BEE-KEEPER'S COLUMN.
Conducted by Francis Jager, Professor of Apiculture, University Farm, St. Paul.
The Minnesota honey crop of 1916 will probably be a record breaker. This brings up the question of how to market this crop to the best advantage. Let me state at once that the greatest obstacle to free and easy selling of honey is the careless, untidy, sometimes unsanitary way some bee-keepers put up their honey for the market—spoiling the appetite of the public for this most delicious of nature's foods not only for themselves but also for progressive and up-to-date bee-keepers. The result of this big honey crop will be to eliminate the No. 2 and No. 3 bee-keeper and his honey from the market until No. 1 has sold out his product.
A short article like this cannot make a good bee-keeper out of a poor one, it can only serve as a reminder to those who know how "lest they forget." Moreover, the most careless and backward bee-keepers imagine that they are crackerjacks at their trade, thus putting themselves beyond the possibility of becoming anything. It takes a thousand hammer-blows to drive home a truth or a useful idea.
If comb honey is your specialty observe the national grading and packing rules. They are printed in all bee papers and magazines, and have been given all possible publication to reach you.
To obtain fancy comb honey your sections must have been made over strong colonies in No. 1 white, new sections with extra thin top and bottom starters. After the honey flow is over in your locality (which you can detect by the tendency of bees to rob and be cross) remove your comb honey at once. By leaving it on, travel stained and propolis spotted sections will result. The snow white finish of the comb will be discolored, the wood will assume that "used and handled" appearance which is not attractive to the buyer. The sections must be graded fancy, No. 1 and No. 2. Every section must be scraped around the edges and all propolis removed. Some bee-keepers even polish the wood of the section until it looks as clean as if it just came from the factory.
After cleaning and grading put up your honey into standard shipping cases. Do not ship it in the super where it was raised nor in a soap box. If shipped to a distant market by freight or express, eight shipping cases must be packed together into one honey crate provided with handles. The tendency of late is to put up each comb in a separate paper box with transparent front to keep the honey free from flies and finger-marks. This practice deserves universal adoption.
If you produce extracted honey you may leave your honey with bees for a week or two after the honey flow is over. Extracting should be done in hot weather, during August or early part of September. A modern hand or power extractor is an absolute necessity. There are still a few old timers who "butcher" their bees late in the fall, and render the honey by the "hand mash and sheet strain" method, but they are only relics of a poetical past and going fast.
Honey to be extracted must be well capped over. If extracted too thin it will ferment and get sour. If left with bees too long it will be too thick and hard to extract. Extracting ought to be done in a bee-tight room to keep out robber bees. Extracted supers may be returned to the bees in the evening or piled up at a distance in a safe place for bees to clean out. Extracted honey must be left to stand in a settling tank for about a week, or until all air bubbles and wax particles have risen to the top. It should be put up into five gallon cans or barrels for wholesale trade. For retail trade it should be bottled when needed, else it will candy in the glass. Bottling it hot or heating it after bottling will delay crystallization for a considerable period. The bottles ought to be white, clean and labeled with your name. Each kind of container should be well packed in a wooden shipping case. Do not make it a practice to sell a large amount to a customer at once, sell rather smaller amounts at frequent intervals.