BEES-WAX AND ITS ECONOMICAL USES. 



HISTORICAL. 



BEES-WAX was known in ancient times. The Bible tells 

 us of a land flowing with milk and honey ; and where 

 there was honey, there must also have been wax. Pliny 

 speaks of white wax, and in the time of Dioscorides wax 

 was rolled into sheets according to a method described by 

 him. 



At that time materials for lighting made from wax 

 fetched a high price ; they were used at divine service, 

 and the consumption which was at first comparatively 

 small, was afterwards increased by the spread of Christ- 

 ianity. The bleaching of wax was at that time carried on 

 as an independent trade, and one sees how extensive it 

 was by the fact that towards the end of the seventeenth 

 century there were in Hamburg 1 alone fourteen bleaehing- 

 houses for wax. It is certain that, with the exception of 

 oil and tallow, as also of the common torch, no other 

 material for lighting was known except wax, and this 

 could only be used by very rich people. 



Even princes who allowed themselves this luxury (as 

 it was then held) were accounted extravagant. But, in 

 addition to tapers, wax was used in still larger quantities 

 for the manufacture of artificial flowers and fruits, 

 which were much used as ornaments for rooms, for arti- 

 ficial flowers made of woven fabrics were not then 

 known. 



The Reformation dealt a heavy blow to the wax trade, 

 and consequently bee-keeping also suffered, from the fact 

 that the Evangelical Church did away with tapers at 

 divine service. 



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