It is often required with us during the three great honey harvests--the
white clover, basswood, and that of fall flowers. I have always
extracted the honey so frequently as to avoid much uncapping. If the
honey was thin, I would keep it in a dry warm room, or apply a mild
heat, that it might thicken, and escape danger from fermentation. Yet,
so many have sustained a loss by extracting prematurely, that I urge
all never to extract till after the bees have sealed the cells. The
labor of uncapping, with the excellent honey knives now at our command,
is so light, that we can afford to run no risk that the honey produced
at our apiaries shall sour and become worthless.
If the honey granulates, it can be reduced to the fluid state with no
injury, by healing, though the temperature should never rise above 200°
F. This can best be done by placing the vessel containing the honey
in another containing water, though if the second vessel be set on a
stove, a tin basin or pieces of wood should prevent the honey vessel
from touching the bottom, else the honey would burn. As before stated,
the best honey is always sure to crystallize, but it may be prevented
by keeping it in a temperature which is constantly above 80° F. If
canned honey is set on top a furnace in which a fire is kept burning,
it will remain liquid indefinitely.
To render the honey free from small pieces of comb, or other
impurities, it should either be passed through a cloth or wire sieve--I
purposely refrain from the use of the word strainer, as we should
neither use the word strained, nor allow it to be used, in connection
with extracted honey--or else draw it off into a barrel, with a faucet
or molasses gate near the lower end, and after all particles of solid
matter have risen to the top, draw off the clear honey from the bottom.
In case of very thick honey, this method is not so satisfactory as the
first. I hardly need say that honey, when heated, is thinner, and will
of course pass more readily through common toweling or fine wire-cloth.
Never allow the queen to be forced to idleness for want of empty cells.
Extract all uncapped honey in the fall, and the honey from all the
brood-combs not needed for winter. The honey, too, should be thrown
from pieces of drone-comb which are cut from the brood-frames, and from
the uncapped comb in sections at the close of the season.
HOW TO EXTRACT.
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