304 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



September 



second rost — all mussy work. A 

 properly made tool, which I will de- 

 scribe later on, would prevent all this 

 trouble; it is a pleasure to manipu- 

 late it. 



The same principle these two men 

 make use of I apply to my wax-ren- 

 dering, and for the small beekeeper 

 who has only a small amount of wax 

 to make, not more than perhaps fifty 

 or seventy-five pounds, this will ac- 

 commodate him, providing he has 

 convenient tools to work with. There 

 is nothing mussy or disagreeable 

 about wax rendering when we are 

 prepared for it. I do not even spend 

 any extra time when doing it. At 

 the same time when I am labeling 

 and filling cans, preparing sections 

 for market or doing any other bench 

 work, I generally keep my wax ma- 

 chine on a little three-burner oil 

 stove on the end of the bench in op- 

 eration, when I have wax to make. 



Rendering wax is like any other 

 work, it must be done in proper time. 

 This, of course, has reference to the 

 small one-horse beekeeper who has 

 not the up-to-date outfit for the 

 manufacture of wax in a wholesale 

 way nor the means for the upkeep of 

 such an outfit. By taking time by 

 the forelock, beginning to work up 

 our cappings as soon as we begin ex- 

 tracting, many little advantages may 

 be gained. When the uncapping can 

 is filled up it has to be emptied to 

 make room for the next day's ex- 

 tracting; the cappings have to be 

 drained and washed for rendering 

 into wax, and there is no better, 

 easier time for this than to begin 

 right away after each day's extract- 

 ing. With the uncapping knife cap- 

 pings are then easily chopped up and 

 loosened up to allow the yet warm 

 and pliable honey to drain during the 

 night. Next morning the cappings 

 can be moved into a dishpan large 

 enough to hold the previous day's 

 cappings and soaked with sufficient 

 warm water to detach the honey that 

 may be left from the night's drain- 

 ing. After a thorough stirring up 

 with a large, long-handled skimmer, 

 the most convenient tool for all 

 handling of cappings, and a few 

 hours' standing the whole contents of 

 the pan can be turned into the un- 

 capping can again and left to drain 

 until the can is needed for extracting. 



Fig. 1. The Wax Cleanser of G. C. 

 Greiner. 



The cappings are then ready for 

 the first boiling, for which a deep 

 kettle with bail is the most con- 

 venient. For all boiling and melting 

 of wax I use white enamel or granite 

 dishes. Tin or iron is liable to dis- 

 color it. While cappings should never 

 he boiled to excess, a moderate heat 

 with frequent stirring for about 30 

 minutes, and plenty of water, will 

 give good results. After the con- 

 tents are sufficiently cooled a nice, 

 yellow cake can be taken from the 

 kettle and the loose, coarse impuri- 

 ties that are found on the under side 

 scraped off or rolled off with the 

 back of a case-knife. The heavier 

 refuse is always found in the bottom 

 of the kettle, but the lower part of 

 the wax cake contains more or less 

 of about the same weight as wax, so 

 that gravitation alone will not sep- 

 arate the two. 



The wax cleanser, which the ac- 

 companying drawing (Fig. 1) repre- 

 sents, does this to perfection. It 

 consists of a graniteware pan 4 in. 

 high and 14 in. across the top with 

 a sc,reen frame 12 in. in diameter to 

 allow its entering the pan to about 

 one-half of its depth. It is held in 

 position by a piece of light bandiron 

 with a hook on each end (See Fig. 2) 

 to catch on the rim of the pan. It 

 slips in its place as easily as a well- 

 oiled jackknife opens. 



The screen, separately shown at 

 Fig. 2, is a rim of heavy tin covered 

 by 12-to-the-inch brass screen, with 

 a short little tin brace soldered on 

 each side of the rim to keep it in its 

 place. 



To operate the cleanser is very 

 simple, but it requires some exact- 

 ness. About 2}4 or 3 lbs. of wax from 

 the first boiling is placed in the pan 

 with sufficient water to fill the pan 

 nearly half full when all is melted. 

 With occasional stirring and ten to 

 fifteen minutes moderate boiling the 

 content is thoroughly liquified. The 

 screen is then inserted and fastened 

 by the bandiron hooks, as shown at 

 Fg. 1, when boiling water is turned 

 onto the screen until the pan is rea- 

 sonably full. After a few minutes' 

 simmering the lights of the oil stove 

 are turned out and the wax is al- 

 lowed to cool. The cake of wax ob- 

 tained by this process is as nearly 

 perfect as any home-made article can 

 1)6 produced. There is only a very 

 slight discoloration on the bottom, 

 but by means of a sharp steel-plate 

 scraper (I use one 3x4 in.), this can 

 be easily removed. 



To make sure that the quality of 

 my product is in every way perfect I 

 give my wax a third melting in a so- 

 called "water jacket." The basin I 

 use for this purpose holds, with a 

 small amount of water, a 2-pound 

 cake. I set this on my little oil stove 

 in a larger basin full of water, and 

 when melted turn out the middle 

 burner, and the two side ones to 

 about half power. This allows the 

 wax to cool very slowly and gives the 

 last foreign matter that the wax may 

 still contain a chance to settle to the 

 bottom. Consequently this last melt- 

 ing also shows a little discoloration 

 at the bottom of the cake that needs 



a slight touch with the scraper to 

 make the job complete. 



All the scrapings from the three 

 boilings are carefully collected. After 

 a sufficient quantity is gathered they 

 are again run into a cake, which, af- 

 ter being scraped at the bottom like 

 the others, is little, if any, inferior 

 to the common stock. All the drain- 

 ings from the cappings are also care- 

 fully gathered up; they are used as 

 feeding material at the closing of the 

 honey-flow to finish unfinished sec- 

 tions. And herein lies the greatest 

 benefit I receive from working up 

 my cappings as fast as they are made. 

 At first it may seem like unprofitable 

 work at that time of the season, 

 when the beekeeper has plenty of 

 other work crowding. But it is like 

 keeping a garden clean. If we keep 

 ahead of our work, if we keep the 

 grass from sprouting, we can do it 

 with one-fourth, perhaps with one- 

 tenth of the time and labor it would 

 require after the weeds are allowed 

 to grow over our heads. It is the 

 same in our bee and honey business. 



With comparatively little effort we 

 can keep our work in first-class or- 

 der if we don't neglect to clean up 

 these little odds and ends when we 

 have a chance. If our cappings are al- 

 lowed to accumulate until all avail- 

 able dishes and boxes are filled, they 

 are constantly in our way and are 

 pushed into 'dusty corners, which 

 does not improve the quality of our 

 wax. And the longer we postpone an 

 unpleasant job (the making of wax is 

 looked upon as such by the majority 

 of beekeepers) the harder and more 

 unpleasant the task seems to grow; 

 our daily work then becomes a bur- 

 den, which, if taken in time, would 

 have been a pleasure. 



La Salle, N. Y. 



(We can testify to the high quality 

 of the wax produced by Mr. Greiner, 

 with his process, which, however, is 

 not suitable for the large producer. — 

 Editor). 



A Ventilator for Bees 



M. M. Hale, of Mississippi, has a 

 very ingenious device for ventilating 

 his colonies during the heat of sum- 

 mer. It consists of a separate bot- 

 tom-board which is inserted in place 

 of the regular one, which has first 



Fig. 2. Screen and Strap-iron Band 

 for the Wax-cleanser. 



