190 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



July 



(From American Bee Journal.) 



WAX EXPERIMENTS-METHODS OF 



RENDERING QUANTITY 



AND QUALITY. 



BY R. C. AIKIN. 



How shall we render wax ? How 

 much can I get from a given number 

 of combs, and what will be the quali- 

 ty ? We do stick to old methods with 

 wonderful tenacity, even when there 

 are ways that are better. I have 

 rendered wax with water and with 

 steam, usmg several different ways of 

 applying the heat. I have also used 

 the solar way for 10 or 15 years. 1 

 have made at least five solar extrac- 

 tors, ranging in size from 18x30 in. 

 to 6x6 feet. I have made them mov- 

 able and stationary ; built two of 

 brick, the last one of which is built 

 against the south side of my shop, and 

 is 6x6 feet, all openings into it being 

 in the shop. A furnace is also 

 beneath to apply fire when needed. 



Last year I had occasion to melt a 

 lot of extracting-combs. I thought 

 this a good opportunity to test the ' 

 yield of wax from a given number of 

 combs. I remember reading years 

 ago (I think in Kretchmer's "Bee- 

 Keepers' Guide ") that an ordinary 

 brood-chamber required about two 

 pounds of wax to build the comb to 

 fill it. The combs I had to melt were 

 in part almost new, both natural base 

 and foundation combs. JPart had been 

 used for brood, some quite black. I 

 first put 100 bright combs into the 

 solar, average Langstroth size combs, 

 and got 20 pounds of wax. Two 

 other lots of 100 each were melted 

 separtely, the least yield being 17 

 pounds. 



The 100 brighter combs yielded 20 



pounds after having been extracted 

 from a few times ; I would expect al- 

 most as good a yield from strictly 

 new combs — brobably a little less wajj 

 but a little whiter. The dark combs, 

 I am sure, have as much wax in them, 

 but the mass of cocoons carry with 

 them probably about 1-10. The 

 grade of wax from these three lots 

 was almost the same, being a bright 

 yellow. The wax left with the refuse 

 is not entirely lost, for it makes fine 

 fuel and kindling,' thus making the 

 dark combs almost if not quite as val- 

 uable as the brighter ones. 



Some seem to think there is uo bet- 

 ter way to render wax than the sub- 

 merged-sack method ; but all things 

 considered, the solar is far ahead of 

 this method. The first saving is in 

 time. I save all odds ends, burr- 

 combs, hive-scrapings and bottom- 

 board litter, and put all in the solar. 

 The very blackest old comb you may 

 have — though not yielding as much 

 wax as the meltings before-mentioned 

 — will give a bright wax from the 

 solar ; but if put through water it will 

 be very dark. 



Of the afore-mentioned meltings I 

 took about a half bushel of the refuse 

 and put it in a sack and submerged it 

 in a can of water, boiled, stirred, 

 punched and twisted the stuff, and yet 

 I could not get enough wax to rise to 

 make a scum on the water. 1 then 

 took the bag out and put it under the 

 pressure of my own weight, and 

 squeezed out ^ pound of wax — wax 

 that was blacker than any I ever saw 

 in the darkest brood-foundation. A 

 few years ago I tried a similar plan 

 on a lot of refuse, and got about 10 

 per cent more wax that was quite 

 dark but in this case the solar work 



