1879 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



30o 



WAX. Whether bees make honey or 

 simply collect it, may be a subject of discus- 

 sion, but ayc believe there is no question in 

 regard to wax, for bees do assuredly make it. 

 If you have your doubts, however, just 

 watch them closely during the height of the 

 honey harvest, or what is perhaps better, 

 teed a colony heavily on sugar syrup for 

 about 3 days during warm weather. At the 

 end of the second or third day, by looking 

 closely, you will see little pearly disks of wax, 

 somewhat resembling fish scales, protruding 

 from between the rings on the under side of 

 the body of the bee. and, if you examine 

 with a microscope, you will find these little 

 wax cakes of rare beauty. Sometimes, es- 

 pecially when the bees are being fed heavily' 

 these wax scales will fall down on the bot- 

 tom board and may be scraped up in consid- 

 erable quantities, seeming for some reason 

 to have been unwanted. During the sea- 

 sons of the natural secretion of the wax, if 

 the colony has a hive affording plenty of 

 room for surplus, we believe these wax 

 scales are seldom wasted. At the swarming 

 time, there seems to be an unusual number 

 of bees provided with these wax scales ; for, 

 if they have remained clustered on a limb 

 for only a few minutes, bits of wax are found 

 attached, as if they were going to start comb. 

 When they are domiciled in their new hive, 

 comes the time, if the hive pleases them, 

 for them to show their astonishing skill and 

 dexterity in fabricating the honey comb. 



In the attempts that have been made to 

 supply material for artificial comb, we have 

 had a view of the wondrous skill with which 

 nature supplies just what is needed for the 

 safety and well being of her creatures. 

 Many substances seem, at first view, to have 

 all the requirements needed, but when we 

 discover that the material must be sufficient- 

 ly soft to lie readily molded at the ordinary 

 temperature of the hive, and yet be in no 

 danger of melting down during the intense 

 heat of midsummer, we see that perhaps no 

 other material than just the wax they secrete 

 can come any where near answering the 

 purpose. Wax melts at about 145 in its 

 natural yellow state, but becomes so soft 

 that it may be molded by pressure at a tem- 

 perature of about 100 or less. When this 

 yellow wax is exposed to the sun and mois- 

 ture in the shape of thin ribbons, it gradual- 

 ly looses its yellow color, and becomes white. 

 Its melting point is also raised by this change 

 about 1^ . yet it is still readily worked into 

 comb if given to the bees during hot wea- 

 ther, and when raised up into cells, it has a 



most beautiful appearance of snowy white- 

 ness. This, however, is soon soiled and col- 

 ored, if left in the hive, for neat as bees are 

 said to be, they have a habit of running over 

 the clean white combs with muddy or at 

 least dirty feet. With old and dark combs 

 this might lie unnoticed, but in a hive fur- 

 nished with combs made from bleached 

 foundations, it becomes very apparent. 



Like other folks, the bees seem more care- 

 ful of their best rooms, for the surplus hon- 

 ey boxes are kept much cleaner than the or- 

 dinary working room, or brood apartment, 

 though this may not be intentional after all, 

 for it is principally the young bees that have 

 never been out in the fields, that work at 

 comb-building and in the boxes. On this 

 account, clean, yellow wax, when used for 

 foundations, will give very nearly as fine 

 box honey when filled and capped over, as 

 does the bleached. As the latter is consid- 

 erably harder than the yellow, it is not 

 worked into comb as rapidly. When the 

 bees are needing room they will fre- 

 quently raise a whole sheet of yellow fdn. 

 into very fair comb in a single night, while 

 it would require nearly double the time per- 

 haps to do the same with the bleached. 



Until somebody shall discover a use for 

 propolis, we shall have to consider the prod- 

 ucts of the apiary but two in number, wax 

 and honey. It is true, bees and queens are 

 now quite marketable commodities, but as 

 they are bought only for the wax and honey 

 they may produce, they can hardly be con- 

 sidered as legitimate apiarian products. 



The manner of getting the honey into a 

 marketable shape has been very fully dis- 

 cussed, and great improvement has been 

 made, in this particular, within the past few 

 years; but the operation of rendering the 

 combs into clean, nice wax, so as to be at- 

 tractive to the eye of purchasers, lias been 

 very little improved since the time when 

 our grandmothers used to boil them in a 

 large kettle, and squeeze the wax from the 

 melted mass through a cloth or bag, much 

 in the way lard is expressed. Our engra- 

 ving given shows the only implement of- 

 fered for sale at present. It is called the 

 Swiss wax extractor; and. if 1 am correct, 

 was introduced into our country about the 

 year 1869, by Mr. A. Gray, of Reily, O. The 

 following report in regard to it, furnished 

 by Adam'Grimm, of Jefferson, Wis., I ex- 

 tract from the American Bee Journal, of 

 April, 1871. 



WAX EXTRACTOR. 



It is only a few years since wo got the melex- 



