310 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Aug. 



the exports were to France, England and Brazil. 



Besides beeswax, two kinds of wax of animal ori- 

 gin enter into commerce. The first, the insect wax 

 of China, is found coating the surface of the Rhus 

 succedaneum and some other trees. It is the product 

 of a very small white hemipterous insect f Coccus 

 Sinensis J, which about the beginning of June climbs 

 up the plant and feeds upon it, depositing the wax 

 upon the branches as a coating which resembles 

 hoar frost. This is scraped off towards the end of 

 August, melted in boiling water, and strained 

 through a cloth. It is white and crystalline, re- 

 sembling spermaceti, but harder, more brittle, and 

 more fibrous, fuses at 181° F., is but slightly soluble 

 in alcohol or ether, dissolves readily in naptha, and 

 has for its formula C 108, H 108, O 4. It does not con- 

 tain cerotic acid ready formed, but by fusion with 

 potash is decomposed into a mixture of it with a 

 substance called cerotine (C 54, H 56, O 2.) The Chi- 

 nese call it fe-la, and employ it for making candles 

 sometimes alone, but more commonly mixed with 

 softer fats and as a coating- for other more easily 

 fusible material, in order to prevent guttering'. It 

 is often colored red with alkanct root, or green with 

 verdigris. It has been introduced into England for 

 the manufacture of composite candles, and is found 

 to answer the same purpose of beeswax, of destroy- 

 ing the crystalline structure, or "breaking the 

 grain" of stearic acid. In China it is also employed 

 as a medicine. The French have introduced the in- 

 sect into Algeria. The price of wax at Nigpo some 

 years ago was 22 to 25 cents per pound, and the an- 

 nual production was estimated at 400,000 lbs. Anoth- 

 er wax of animal origin is the Andaquiss wax of 

 South America, which is produced by a small insect 

 called avesa. It melts at 171° F., has a specific grav- 

 ity of 0,917, and according to M. Lewy contains fifty 

 per cent of ceroxyline or palm wax, forty-five per 

 cent of ceroxine or sugarcane wax, and five per 

 cent of an oily substance. 



Of the vegetable waxes, the Japanese, the palm 

 wax of New Granada, and the myrtle wax of the 

 United States are the principal varieties. The first 

 is as white as bleached beeswax, more brittle, less 

 ductile, and breaks with a smoother and more con- 

 choidal fracture; its specific gravity is rather less; 

 and its melting point is about 127° F. Its chemical 

 composition is not definately known. The berries 

 yielding it grow in clusters like grapes on trees 

 from 15 to twenty-five feet high, and when gathered 

 are roughly washed and boiled in water, when the 

 wax rises to the stirface, is skimmed off, and formed 

 into cakes weighing about thirty pounds. It is said 

 to require protracted bleaching before it is fit for 

 market. Small quantities have been shipped to Eu- 

 rope for many years past, but it is only within four 

 or five years that it has been exclusively employed 

 for candles, &c. The amount exported is large and 

 continually increasing. In 1859 a single cargo of 

 1,170,000 lbs. arrived in England. In 1860 the price at 

 Nagasaki was $11 to $12 per pecul, or 8J4 to 9}i cents 

 per pound. The palm wax of New Granada, (cerox- 

 yline) is obtained from the Ceroxylon andicola. The 

 scrapings from the exterior of the tree are boiled 

 by the Indians, and the wax rises to the surface. It 

 is grayish white when crude, and after purification 

 by digestion in alcohol is yellowish white, almost in- 

 soluble in alcohol, and fuses at 161%° F. The tree 

 has beeu introduced into Algeria. Carnauba wax is 

 derived from a palm growing in northern Brazil. 

 It is soluble in alcohol and ether, and fuses at 182° F. 



The ocuba wax of Brazill is derived from kernels of 

 the fruit of several species of myristica, especially 

 the M. ocuba. It is yellowish white, soluble in boil- 

 ing alcohol, and melts at 98° F. The Bicuhiba wax, 

 also from Brazil, comes from the M. Bicuhiba, is 

 yellowish white, soluble in boiling alcohol, and fusi- 

 ble at 95° F. The myrtle wax, which for many years 

 has been an article of commerce in the United 

 States, also hnown as "candleberry wax" and as 

 "bayberry tallow," occurs as an incrustation on the 

 berries of the wax myrtle or bayberry. The berries 

 are enclosed in bags of coarse cloth, and kept im- 

 mersed in boiling water until the wax collects on 

 the surface, which is then cast into moulds and sold 

 without further preparation. It varies in color 

 from grayish yellow to deep green, has a balsamic 

 and slightly aromatic odor, a specific gravity of 1,004 

 to 1,006, fuses between 11'° and 120° F., and is much 

 harder and more biittle than beeswax. It is com- 

 posed, according to Mr. G. E. Moore, of one-fifth 

 part of a substance called palmatine, which exists 

 in palm oil, Japanese wax, &c, and four-fifths of 

 palmitic acid, with a small quantity of lauric acid. 

 This wax appears, as a candle-making material, to 

 be worthy of more attention than it has hitherto re- 

 ceived. Its illuminating power is scarcely inferior 

 to that of the best beeswax; it hardly costs one 

 quarter as much, can bo obtained more free from 

 color, is easily bleached, and from its superior hard- 

 ness can be cast instead of being moulded by hand 

 like beeswax. The plant grows abundantly on the 

 poorest soils along the coast of New England. 

 Plantations of it have long existed in Europe, and 

 its cultivation has lately been tried in Algeria. The 

 berries of myriea quercifolia, natives of the Cape of 

 Good Hope, growing on dry sandy plains along the 

 coast, also yield a greenish wax, which can be 

 bleached, and when made into candles gives a very 

 good light. The sugar enne yields a wax called cer- 

 osine, which is soluble in boiling alcohol and slight- 

 so in boiling ether. The sorgum also secretes on 

 the surface of the native stalks a white resinous 

 powder, from which candles could be made. A 

 waxy substance called subcrine has likewise been 

 obtained from cork. 



Several mineral substances resemble wax in phys- 

 ical properties, the principal of which are ozocerite 

 and hatchottine. The principal use of the different 

 kinds of wax are: 1, for the manufacture of candles, 

 either from pure wax, the consumption of which is 

 especially great in Roman Catholic countries, or of 

 wax mixed with stearic acid, palm oil, &c, as in 

 composite candles; to which purpose every variety, 

 whether animal, vegetable, or mineral seems to 

 have been employed in different countries; 2, as a 

 vehicle for colors in certain kinds of painting, and 

 as a protecting coat for them; 3, for giving a 

 polish to furniture and floors, for both which pur- 

 poses it is generally used in France and other parts 

 of southern Europe; 4, in medicine, in which bees- 

 wax is employed as an internal remedy against 

 diarrhoea and dysentery, as an ingredient in almost 

 all ointments, cerates and plasters, and also for fill- 

 ing carious teeth ; 5, as a lute or cement of much 

 utility for chemical and other purposes, and also as 

 an impervious coating for vessels formed of porous 

 materials; 6, as a material for modelling; and 7, 

 formerly for seals instead of sealing wax. 



The process given above, of bleaching by 

 the use of chemicals, I have tried repeated- 



