Aug-. 2, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



483 



Ea.st, where I came from, the wa.x is lijfht yellow, and I 

 have seen some of the same color which came from Africa 

 but the Cuban bees love tobacco as much as the Badf,^er 

 btate bees do, and their wax is darker browa— too brown 

 sometimes to be whitened. You don't kno%v what beeswax 

 IS ? I know it comes from honey-bees, but where they j,'ot 

 it from is more than I can tell, and I guess there is no man 

 on the street who con tell for sure. 



It is supposed that beeswax in its original form is a 

 sort of scale on the stomach of honey-bees. When the lit- 

 tle busy bee thinks of storing up honey, it begins working 

 Its legs energetically, patting its stomach and carrying the 

 scales to its mouth, where it mixes them with a frothy 

 liquid until the scales are soft and plastic. When the scales 

 are kneeded enough the bee makes the hexagonal cells of 

 the honey-comb in which it places its gathered sweets, for 

 it knows that unless the honey is kept from the light it will 

 change, and will not be fit for its food in winter. When the 

 man who owns the bee-hive is ready to rob it of its honey, 

 he removes the comb, and either sends to market the little 

 glass-faced box with the honey-comb in it, or else he puts 

 the conib in a centrifugal machine and whirls the honey out 

 of it. He then puts the comb in boiling water and melts it 

 down, running the melted beeswax into little cakes. 



It is estimated that for every pound of honey there is 

 one pound of comb, and that over 1,000,000 pounds of bees- 

 wax are used in this country every year. Since chemists 

 and refiners went into active competition with the honey- 

 bees and made a pure, white wax, or paraffin, out of petro- 

 leum, the use of beeswax in the manufacture of sperm can- 



is carried around into the water. The roller turns once 

 every second, and when the chilled ribbons of beeswax are 

 carried around into the cooler waterthey fly off of the roller 

 into the water-bed. 



From the cooling bed the wax is lifted on wooden forks 

 placed in boxes and carried outside to the bleaching-beds. 

 Ihese are called frames, and stand about three feet above 

 the ground, hach frame is about 100 feet long, IS feet wide 

 and a foot deep. In each frame half a ton of wax is spread, 

 and there It stays for a month or five weeks, dependinir 

 "P°" V,";-"!""''f °^ ''""">' ^='>-^- fof- the wax is exposed to 

 the full light of the sun. Several times a day the wax is 

 sprinkled with water to keep the sun from melting it, and 

 once each day two men harrow it with a rake which extends 

 across the frame, .so that in the month of bleaching every 

 bit of wax has all of its sides exposed to the sun several 

 times. 



At the end of a month the yellow wax has turned a 

 creamy white, and it is then taken back to the melting vat 

 and remelted, run thru the screen over the wooden roller 

 and brought back to the bleaching-frames for another stay 

 this time, however, for only two weeks. By this time the 

 beeswax is piire white, and is ready to be put into market- 

 able shape. The boys take about 500 pounds of wax and 

 melt It m a small tub. Near the tub is a table on which 

 stands a large number of pans about four inches in diame- 

 ter, and a quarter of an inch deep. The pans are arran-^ed 

 in rows, for the melted wax is poured into one row at a 

 time. _ Above the pans and across the full width of the 

 table is a movable copper cylinder. It is really a double 



Running Off the Beesivax. 



The Bleaching-Frames. 



Molding the Beeswax 



flT IkT Tm """"^ '''"'^°" P=^P^^^ h^« &°"e down, but 

 the cobblers, tailors, and harnessmakers still stick by the 

 honey-bee, anddeclare that no petroleum wax can equal 

 beeswax when ,t comes to wax-ends for slipping thru awl- 

 holes Chemists, artificial flower-makers" laundries, and 



^h^ ^™iT^ 7u^ ''^^^ "°' ='" ^°°^ °^er to the enemy, as 

 the aOO tons of beeswax consumed annually indicate "that 

 the honey-bees have hosts of friends left 



But many of these friends require white, or nearly 

 white, wax and the yellow wax made by the bee must first 

 be whitened or bleacht before it is put on the market. The 

 sun IS the b eacher, so all bleacheries are in the country 

 away from the dirt and smoke of cities, and usually in the 

 h?r, h- ^l"^^ honey-districts. The beeswax is sent to the 

 bleaching-house in the shape of loaf-shaped cakes, each 

 weighing about 25 pounds. These cakes are broken into 



W firh^^""" Ji'u '"'^ ^ "^^ °'' t"*^ '"^^'J^ of '^edar, about 

 five feet high and three feet across. In the bottom of this 

 vat are two square wooden pipes, crossing each other at 

 ho^l r^H^-- T^etopsof these pipes ha^ve a number o 

 holes bored in them, and both are connected with a steam 

 pipe which brings the steam to them at a pressure of about 

 60 pounds to the square inch. From 1,200 to 1,800 pounds is 

 fcfv," ° ^\* ^^ l*'""*"' ^"'^ ^"°"Sh water is run in to 

 thn, th. uT- ■ ^^.f " '^^f^^^"" '^ turned on, and it jets up 

 thruthe holes in the wooden pipes, melting the wax The 

 dirt >n the wax falls to the bottom of the vat, and the melted 



r.n' ^ ^^ ^^"^ '?°"" u^"^' *^^ ^^^^'^ i^ turned on, is 

 ready to be drawn from the vat. 



Not far from the vat in which the wax is melted is a 

 wooden roller about five feet long and a foot and a half in 

 diameter. This roller revolves in cool water, and when the 

 melted wax after first passing thru a sieve, falls upon it in 

 narrow ribbons it chills at once, and, sticking to the roller 



cylinder one inside of the other, and the space between the 

 two IS filled with hot water. The melted wax is poured into 

 the inside cylinder, and is kept in a liquid shape by the hot 

 water-jacket. i- -> 



A number of small tubes lead from the inner cylinder 

 thru the water-jacket, and one valve turns the melted wax 

 into all the tubes, so that the boy who is fillincr the little 

 pans can move the cylinder along until it is over a row of 

 pans, and then can turn the valve and fill the entire row at 

 once. In an hour the wax in the pan-molds is cold, and is 

 ready to be shipt. 



[In the Chicago Record, about a week later, appeared 

 the following- : — Editor.] 



LETTERS OF CORRECTION FROM BEE-KEEPERS. 



W.J^^ Tu"* "Shop Talk" on the preparation and 

 bleaching- of beeswax for use, a typographical error placed 

 the proportion of comb to honey as "one pound of honey to 

 one pound of comb." The error was such a palpable one 

 that probably the great majority of readers charged it 

 against the compositor. Among the correspondents who 

 have noticed the error are the following-, who, besides cor- 

 recting the mistake, add some interesting information on 

 Dees and honey, which subjects were but slightly toucht 

 upon m the Record, because the article in question related 

 to the bleaching of beeswax, and not the bee-keeping in- 



Dr. C. C. Miller, of McHenry Co., 111., writes : 



' c " \'^?-/^ ^'^'^" '""'='' interested in the series of articles, 



Shop-talks on the Wonders of the Crafts.' I suppose they 



are in the mam reliable, but when it comes to talking about 



anything connected with bee-craft the general rule holds 



