rest, and heat. Where one does to reexplecting to do a good business in controlling this is the method to follow: yet, on the other hand, if the honeycomb is small trade, the other play of heating the honey in bubbles, the bottles standings up to their switch in that water, is the one to follow. and cheaper in the first case. In the entire water need not consist of more than a large shadow given to set up to \(\infty\) of the cook-atouse, and to bind the (kating while heating). But one defines to keep the honey itself in the hands of the technic for a considerable benefit of time, the heating-hank method is the better way. A large quantity of honey in a small can be kept long for one or more hours, at a temperature of 100 to 100 degrees. This form temperature long considered will keep longer in a liquid candidate longer than a higher temperature for a shorter period. But, on the other hand, it may be still that a long-lived high cost baby quite at the (large) time. In the quick-heated article, both this difference will be noted, and by the evolutionary crossover, first by the further or lower one, whenever. At the consumption trade is one to which it is entering, the budget-to-place will be expensive, for preferable, because it is better to start with a shorter sequence. The lower one is the lower one, the shorter length scale in which all and consumed. However this enables outside to shoots to the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the outside on the on the outside on the outside on the outside on the on the outside on the outside on the on the outside on the outside on the on the outside on the outside on the on the outside on the on the outside on the on the outside on the on the outside on the outside on and tip over. From the filling-tunk the honey is drawn off while hot, or about as near 100 as possible, into honey-tumbilers, Mason jars, Muth jars, or any of the packages already described. As soon as filled they should be sealed while hot; after which, as soon as they are sponged off in warm water, they may be labeled, when they are ready for market.
The apparatus shown in the next two illustrations can be made at any first-class tin-shop, provided a quantity of half-inch copper or block tin pipe can be secured. If this is not obtainable locally, the tin-smith fan send away and getit.
The pen-drawing next page represents first a small tin boiler standing on a gas or gasoline stove; and, second, a melting-tunk in which the honey is heated and drawn off into the retail packages. boiler E can be made from any two or three gallon syrup-can with a screw top. The water-gauge on the side to indicate the level of the water is not absolutely essential, and may be omitted. If gas is not obtainable it is better to get a gasoline-burner of large dimensions, for the ordinary single burner would hardly generate steam fust enough for the purpose. If the tinsmith can not get an oven gas-siline burner, he can put two common gasoline-burners close together. The boiler will then have to be constructed with a larger bottom, but shallow in depth; for too large a quantity of water should not be used at a time. The heating-tunk should be mounted on a level, above the boiler, and a connection made with a common hose as it G.
The tank used by Mr. Pouder is 30 inches deep, l2 inches in diameter, holding 12 gallons. While his is made of copper, and is nickel-plated, yet one made of tin would be just as good if kept clean, and cost a good steel less.
Five or six feet of half-inch copper pipe continued on the outside is coiled and inserted inside of the heating-tunk, ns shown; but instead of a portion of it lying in a flat coil at the bottom, the spirals of the pipe should rise one above the other like a bed-spring, gradually spreading further apart near the top. One end should have an opening at \(\zeta\) and the other with G. Steam is generated in the boiler E, and finds its exit at the tube C. But when the honey is first poured into the tank to be heated, all the steam will be condensed and run back into the boiler E. After the honey is hot the steam will come out at the tube C.
Contrary to what might be expected, Mr. Pouder does not find that hot steam does any damage to the flavor of his honey. The apparatus is really very simple, and occupies but a small amount of room. He keeps his outlet right in his retail store on the counter where his customers can see it and its method of working, and this helps to advertise his goods.
After the honey has been run out, the heating-tunk should be left just as it is, without washing out unless the ontit is to stand for some months before being used
Again, for the honey will prevent the rusting of the tin.
The question might arise as to why it is necessary to have the height of the tank nearly three times its diameter. Mr. Powder explains this by saying that, in pouring honey from one receptaele to another, air-bubbles will accumulate. The deeper the tank the greater the pressure on the honey at the drawing-off point. This pressure will force the bubbles to the top. It is very important, in bottling honey, that the air-bubbles be all expelled, as they have a tendency to cause granulation.
The two outfits already shown for heating honey in bulk illustrate principles that may be applied to various kinds of tanks.
heating honey in bottles, or bottling for a small trade.
There is a class, as already intimated, who do not care to go to any great expense in a bottling-apparatus, since they have in view only a small trade. In brief, all that is needed is a shallow pan just deep enough so that the deepest bottles can be submerged in hot water up to their necks and no further.
We now need a square or oblong galvanized-iron pan as large as the whole top of the stove, with perpendicular sides, and about six or seven inches deep. If a gasoline-stove is used, the pan should be as long and as broad as the top : and if the three burners are on the same level, all the better. The pan should be just about the depth of an ordinary Mason jar ; or, rather, the depth of the deepest package to be used for bottling purposes. A false bottom of coarse wire cloth should be secured about half an inch above the bottom proper by means of proper stays. This is for the purpose of providing a circulation of water under the bottoms of the bottles of honey, for otherwise they might break. Fill the pan about half full of water, and set it on the stove. When the water registers about 180 according to the thermometer, set into the tray, on the false bottom of wire cloth, the bottles of honey that have just been filled from the large filling tank above referred to. When the pan is full of bottles placed close together the water should be raised to within about an inch of the top of the bottles. Let them stand in the hot water until the honey in one of the bottles registers about 160. They may now be taken out and corked or sealed. A fresh supply of filled bottles of honey should next be put back to replace the heated gradually in the bottles after filling, the process expels the air-bubbles ; and by the time the honey is clear it is ready for sealing and labeling.
If any honey should can only one can unseal, and set the bottles in the tray of hot water, and reheat and seal without emptying.
coveyou's method of filling bottles.
Mr. E. E. Coveyou, of Petoskey, Mich., one of the most extensive bottlers of honey in the United states, has a very fully equipped plant. The accompanying description,together with the half-tones, will give a very fair idea of how he operates.
Fig. 1 shows at the right the boiler and pipe leading to the different tanks. Next is the filling-tank of the tower. There is a partition through the center, so that too his of honey can be heated with the hose hanging at the bottom of the tank.
Figure 2: COVEVOU's LIQUEFYING-TANK.
This is divided into two parts, each of which will hold a thousand pounds of honey. The temperature of the water in each part is controlled by a separate steam-pipe.
tained in one side than the other, should it be thought advantageous to heat the honey slowly for the first twelve hours.
The steam-pipe in the middle is divided with valves close to the partition, so that the steam can be turned on or off to keep the temperature uniform-1 nm standing with a thermometer in my hand, not, ing the temperature. This should be done quite free, urgently until the right degree of heat is reached when the valve practically does the work.
In Fig. 3 the lady at the r ght is my sister, Mary Covergo, Millif glasses with what Mr. Townsend has named our "wid goose bill." This is attached to a hose, and fills the glasses right in the cases, which saves handling. We find this is one of the very best methods we have ever tried. One person can fill 4060 half-poud glasses with loney in less than a day's time, in this way.
The lady in the center is my wife, showing our new way of labeling glasses. In the first place the labels are not summed. We take one end of the package of labels and paste it, which keeps the pile together. Then the bunch of labels is also pasted upon the table, face down, which holds them securely in place. The young lady at the left does the pasting. As soon as the top label is pasted, the glass is simply tolled over it, which picks it up and at the same time presses it firmly in place. Thus the work is done without any handling of sticky labels. By this method we can label with the unnumbered papers just as fast as we could wish the gunmed.
Mr. Coveyon's scheme for filling his honey-bottles is very unique. It is, in fact, the same general scheme that is uses by bottlers of pickles and other canned goods in large scanning-factories. A rubber hose is attached to the filling-tank, and on the other end is an arrangement something similar to the cover on a syrup-picture to shut off the syrup without drip; indeed, it opens and closes much like a goose-bill. \(\Lambda\) pressure of a little hand-lever opens the beak of the bill, as it were, and allows the honey to run into a bottle. Just the moment the honey reaches the desired level the beak or goose-bill is closed, chopping off the honey without a particle of drip.
A quantity of the empty bottles are placed up on a table or tray within reach of the hose. The operator grasps it, holds the beak over one of the bottles, opens it and then closes it at just the exact moment when the bottle is filled. In like manner all the others are filled without touching a single bottle until that entire lot are full. The whole tray of them is removed, when another lot is put in place.
There can be no doubt that this method of filling the bottles is much more rapid than the old way of placing the bottles one at a time under a honey-gate, filling it, removing it, and filling another. It can readily be seen that the handling of the bottles necessarily consumes a large amount of time, whereas the rubber hose, with its goose-bill
Figure 3.Filling and labeling bottles.
The mechanism has been greatly improved in workmanship and design.