12S 



April, 1913 



American Hee Journal 



granulated sugar, or loaf sugar, have 

 given general satisfaction. 



I have bought quite a few queens, 

 some of them coming long distances, 

 and they were received all right, so far 

 as candy was concerned. 



If we use glucose for bee-candy, and 

 bee-keepers adopt it generally, the 

 next thing will be a big advertisement 

 in the Ladies' Home Journal, or some 

 other periodical, setting forth the good 

 qualities of glucose, and stating that 

 bee-keepers are using it in place of 

 honey in making bee-candy, showing 

 they realize its superiority over honey. 



Brother bee-keepers, let us keep a 

 clean record, and for the good of our 

 business don't mix up with one of the 

 worst things we have to contend with 

 and give any chance for censure. The 

 glucose people are very keen to grasp 

 these ideas, and would want nothing 

 better in the way of an advertisement 

 than to state that we were using glu- 

 cose in place of honey in making bee- 

 cpndy. Let us gently lay it on the 

 table. 



Center Junction, Iowa. 



[This is right. It is well known that 

 glucose is neither acceptable nor 

 healthy for the bees. For wintering, 

 or for spring feeding, if no good honey 

 is to be had, the best sugar is none too 

 good. For mailing queens, glucose 

 would be deadly. — Editor.] 



Save Your Beeswax 



BY G. M. D00LITTI.E. 



WHILE the production of honey 

 is made the special object in 

 keeping bees, especially in 

 northern latitudes, yet in every 

 apiary enough wax may be ob- 

 tained to total a handsome figure in 

 four or five years with but little more 

 effort than to allow it to waste. Not- 

 withstanding this, many who are keep- 

 ing bees allow this wax to be lost, or, 

 worse still, become a breeder of the 

 pests that torment the apiarist who is 

 trying to keep his apiary free from the 

 wax-moth. 



Bur and brace combs are a nuisance 

 when frames are handled and the sec- 

 tions put on and taken off. Every one 

 who is " booked " for a successful bee- 

 keeper will remove these wherever seen 

 in any manipulation of the hives, and 

 especially when preparing supers and 

 hives, for the next year, which were 

 used the season previous. As these 

 are trimmed from frames, honey- 

 boards, etc., they should be carefully 

 preserved, as well as broken bits of 

 comb, and all drone-comb which is 

 cut out to prohibit the useless rearing 

 of dronesfrom scrub orgrade mothers. 

 Then, bees perish often during the 

 winter, or there may be combs which 

 from crookedness, or because they are 

 made up largely of drone-cells, or con- 

 tain much pollen, or damaged by mice, 

 are unfit for use again. In all such 



cases, the wa.x the comb contains 

 should be secured by rendering. 



Convenient places should be at hand 

 for the storage of all these pieces of 

 comb and wax, both in the apiary and 

 honey-house, so that there will be no 

 necessity to drop or scatter them 

 about. I have a little box in the seat 

 carried with me, when working in the 

 apiary, so that it is just as easy to drop 

 all bits of wax and comb in this as to 

 drop them on the ground. In this way 

 I preserve any wax which may be 

 trimmed from frames, combs or honey- 

 boards. Such pieces are especially 

 valuable, for they are composed almost 

 entirely of wax, and the rendering of 

 them is easy. It is well to keep these 

 and all other comb to be rendered, 

 away from moisture and light until the 

 operation can conveniently be attended 

 to. The rendering of bits of brace and 

 bur comb, and other comb in which no 

 brood has been reared, is a compara- 

 tively simple matter, since they contain 

 nothing to prevent the wax readily 

 separating from the residue, but with 

 combs full of cocoons, bee-bread and 

 other foreign matter, the case is dif- 

 ferent. 



For comb which contains little for- 

 eign matter, the solar wax-extractor is 

 a great convenience, as it takes all un- 

 pleasantness out of the house, shop or 

 honey-house; is handy to drop all bits 

 of wax and comb into, and if a cloth 

 strainer is put over the place of 

 the discharging wax, it comes forth 

 ready for market. For the rendering 

 of combs containing cocoons, pollen, 

 etc. (and those without cocoons need 

 not be excluded), I have found noth- 

 ing (after having tried everything 

 readily at hand for the average bee- 

 keeper) better than the following: 



Take a common cast-iron kettle, 

 such as is used by nearly all farmers 

 for heating water, boiling vegetables, 

 etc., for the hogs or hens, one that 

 will hold several pails of water; set 

 the same on three stones, or three 

 pieces of gas pipe or bars of iron 

 driven in the ground, so as to raise the 

 lowest part of the rounding bottom of 

 the kettle 3 to inchesfrom theground. 

 Now fit two or more pieces of plank or 

 board (nailed so the grain of the tim- 

 ber in them runs crosswise of each 

 other) so that a rounding surface is 

 made to fit the inside rounding bottom 

 of the kettle. With a coach or lag 

 screw, these fitted planks are screwed 

 to the end of an "upright" made from 

 a pole 5 or 6 feet long, or from a 2x4 

 scantling, the upper part of which has 

 holes bored in it 4 or .5 inches apart. 

 Get a pole or scantling 16 feet long, 

 and mortice a hole through it 3 or 4 

 feet from the larger end (if it be a pole), 

 so that it will admit the upper end of 

 the "upright." Next bore a hole 

 through the pole at mortice, so that a 

 bolt of iron will go through it and any 

 one of the holes in the upright, when 

 the same is inserted in the mortice. 

 Drive an iron stake into the ground 3 

 or 4 feet away from the center of the 

 kettle as it stands on the stones or iron 



stakes, to the top of which is attached 

 a trace chain, which chain is to be at- 

 tached to the large end of the pole 

 when we are ready for it. 



Fill the kettle half or two-thirds full 

 of water and build a fire under it, and 

 while waiting for the water to boil get 

 a burlap sack which will hold 3 or 4 

 bushels, into which place the old 

 combs, and tie the mouth of the sack 

 securely. Some think that if these old 

 combs have been soaked in water 34 

 hours they will render better, while 

 others hold that such combs should be 

 pounded up fine ; but after repeated 

 trials I am led to believe this to be a 

 loss of labor. 



When the water in the kettle boils, 

 slowly lower the sack of combs into it, 

 and as soon as melted, " woik " the 

 sack one way and the other with an 

 old hoe, and watch the wax rise. If 

 all the comb is not in the sack, raise 

 the upper end, untie, and fill until all 

 has gone into the sack. Working in 

 this way, the whole mass of combs 

 will be reduced to a bushel or so of 

 refuse, when the sack is to be tied 

 down as closely as possible. 



Now put the plank end of the "up- 

 right " on the sack, the upper end in 

 the mortice in the pole, the iron pin in 

 the right place or hole, and the chain 

 attached to the anchor iron over the 

 big end of the pole, when by bearing 

 down on the small end you can press 

 the last particle of wax out of that 

 mass in the burlap sack, as you "rock" 

 the upright this way and that by carry- 

 ing the small end of the pole one way 

 and the other, thus bringing the up- 

 right to bear, under the great pressure, 

 on every particle the sack contains. 



Having all the wax out, hang a 

 weight on the small end of the pole, 

 let the fire go out, and the next morn- 

 ing take the cake of wax from the 

 whole top of the kettle. Its thickness 

 will be in proportion to the amount of 

 comb you had to render. 



To prepare the wax for market, try 

 this : For every 10 pounds of wax, put 

 in a suitable sized vessel, allow two 

 quarts of water and one pint of good 

 vinegar, and when the whole is melted 

 over a fire, strain through common 

 cotton cloth into the vessel you wish 

 to cake it in, keeping the latter vessel 

 where it will remain warm enough to 

 keep the wax liquid for four or five 

 hours. Just watch it a moment, and 

 you will see that the whole mass is 

 moving or working and stirring about, 

 which it will keep doing to a lesser and 

 lesser extent as it grows colder. In 

 this way all particles of dirt which the 

 strainer did not remove will be found 

 on the bottom of the hardened cake, 

 from which it can be scraped with a 

 dull knife. 



If you wish something fancy, have 

 several tin molds made which will each 

 hold a 2-pound "brick," and when you 

 have it all in this way, you can pack it 

 in a square box. each cake wrapped in 

 a sheet of butter paper, the same as 

 they do " prints " of butter when you 

 can get a fancy or " gilt edged " price 



"Buying Cheap Goods to Save Money is Lilce Stopping tlie Clocic to Save Time" ^r."'X-\""7„ur"lrenTes"''nutVm!.;^^^ 

 It Pays to Buy LEWIS BEEWARE — Always tlie Same — Always Standard <;. b. i.eni» c"onipnn>, \vaterto«n. wu. 



