1879 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



307 



of. Mr. W. W. Gary, of Colerain, Mass., 

 sends us the following description of a plan 

 similar to the cider press, which, I think, 

 might prove of much value, if a large quan- 

 tity of wax is to be got out, as is often the 

 case where many stocks are to be transfer- 

 red. 



Mr. A. I. Boot:— Below you will find a description 

 of Cary's wax press. I call it Cary's, because I 

 have never seen or heard of any thing like it. The 

 idea suggested itself to me, from the way in which 

 I press my cider, in burlap and racks, just as in the 

 wax press. 



CARY'S WAX PRESS. 



Make a boiler of good heavy tin, 18 in. square, by 

 13 in. high, inside measure. Solder stout handles on 

 two of the sides, and put a spout on one of the other 

 sides, about 4 inches from the top. The spout con- 

 sists of a tunnel, 3 in. in diameter at the top and 1 ir . 

 at the small end, and about 3 in. long, flattened at 

 the large end so as to make it oval shaped. This is 

 for running off the wax, and the mouth of it should 

 be 3 or 4 in. wide by 1 high on the inside of the boil- 

 er. Now cut out a hole on one side of the boiler and 

 solder on the spout, which will need a brace to hold 

 it steady. Perhaps one of your molasses gates for 

 extractors would be a good thing soldered to this 

 spout; we use a cork however. 



Now make 6 racks of pine strips, V% inch wide, by 

 % thick. The slats should be planed on all sides. 

 Cut them Yl l A in. long, and take 2 strips % thick by 

 1 in. wide and Vt% in. long, and nail the other strips 

 on crosswise, leaving % in. plump between them. 

 Next, make a box 15%xl5%, without top or bottom, 

 and make it of 'A inch boards, 3 inches wide. This 

 is what cider-makers call a form or hoop, and is 

 used for laying up the cheese. Now get burlap, 

 such as the factories use for baling their cloth. Cut 

 it into pieces, 28 or 30 in. square. Five of these is 

 enough, as 5 layers will fill the boiler. Now take the 

 old comb and pound it up fine, lay down a rack, put 

 on the form, spread on a burlap, and fill up with 

 the comb; then double in the sides, raise all from 

 the form, and place in the boiler. Fill 5 racks in 

 this way, and put the 6th on top, and a board for a 

 follower on top of this, with a block 6 or 8 in. square 

 which should be fastened to the follower. Perhaps 

 all this will make the boiler more than full, but it 

 will soon settle down when it comes to a boil. A 

 better way is to put the boiler on the stove with 2 

 pails of water in it, before you commence. This 

 saves time in heating, and the layers can be lowered 

 in with hooks made of wire. 



As soon as it has boiled 15 or 20 minutes, it is ready 

 to press, which I do with a small jack screw. You 

 need a small frame, of course, to press in; this can 

 be made with a screw in the upper beam, if desired, 

 but the jack screw does just as well. Now when 

 your wax has boiled enough, take the boiler from 

 the stove, place it under the press, and turn down 

 your screw, and you will soon find the wax on top of 

 the water. Proceed to draw it otf by the spout. 

 You will need a pailful or two of hot water to fill 

 up with as the wax runs off. The wax should be all 

 removed before the screw is loosened up, as it will 

 stick to the racks and burlap. Skim the wax off 

 with a paddle made of thin board or tin. If the 

 screw is loosened once or twice, and the water al- 

 lowed to soften up the pumice, it will get it out 

 cleaner. 



You need not be more than 15 or 20 minutes in 

 pressing out a cheese, after it is boiled. A pi-ess of 

 the size I have described will get out from 10 to 20 

 lbs. to a pressing, of as nice wax as you ever saw. 

 If you have a good stove to heat on, you need not bo 

 more than an hour, or VA hours to a pressing, which 

 gives a capacity of from 75 to 150 lbs. per day, more 

 than 10 times the capacity of the steamer process; 

 and again, it gets the wax out much cleaner. If you 

 do not believe this, run some through the steamer, 

 and then put it through a press of this kind. We 

 had the bottom of a bee hive full of pumice which 

 had been through the steamer, and all the wax had 

 been got out that we could get out by that process; 

 then we put it through the press and got out 10 lbs. 

 more. I tried the steamer for 3 or 4 weeks, and be- 

 came disgusted with it; it worked so slow. I got 

 out more wax the first day after I made the press 

 than I could in 10 days with the steamer. 



Now if you want to make a press after this pat- 

 tern, you are at perfect liberty to do so, as for as I 

 am concerned. The boiler and racks will not cost 

 over $3.00. Wm. W. Cart. 



Colerain, Mass., 1878. 



We are much obliged to friend Cary, and 

 I have no doubt that his press will bring out 

 much more wax than the wax extractor 

 does. The plan we have adopted is some- 

 thing similar, but we do not use a press. 



OUR OWN WAY OF RENDERING WAX. 



Get an ordinary wash boiler that sinks in- 

 to the fire place of the stove. Put some 

 strips of wood across, to keep the bags of 

 wax from resting on the bottom and burn- 

 ing. These strips are to be of such length 

 that their ends rest on the ledge of the bot- 

 tom part of the boiler. A frame similar to 

 that mentioned by Mr. Cary would be very 

 convenient ; we have been using one made 

 of wire cloth, but it is hardly stiff enough. 

 Now, have some bags made of coarse strain- 

 er cloth, such as is known in the dairy re- 

 gions as cheese cloth. These should be 

 about the size of grain bags, but not as long. 

 Squeeze your wax into balls in the hands, 

 getting it into as small a compass as may be, 

 and put it in the bags. Have bags enough 

 to contain all the wax. These bags cost 

 very little, as the cloth is only Sc. per yard. 

 When you have as many packed into your 

 boiler as you can get in, while the water is 

 boiling, put on a board, with a- heavy piece 

 of iron on it. When the wax is all pressed 

 out of the bags, the iron should be beneath 

 the surface of the liquid ; if it is not. add 

 more water, or make the weight sink deep- 

 er. The wax, of course, is found swimming 

 on the surface, and may be dipped off, or, 

 if much is to be worked in this way, it will 

 pay to have a spout or gate, as suggested by 

 friend Cary. It is so difficult to clean the 

 bags from the gum and propolis always 



