Extracted Honey.

A couple of copies of The Prairie Farmer have lately come to my desk, a reminder of my boyhood days, when, in the old home with my father, I used to contribute an article now and then to its columns. There is an old scrap-book on the shelf, at my right, now, with some of those articles in it, published nearly thirty years ago. But my object in writing now is to add something to Mrs. Harrison's article on Extracted Honey. Last year my honey crop was about 3,000 pounds, and half of this was extracted, or slung honey, as we bee-keepers often call it; but for next year I have decided to raise nearly all comb honey, for the reason that I do not get customers so readily for extracted honey. I have never extracted until the honey was all, or nearly all, capped over, and then admitted air into the vessels holding it, so as to be absolutely sure of getting it "dry," and proof against souring. This method has given me about half the amount others obtained by extracting as soon as the combs were filled by the bees, and ripening afterward.

But in spite of all these precautions I find so much prejudice against extracted honey, growing out of the ignorance of the public with regard to this sweet, ignorance equaled only by the ignorance in regard to bees themselves, that the sale of such honey has been very slow; so slow that while my comb honey is reduced at this date to about 150 pounds, I have several ten-gallon kegs of pure white honey still on hand.

Especially is there a prejudice against candied honey, though that is an absolute test of purity, and it can be readily liquified, as Mrs. H. says, without injury. When I say that it is an absolute test of purity I mean that all honey that candies evenly is pure, though some of the best honey I have ever had never candied at all. In one case I knew the honey to candy in the combs of a new swarm early in autumn; but some seasons, particularly very dry ones, it will hardly candy at all. This difference seems to be due to the varying proportion of natural glucose, which will crystallize, and levulose, or mellose, which will not crystallize. Manufactured glucose will not crystallize; and some of our largest honey merchants, even the Thurbers, of New York, have mixed artificial glucose with honey to avoid loss by the ignorant prejudice of the public.

Wm. Camm. Morgan Co., Ill.