This page has been validated.
122
HOW TO KEEP BEES

honey. To prevent it extracted honey should be evaporated until it is thick, sealed while hot in air-tight cans, and kept in a room the temperature of which never falls below 65° F. It should be kept in tin or galvanised iron cans, rather than in wood. Some people seem to have been successful in using wooden vessels for holding the honey after having given them a coating of wax; but the way honey gets through small places is more proverbial among bee-keepers than is the ability of the stingy man to do the same; even when a tub or pan seems water-tight the honey will triumphantly work its passage through.

In order to preserve extracted honey in packages it must be canned or bottled, and the air entirely excluded. There are two methods of accomplishing this: First, the honey is heated in bulk, and run off into hot cans or bottles. Second, the honey is put in the bottles first and then heated; in both cases the honey is heated by hot water. Perhaps the easier method is to heat it in bulk, and if there is not at hand a double boiler, one can be improvised by using a wash-boiler in which pails containing the honey may be set. In any case the honey and the water surrounding it should be of the temperature of the room to begin with; then a slow, steady fire is needed to bring the temperature of the water up to 160° F. Mr. Root advises the use of a gasoline stove for this purpose as the heat may thus be carefully regulated, and it is very important that the process be a slow one. After the temperature of the