THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



329 



trance to the hives should be left wide 

 open, that is, 14 inches wide by Yz 

 hig-h, then when bees are roused by 

 the warmth they are less likelj' to 

 leave the hive when the outer air is 

 dangerously cold. They come down 

 close to the entrance and stop. Such 

 as do fly, are, as a rule, bees which 

 would otherwise die in the hive. 



BETTER METHODS OK RENDKKING AND 

 SELLING BEESWAX ARE NEEDED. 



Beeswax is quoted in the apicultural 

 press at from 2.Sc to 30c per pound, and 

 yet there is a market in cities and most 

 larg-e towns for pure wax at SOc a 

 pound and upwards. Many diversified 

 industries use it; such as manufactur- 

 ing jewelers, leather workers, tailors, 

 etc. It seems a g-revious loss for the 

 producers to sell their wax for SOc, 

 and pay the freight on it at that, when 

 a little efltort will make a market 3'ield- 

 ing from 60 to 100 per cent. more. For 

 twenty and more years I have sold all 

 the wax I could px'oduce, at SOc a 

 pound, and never had to seek a custo- 

 mer, they seeking me. Many indust- 

 ries using wax cannot use a substitute, 

 nor an adulterated article, and they 

 are often seriousl}' hampered hy the 

 difficulty of securing pure wax. 



In your journeyings you have noticed 

 the carelessness of many bee-keepers 

 in leaving pieces of comb about the 

 apiary, of piles of comb more or less 



moulded or moth infested and going to 

 waste. Three thing-s are accountable 

 for this condition; neglig-ence, labor of 

 rendering-, and small returns for the 

 labor. I believe it is quite possible to 

 materially increase the wax output of 

 any apiary through greater care in 

 saving- the pieces of comb, through 

 deeper cutting when uncapping, 

 through more frequent renewal of 

 combs or parts of combs, and, lastly, 

 through less wasteful methods of rend- 

 ering it. The extraction of wax as at 

 present conducted is both laborious 

 and wasteful. If wax production is to 

 be profitable, the item of time to pounds 

 produced, with a g-iven amount of labor 

 must be carefully considered. With 

 wax presses, which, so far, have 

 yielded the largest amount of wax from 

 the material treated of any process, 

 we have a slow, a hot, a laborious, 

 and a sloppy system, in other words 

 an expensive method. Besides this, a 

 press will not yield all of the wax. It 

 is impossible. The principle is wrong-. 

 All the wax can be secured, and that 

 with little labor or time. [Tell us 

 how. Ed.] 



The returns from wax in an apiary 

 of only half a dozen colonies can easily 

 be made $5.00, or more, as I have dem- 

 onstrated. In a larger apiary the the 

 returns are proportionately larger. 



Providence, R. I., Oct. 4, 1905. 



L© MaEn^ ^ided Pr©Iblesiii of 

 Otat°AplarieSo 



F. GOVERDALE. 



M^J 



R. EDITOR, the topic of out-apia- 

 ies is deep, broad, and long to the 

 extreme. Their manag-ement isdifficult 

 to successfully carry out; and I fear will 

 always not achieve sufficient success to 

 tide them over from year to year; espe- 



cially so in poor and scanty locations. 

 However, the field is full of hope, and, 

 in many places, will, no doubt, prove 

 faithful to the determined man. He 

 will probably succeed as often as with 

 any other rural pursuit. 



