THE BEE-KEEPERS- REVIEW 



209 



Home of D. E. Lhommedieu, Colo, Story Co., Iowa. 

 Note the straw hive in the gable of the bouse. 



After moving them I found several 

 were too weak to pull through. Not 

 caring to give them brood from the 

 healthy stock until I knew the treat- 

 ment was successful, I joined a few of 

 them. There are now (March 4) forty- 

 five there, and every one of them is 

 entirely free from foul brood. 



RENDERING THE OLD COMBS INTO WAX. 



After the last of these bees were 

 established in their new homes, I re- 

 turned to the old location and rendered 

 the wax. For this purpose I used a 

 tank three and one-half feet long, six- 

 teen inches deep and twenty-one inches 

 wide. Filling it about three-fifths full, 

 the combs were tossed into the boiling 

 water. 



This tank handles twenty-hve combs 

 at a time nicely. In from ten to 

 fifteen minutes (varying somewhat 

 owing to age of combs and intensity 

 of heat) the wax would all be melted. 

 I would then take out the frames, using 

 for this purpose a four-foot stick. 



They were kept tiered up neatly, as a 

 bunch of frames like this, if thrown 

 loosely in a pile, soon occupy some 

 space. The water was changed each 



day. Frames came from the tank fre- 

 quently with some wax adhering to 

 them. These were tiered by themselves 

 until next morning, when they were 

 given another hot bath in the clean 

 water and came out practically free of 

 wax. 



When hives or lids had adhering wax. 

 they also went into the tank. The co- 

 coons and wax were dipped from the big 

 tank and poured into a sack, the bot- 

 tom of which was in a galvanized iron 

 receptacle. This arrangement has flar- 

 ing sides and handles (or ears) like a 

 kitchen steamer. One of these handles 

 rests nicely on the rim of the Root wax 

 press, so there is no danger of slip- 

 ping and spilling its contents while lift- 

 ing the sack into the press. With it 

 one man can easily attend the press. 

 There were about 1,200 frames and 

 we secured 300 pounds of wax from 

 them. 



DISINFECTING THE HIVES AND FRAMES 

 WITH LYE. 



After the wax was melted and out 

 of the way, I removed all traces of dis- 

 ease from the frames. This was done 

 by boiling them in a strong solution of 



