It is not profitable to cultivate any plant solely for the nectar which
it will produce, but various" plants, such as clovers, alfalfa, and
buckwheat, are valuable for other purposes and are at the same time
excellent honey plants; their cultivation is therefore a benefit to the
bee keeper. It is often profitable to sow some plant on waste land; sweet
clovers are often used in this way. The majority of honey-producing
plants are wild, and the bee keeper must largely accept the locality
as he finds it and manage his apiary so as to get the largest possible
amount of the available nectar. Since bees often fly as far as 2 or 3
miles to obtain nectar, it is obvious that the bee keeper can rarely
influence the nectar supply appreciably. Before deciding what kind of
honey to produce the bee keeper should have a clear knowledge of the
honey resources of his locality and of the demands of the market in which
he will sell his crop. If the bulk of the honey is dark, or if the main
honey flows are slow and protracted, it will not pay to produce comb
honey, since the production of fancy comb honey depends on a rapid flow.
The best localities for comb honey production are in the northern part
of the United States east of the Mississippi River, where white clover
is a rapid and abundant yielder. Other parts of the United States where
similar conditions of rapidity of flow exist are also good. Unless these
favorable conditions are present it is better to produce extracted honev.
[Illustration: Fig. 21.--Knives for uncapping honey.]
=EXTRACTED HONEY.=[1]
[1] For farther discussion of the production and care of extracted honey,
see Bulletin 75, Part I, Bureau of Entomology.
Extracted honey is honey which has been removed by means of centrifugal
force from the combs in which the bees stored it. While it is possible
to adulterate extracted honey by the addition of cheap sirups, this is
rarely done, perhaps largely on account of the possibility of detection.
It may be said to the credit of bee keepers as a class that they have
always opposed adulteration of honey.
In providing combs for the storage of honey to be extracted the usual
practice is to add to the top of the brood chamber one or more hive
bodies just like the one in which brood is reared, and fill these with
frames. If preferred, shallower frames with bodies of proper size may
be used, but most honey extractors are made for full-size frames. The
surplus bodies should be put on in plenty of time to prevent the crowding
of the brood chamber, and also to act as a preventive of swarming.
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