74 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



of 1887 with one swarm, and had a 

 varied experience, and very, very much 

 solid pleasure, (no honey) transferred 

 increased by division, and had one 

 swarm come out, and now have, or had 

 last fall, five swarms in chaff hives, one 

 black and four Italians, but my great 

 feat, if I can call it such, was in Italian- 

 izing a swarm of black bees. I fol- 

 lowed the directions as laid down in 

 the books at my command and all told 

 me to open the hive and examine each 

 frame carefully for the queen, if not 

 found close the hive and wait twenty 

 minutes and look again. This I did 

 again and again, every time with the 

 same result, till I almost came to the 

 conclusion that it was a queenless 

 swarm, and looked at my beautiful 

 yellow queen in her cage at a loss what 

 to do with her. I thought of the 

 following plan, and it worked well. 

 I opened the hive again, gave them 

 plenty smoke, jarred the hive, and gave 

 time for every bee to till with honey 

 then took each frame out and brushed 

 every bee into the box, set the frame 

 back and put a trap made of perforated 

 zinc at the entrance of the hive, placed 

 a newspaper on the ground in front of 

 the hive, and brushed all the bees out 

 of the box on the paper, and let them 

 run in through the trap into the hive 

 and as the queen could not get through 

 the openings in the zinc, was found 

 and caught. As soon as I had her 

 safe, I put the cage containing the 

 Italian queen in the hive between the 

 frame, and closed the hive, this was 

 done about noon, when most of the 

 bees were out. The next morning I 

 looked into the hive found all quiet, so 

 let the queen run out. In the after- 

 noon looked again, found her oa a 

 frame, and think she had been laying 



that day, everything went well after 

 and I am in hopes to see her sometime 

 again this spring, — Ex. 



RENDERING OF COMB INTO WAX. 



The rendering of comb into bees- 

 wax can be effected by artificial heat 

 or by the sun's rays. The heating on 

 stove or by steam is the most usual 

 way, but many inexperienced persons 

 spoil their wax either by melting it 

 without water, or by overboiling, or 

 by using dirty iron kettles. When 

 comb is melted over a stove, it is not 

 absolutely necessary to have an ap- 

 paratus expressly made for the pur- 

 pose. Any ordinary boiler will an- 

 swer, A great deal of water should 

 be used, and a moderate heat applied. 

 When the wax is throughly melted, 

 it can be dipped off the top, by using 

 a piece of wire-cloth shaped like a 

 dipper, hung in the kettle, to prevent 

 the coarsest impurities from being 

 dipped out. We have never seen any 

 old combs, no matter how old, that 

 did not make nice yellow wax when 

 treated in this manner, or by the use 

 of a wax-extractor. As a matter of 

 course a good wax-extractor, if proper- 

 ly used, will give cleaner wax at the 

 first melting. 



If steam is used to melt comb, it 

 should not be turned directly on the 

 comb, but into the water below it, 

 the steam often damaging the wax 

 and making it grainy and green look- 

 ing. The same unpleasant result is 

 sometimes attained by overboiling. 



If some wax remains in the dregs, 

 it is not advisable to throw away these 

 residues. We have never yet seen any 

 process that separated them so com- 

 pletely that they could be called 

 worthless. Wax-bleachers usually 



