CHAPTER XI 

 WAX A BY-PRODUCT OF THE APIARY 



Although honey is the principal product, considerable wax 

 is produced in every well-regulated apiary. Although bringing 

 the highest price of anything the bee-keeper has to sell, the possi- 

 bilities of this special output are too often overlooked because 

 much of it is gathered in small quantity in scraping sections, 

 cleaning burr combs from the tops of frames and scraps of combs 

 that accumulate about the bee yard and honey house. If the 

 bee-keeper who has not carefully saved these odd bits of comb 

 will provide a bucket or other receptacle which is always kept 

 at hand in which to place all scrapings and bits of wax he will 

 be surprised to see what a quantity will accumulate during the 

 season. In addition the apiary and equipment will be much 

 cleaner as a result. It is very annoying to the housewife to have 

 someone coming into the house with bits of wax clinging to his 

 heels to be left on the rugs or carpet, as will frequently be the 

 case where such refuse is dropped on the ground about the bee- 

 hives. 



Old combs that are to be discarded and cappings which are 

 present in quantity are usually saved, as they should be, but 

 unless some care is used they are likely to be destroyed by the 

 wax moths during the warm weather. It is a good plan, no 

 matter what method of wax rendering may be adopted, to throw 

 all such material into a solar extractor at once. In this way it 

 will be melted so thoroughly that there is little trouble with 

 moths, even though it is not separated sufficiently to avoid the 

 necessity of rendering. 



Production of Wax.— When the bees are feeding heavily, 

 as during a good honey flow, wax is secreted as a direct result 

 of the quantities of food consumed. After a colony has swarmed 

 in warm weather large numbers of bees will cluster together 



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