ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



135 



slumgum when there is not wax 

 enough left in it, to make fuel, but as 

 for getting the largest percentage of 

 wax I have not seen anything that in- 

 volves the principle of the Hershiser 

 press. 



Mr. Wheeler — You think, Mr. France, 

 that is better than steam — the ' hot 

 water more penetrating than steam? 

 There are presses where steam melts 

 the wax and the wax runs down on a 

 platform and out. 



Mr. France — The water in contact 

 with the wax seems to separate better 

 than steam; steam is a more conven- 

 ient way to work it; but, when you 

 come to the actual percentage of wax 

 you can get out of it, I want lots of 

 water with the wax. 



Mr. Simmons — Don't you think the 

 washing of wax with water is an ad- 

 vantage in purifying and cleaning the 

 wax? 



Mr. Dadant — I have not had much 

 experience with the Hatch, to state 

 the percentage, 



Mr. France — So far as quality is 

 concerned, I do not think there is any 

 difference. You will get it a little 

 cleaner of sediment with the Hatch 

 press than with the others. 



Mr. Bull — You have to re -melt it all 

 anyhow the second time. 



Mr. France — I find we can have a 

 very nearly perfect wax with one melt- 

 ing if we allow an abundance of hot 

 water for the wax to run into and re- 

 main hot for a long time in cooling. 



The more water we use in the stor- 

 age in which it cools finally, the clean- 

 er and better the wax, so that the bot- 

 tom of the cake will be practically 

 clean, and you can rub off with the 

 hand all dirt or sediment on the under 

 side of the cake. 



Second hand tin cans I have found 

 very good to cool wax in. 



Mr. Bull — I use 60 lb. cans, with the 

 top out; sometimes you can take a 

 cake out of there in 48 hours and that 

 wax is clean. 



Mr. Coppin — Don't you skim it out 

 at the top before it cools off? That is 

 the way I do mine. There is always 

 something that rises to the top that 

 would not look so well, and I skim it 

 off, and then I can scrape the bottom 

 off and one scraping is all that I need. 



I do not disturb the wax. I just 

 skim off a little black substance. 



Mr. Wheeler — I think this point of 



the clarifying of wax is something that 

 each ought to study a little more. It 

 has taken me a great many years to 

 find how to get wax. I stumbled onto 

 a thing, and that was: After I get 

 my wax in all sorts of chunks and 

 shapes from my extractors, I put a big 

 boiler of water on my stove and get it 

 nearly to a boil, and put the wax in 

 and let it melt; I take a big sheet of 

 wire cloth and spread it over my tank; 

 I let the dirt settle, and take a dipper 

 and dip from the top down into the 

 .screen, and every particle of dirt is 

 kept under the screen. Then I put 

 this wax into a vessel and I have a 

 clear, fine wax. I tried all sorts of 

 schemes up to that time and had trou- 

 ble. This seems to be very easy. You 

 can heat the wax up in a very short 

 time and dip it out from the top. 

 Have nice, clean, hot water in your 

 pails. You get a nice quality of wax 

 without much labor. 



Fr. France — One thing may be mis- 

 construed — you sink the dipper, don't 

 you? 



Mr. Wheeler — Sink the screen wire 

 net and all right down. The hot wax 

 will run through there and you get 

 nothing but wax because the wax is 

 on top. 



Mr. Bull — I fill five or six gallon can 

 of melted wax and leave it stand there 

 for probably six or eight or ten hours 

 and draw the wax from a hole about 

 four or five inches from the bottom of 

 the can. 



Mr. Wheeler — In melting old combs, 

 if you have bee bread and young and 

 unhatched bees, you have old stuff that 

 I can't get out that way. 



Mr. Bruner — I would like to ask, how 

 many pounds of wax can be run 

 through a Hatch press per day? 



Mr. Wheeler — That would depend; 

 with the combs all cut out, you would 

 have to run two boilers; it takes about 

 25 minutes to run a No. 9 boilerful 

 through. If the combs are pretty old 

 you cannot use so many because you 

 have to give them more water. It de- 

 pends altogether on your combs. A 

 boilerful of ordinary old combs takes 

 about 25 minutes. 



Mr. Bull — Usually about 60 combs. 



Pres. Kannenberg — We will now ad- 

 journ until 7:30 this evening. 



EVENING SESSION. 



Pres. Kannenberg — We will have Mr. 

 Mosier's talk on Sweet Clover. 



