Page:Bee-Culture Hopkins 2nd ed revised Dec 1907.pdf/17

 than within the hive. Although I have closely followed most of the writers on this side of the question, I have failed entirely to discover anything beyond mere assertions that their method is the right one, and all others wrong. No proof by tests or experience of both methods has been adduced to support their assertions, so that to a close observer they have been valueless. On the other hand, we have the experience and testimony of some very eminent beekeepers who have practised with great success and advantage the ripening of honey outside the hive.

This can readily be done, and is, no doubt, the best plan for those who are not prepared to exercise great care—that is, who are somewhat careless. All that is needed is to leave the honey in the hive until all the cells are sealed or capped over before removing the comb for extracting. The capping of the honey-cells denotes that the contents are ripe—that is, that the surplus moisture has been evaporated, which in my opinion is all that takes place. The time required for this depends in a great measure on the state of the weather and the condition of the honey when stored; it may be several days before the honey is capped, or in dry warm weather only a few hours after the cells are filled. Even honey that is ripened in the hive should remain in a shallow tank after extracting, to mature before tinning it—but more of this later.

If there were no disadvantages in the foregoing process, or no other method of reaching the same end without disadvantages attached to it, we should, as a matter of course, have to follow it; but I maintain we can ripen our honey equally as well outside as within the hive, and by so doing effect an enormous saving of time, labour, and material, and secure a larger crop of honey. Nothing has yet been brought forward to refute the theory that the ripening of honey, as previously stated, is simply a mechanical process—evaporating the surplus moisture by means of heat, whether inside or outside the hive.

In the season of 1883–84, after much thought, I determined to give the process a trial, and had shallow tanks made, such as I recommend now. The crop was ten tons of clover honey, none of which was more than partially capped on the upper parts of the combs, and plenty was not capped at all when extracted. It was duly ripened and matured in my tanks, and finer honey I never had. It was sent to England and all over the colony, and gave no cause for complaint. I followed the same process with the same success all the time I was raising honey, including that raised at the Exhibition Apiary, 1907.

It gave me much pleasure some seven months after the publication of the first edition of this bulletin, wherein I had suggested the adoption