HOW TO KEEP BEES FOR PROFIT 



large boxes covered with glass in which old 

 combs were placed and exposed to the rays 

 of the sun, and toward evening as the day 

 grew cooler the wax, because of its lightness, 

 was found in sheets on top of the honey. 



Doolittle, Boardman, Rauchfuss, and others 

 invented solar wax extractors which were 

 more or less adopted, but in principle they 

 were practically the same, and depended upon 

 the sun's rays shining through glass to do the 

 work. 



While the solar wax extractor can be 

 depended upon to do a certain amount of 

 rendering, especially where capping and new 

 combs are put into them, yet when it comes 

 to getting the wax out of old dark combs, 

 they have their limit, and compel us to resort 

 to another method. The only satisfactory way 

 to render wax is by some method by which 

 the old combs can be enclosed in a sack 

 and subjected to pressure while surrounded 

 by steam. This method is not entirely new, 

 though some of the appliances are, and were 



222 



