The Production Of Honey

The obtaining of honey from bees is generally the primary object of their culture. Bees gather nectar to make into honey for their own use as food, but generally store more than they need, and this surplus the bee keeper takes away. By managing colonies early in the spring as previously described the surplus may be considerably increased. The secret of maximum crops is to "Keep all colonies strong."

Honey is gathered in the form of nectar secreted by various flowers, is transformed by the bees, and stored in the comb. Bees also often gather a sweet liquid called "honeydew," produced by various scale insects and plant-lice, but the honeydew honey made from it is quite unlike floral honey in flavor and composition and should not be sold for honey. It is usually unpalatable and should never be used as winter food for bees, since it usually causes dysentery (p. 40). When nectar or honeydew has been thickened by evaporation and otherwise changed, the honey is sealed in the cells with tappings of beeswax.

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 honey.

EXTRACTED HONEY

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.

Honey for extracting should not be removed until it is well ripened and a large percentage of it capped. It is best, however, to remove the crop from each honey flow before another heavy producing plant comes into bloom, so that the different grades of honey may be kept separate. It is better to extract while honey is still coming in, so that the bees will not be apt to rob. The extracting should be done in a building, preferably one provided with wire cloth at the windows.

The frames containing honey to be extracted are removed from the hive, the cappings cut off with a sharp, warm knife (fig. 21) made specially for this purpose, and the frames are then put into the baskets of the honey extractor (fig. 22). By revolving these rapidly the honey thrown out of one side. The basket is then reversed and the honey from the other side is removed. The combs can then be returned to the bees to be refilled, or if the honey flow is over, they can be returned to the bees to be cleaned and then removed and stored until needed again. This method is much to be preferred to mashing the comb and straining out the honey, as was formerly done.

In large apiaries special boxes to receive cappings, capping melters to render the cappings directly into wax, and power-driven extractors are often used. These will be found listed in supply catalogues.

The extracted honey is then strained and run into vessels. It is advisable not to put it in bottles at once, but to let it settle in open vessels for a time, so that it can be skimmed. Most honeys will granulate and become quite hard if exposed to changes of temperature, and to liquefy granulated extracted honey it should be heated in a water bath. Never heat honey directly over a stove or flame, as the flavor is thereby injured. The honey should never be heated higher than 160° F. unless it is necessary to sterilize it because of contami. nation by disease.

Extracted honey is put up in bottles or small tin cans for the retail trade, and in 5-gallon square tin cans or barrels for the wholesale market. Great care must be exercised if barrels are used, as honey will absorb moisture from the wood, if any is present, and cause leakage. The tin package is much to be preferred in most cases. In bottling honey for retail trade, it will well repay the bee keeper or bottler to go to considerable expense and trouble to make an attractive package, as the increased price received will more than compensate for the increased labor and expense. Honey should be heated to 160° F. and kept there for a time before bottling, and the bottle should be filled as full as possible and sealed hermetically.

Granulated honey.—Some honeys, such as alfalfa, granulate quickly after being extracted. Such honeys are sometimes allowed to granulate in large cans and the semisolid mass is then cut into 1-pound bricks like a butter print and wrapped in paraffin paper. It may be put into paraffined receptacles before granulation, if desired. There is always a ready market for granulated honey, since many people prefer it to the liquid honey.

COMB HONEY

Comb honey is honey as stored in the comb by the bees, the size and shape being determined by the small wooden sections provided by the bee keeper. Instead of having comb in large frames in which to store surplus honey, the bees are compelled to build comb in the sections and to store honey there (fig. 2). A full section weighs about 1 pound; larger ones are rarely used. By the use of modern sections and foundation the comb honey now produced is a truly beautiful, very uniform product, so uniform in fact that it is often charged that it must be artificially manufactured. The purchaser of a section of comb honey may be absolutely certain, however, that he is obtaining a product of the bees, for never has anyone been able to imitate the bees' work successfully. To show their confidence in the purity of comb honey, the National Bee Keepers' Association offers $1,000 for a single pound of artificial comb filled with an artificially prepared sirup, which is at all difficult of detection.

There are several different styles of sections now in use, the usual sizes being 4 1/4 inches square and 4 by 5 inches. There are also two methods of spacing, so that there will be room for the passage of bees from the brood chamber into the sections and from one super of sections to another. This is done either by cutting "bee ways" in the sections and using plain flat separators or by using "no bee-way" or plain sections and using " fences "—separators with cleats fastened on each side, to provide the bee space. To describe all the different "supers" or bodies for holding sections would be impossible in a bulletin of this size, and the reader must be referred to catalogues of dealers in bee keeping supplies. Instead of using regular comb-honey supers, some bee keepers use wide frames to hold two tiers of sections. It is better, however, to have the supers smaller, so that the bees may be crowded more to produce full sections. To overcome this difficulty, shallow wide frames holding one tier of sections may be used. The majority of bee keepers find it advisable to use special comb-honey supers.

In producing comb honey it is even more necessary to know the plants which produce surplus honey, and just when they come in bloom, than it is in extracted honey production. The colony should be so manipulated that the maximum field force is ready for the beginning of the flow. This requires care in spring management, and, above all, the prevention of swarming. Supers should be put on just before the heavy flow begins. A good indication of the need of supers is the whitening of the brood combs at the top. If the bees are in two hive-bodies they should generally be reduced to one, and the frames should be filled with brood and honey so that as the new crop comes in the bees will carry it immediately to the sections above. If large hives are used for the brood chamber it is often advisable to remove some of the frames and use a division board to crowd the bees above. To prevent the queen from going into the sections to lay, a sheet of perforated zinc (fig. 23) may be put between the brood chamber and the super.

It is often difficult to get bees to begin work in the small sections, but this should be brought about as soon as possible to prevent loss of honey. If there are at hand some sections which have been partly drawn the previous year, these may be put in the super with the new sections as "bait." Another good plan is to put a shallow extracting frame on either side of the sections. If a few colonies in the apiary that are strong enough to go above refuse to do so, lift supers from some colonies that have started to work above and give them to the slow Colonies. The super should generally be shaded somewhat to keep it from getting too hot. Artificial swarming will quickly force bees into the supers.

To produce the finest quality of comb honey full sheets of foundation should be used in the sections. Some bee keepers use nearly a full sheet hung from the top of the section and a narrow bottom starter. The use of foundation of worker-cell size is much preferred.

When one super becomes half full or more and there are indications that there will be honey enough to fill others, the first one should be raised and an empty one put on the hive under it. This tiering up can be continued as long as necessary, but it is advisable to remove filled sections as soon as possible after they are nicely capped, for they soon become discolored and less attractive. Honey removed immediately after capping finds a better market, but if left on the hive even until the end of the summer the quality of the honey is improved. A careful watch must be kept on the honey flow, so as to give the bees only enough sections to store the crop. If this is not done a lot of unfinished sections will be left at the end of the flow. Honeys from different sources should not be mixed in the sections, as it usually gives the comb a bad appearance

To remove bees from sections, the super may be put over a bee escape so that the bees can pass down but can not return, or the supers may be removed and covered with a wire - cloth - cone bee escape.

After sections are removed the wood should be scraped free of propolis (bee glue) and then packed in shipping cases (fig: 24) for the market. Shipping cases to hold 12, 24, or 48 sections, in which the various styles of sections fit exactly, are manufactured by dealers in supplies. In shipping these cases, several of them should be put in a box or crate packed in straw and paper and handles provided to reduce the chances of breakage. When loaded in a freight car the combs should be parallel with the length of the car.

In preparing comb honey for market it should be carefully graded so that the sections in each shipping case are as uniform as possible. No thing will more likely cause wholesale purchasers to cut the price than to find the first row of sections in a case fancy and those behind of inferior grade. Grading rules have been adopted by various bee keepers' associations or drawn up by honey dealers. The following sets of rules are in general use:

EASTERN GRADING RULES FOR COMB HONEY.

Fancy.—All sections well filled; combs straight; firmly attached to all four sides; the combs unsoiled by travel, stain, or otherwise; all the cells sealed except an occasional one; the outside surface of the wood well scraped of propolis.

A No 1. sections well filled except the row of cells next to the wood; combs straight; one-eighth part of comb surface soiled, or the entire surface slightly soiled; the outside surface of the wood well scraped of propolis.

No. 1.—All sections well filled except the row of cells next to the wood; combs comparatively even; one-eighth part of comb surface soiled, or the entire surface slightly soiled.

No. 2.—Three-fourths of the total surface must be filled and sealed.

No. 3.—Must weigh at least half as much as a full-weight section.

In addition to this the honey is to be classified according to color, using the terms white, amber, and dark; that is, there will be "Fancy White," "No. 1 Dark," etc.

NEW COMB-HONEY GRADING RULES ADOPTED BY THE COLORADO STATE BEE KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION.

No. 1 White.—Sections to be well filled and evenly capped, except the outside row, next to the wood; honey white or slightly amber, comb and cappings white, and not projecting beyond the wood; wood to be well cleaned; cases of separatored honey to average 21 pounds net per case of 24 sections; no section in this grade to weigh less than 13 1/2 ounces. Cases of half-separatored honey to average not less than 22 pounds net per case of 24 sections. Cases of unseparatored honey to average not less than 23 pounds net per case of 24 sections.

No. 1 Light Amber.—Sections to be well filled and evenly capped, except the outside row next to the wood; honey white or light amber; comb and cappings from white to off color, but not dark; comb not projecting beyond the wood; wood to be well cleaned. Cases of separatored honey to average 21 pounds net per case of 24 sections; no section in this grade to weigh less than 13 1/2 ounces. Cases of half-separatored honey to average not less than 22 pounds net per case of 24 sections. Cases of unseparatored honey to average not less than 23 pounds net per case of 24 sections.