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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



April 5, 19C6 



concentrated alcohol, and heated until the wax is dissolved. 

 If anything fails to dissolve it is evidently an adulteration. If 

 the dissolution is complete the glass is laid aside to cool for 

 at least half an hour. The liquid,* which is more or less 

 cloudy, is filtered and added to about the same amount of 

 filtered or rain water. A small piece of litmus paper (the 

 druggist will tell you what it is) blued with a little ammonia 

 is then placed in the mixture and the whole shaken together. 

 After a quarter of an hour the paper should have remained 

 blue. If it has become red, the wax is adulterated. If it 

 has not changed, the liquid is then filtered and must be clear 

 after the filtration. It is claimed that a wax that has stood 

 all these tests is pure, as any of the known adulterants would 

 have shown at one time or another during these operations. 



Manufactured Wax. 



I use the title "manufactured wax" purposely. There are 

 "waxes" or mixtures called wax of almost every color, degree 

 of hardness, or melting point, that may be desired; some of 

 them without any particle of real beeswax whatever. But do 

 not suppose that these are frauds altogether. In a great mam 

 cases they answer the purposes far better than real, pure bees- 

 wax would do. Needless to say that when any such is used 

 for making comb foundation, it is an unmitigated fraud of the 

 worst kind. 



Such "waxes" are obtained by mixing together in vary- 

 ing proportions all or parts of the following substances: Bees- 

 wax, paraffin, ceresine or mineral wax, stearin, and different 

 kinds of animal and vegetable waxes. 



One of the text-books I have mentions several kinds of 

 mineral wax. The best known, and by far the most used, is 

 the ozokerite. When purified it is called ceresine, or natural 

 paraffin. It looks more like paraffin than like beeswax and 

 can be separated from beeswax by the use of concentrated 

 sulphuric acid, as described above for the paraffin. It dis- 

 solves entirely in spirits of turpentine, but little in boiling 

 alcohol. 



Among the animal waxes there is the Andaguies wax, 

 produced by the different kinds of stingless bees of South 

 America, and gathered by the Indians with more or less dirt 

 of all sorts. It is different from that of our bees. 



The Chinese wax is much whiter and finer than the bees- 

 wax. It is the product of another kind of insects which lives 

 on a tree or bush called there the "wax-tree." It is an ever- 

 green with white flowers similar to those of the cherry or 

 plum trees. These insects, by biting or otherwise attacking 

 the leaves of the trees, cause the formation of balls similar to 

 those that we often see on the leaves of oaks and other trees, 

 only they are larger and of a purple color. They contain the 

 insect's eggs in large numbers. They are gathered in the fall 

 and kept in a secure place through the winter. In the snring 

 they are hung on the trees. Soon the eggs hatch out and the 

 insects attach themselves to the leaves. The liquid they pro- 

 duce rapidly transforms itself into a white wax which covers 

 the leaves and twigs until they look as if they were covered 

 with snow. The wax is scraped off with a thin, sharp, flat 

 piece of bamboo. 



There are also bees and real beeswax in China. 



The vegetable waxes are not due to any insect but are 

 a product of the plants themselves. The white powder-like 

 substances seen on plums or figs is something of that sort. It 

 is found on the leaves of some plants or trees, on the berries 

 ■of some others, and even in the bark of the cork trees. Each 

 kind is somewhat different from the others, but all are too 

 brittle to be used alone. 



Stearin. 



The stearin has another origin altogether. It is white. 

 almost transparent, much harder than beeswax, does not burn 

 quite as fast, and for some purposes is far superior. It is pre- 

 pared by heating tallow and dissolving it in boiling ether sev- 

 eral times until the stearin is pure. 



A French bee-keeper. Mr. Butet, says that by putting a 

 little of the suspected wax previously melted in a boiling solu- 

 tion of soda, the pure wax will form a beautiful white soap, 

 while the ceresin, if there is any, will remain untouched. 



Bt-EACHED Wax. 



The wax to lie bleached is melted with some water and a 

 little cream-of-tartar. The whole is kept on the fire and con- 

 stantly stirred a while. Then the melted wax is poured in a 

 trough having several rows of holes in the bottom. Under the 

 trough is a cylinder revolving with the lower part plunging 

 in iced water. The streams of melted wax are carried around 

 by the cylinder and solidify in the water in the form of 

 threads or ribbons. These ribbons are placed on large cloths 

 stretched on wooden frames, and exposed during several days 



to the action of the sun and the dews. They are then put in 

 sacks and piled in a room for two or three weeks. A kind 

 of fermentation occurs and the ribbons weld together. They 

 are then melted again and the same operation carried through 

 one or more times, if necessary. At the last melting. 5 per 

 cent of tallow is added, otherwise the bleached wax would be 

 too brittle. It is now quite white, somewhat translucent, and 

 much harder than the unbleached wax. A slight chemical 

 change has also taken place. Knoxville, Tenn. 



Some Good Advice for Beginners 



BY C. M. DOOLITTLE. 



A CORRESPONDENT writes that he began taking the 

 American Bee Journal last summer, through the influ- 

 ence of a friend who wished to interest him in bees ; and 

 that the reading of the same has caused him to think of buy- 

 ing some bees this spring. Therefore, he wishes that I would 

 tell him something as to how he should begin, in this, to 

 him, a new business. He says he is not very well off in this 

 world's goods, so does not want to lay out more than is nec- 

 essary to make a good start. 



My advice to this man, and all others who contemplate 

 going into the apicultural field, would be, Do not pay out any 

 large sum in making a start; $40 to $50 should be all that is 

 needed for what I should call a good start. Three or 4 col- 

 onies is all any beginner should buy, unless he has had con- 

 siderable knowledge in handling bees in working with some 

 well-informed apiarist. Twenty dollars should buy three or 

 four good colonies in good Langstroth hives. Then, if the 

 correspondent is at all good with carpenters' tools, I would 

 advise him to make 4 more hives as nearly like those the bees 

 are in as he is able to. Not but what he can buy hives, prob- 

 ably as cheap as he can get the lumber and make them, if he 

 counts his time as anything; but this making of his first hives 

 will be a good schooling to him, and "rivet" his interest to 

 the bees so he will be more likely to make a success of the 

 undertaking than he would if he bought everything ready 

 made. 



The lumber and comb foundation necessary for these hives 

 should not cost more than $10 or $12, so that he will now 

 have an outlay not to exceed $32 for his bees, and hives suf- 

 ficient for making 4 new colonies, which is increase enough. 

 To the ambitious beginner, this will seem like a small in- 

 crease; but I wish to say that the doubling of our number 

 each year increases our bees as fast as our knowledge of the 

 art will increase. Then listen: 8 the first year, 16 the second 

 year, 32 the third. 64 the fourth, 128 the fifth, 256 the sixth, 

 and 512 at the end of the seventh; and the latter number is 

 all one man can profitably work to advantage, unless he hires 

 help, or has members in his own family to help him. 



Do not get crazy over reports of some keeping thousands 

 of colonies, nor over the puffs of wares by those having said 

 wares for sale, and pay out your hard-earned dollars (earned 

 in some other business) more than just to get a start. Hun- 

 dreds of thousands of dollars have been squandered in this 

 way on bees, and the only "show" that could be made for it a 

 few years later was a lot of hives piled in fence-corners, con- 

 taining a lot of moth-eaten combs. 



Make your bees and yourself self-sustaining, after you start, 

 not paying out on the bees more than the bees bring you in. 

 remembering that if you cannot make 4 colonies pay, you can- 

 not 400. Then if you happen to make a failure of the busi- 

 ness, you will have the consolation of knowing that von have 

 sunken but $40 or $50, instead of from $400 to $500. or per- 

 haps as many thousand, as some have. 



Besides your hives and bees, you will want a smoker, a 

 bee-veil and a screwdriver or chisel, to use in opening hives. 

 This part of the outfit should be gotten for about $2.50. de- 

 livered at your post-office. 



Then, you want, most of all, one or two good bee-books 

 to teach you the fundamental and first principles of the bee- 

 keeping art. Right here is where more beginners fail than 

 anywhere else. The $30 or $40 required for bees and hives 

 conies easy enough; but $2.00 for two bee-books looks as big 

 as all the rest ; yes, and often bigger, so they are not pur- 

 chased, and. not Being purchased, they are not read; and the 

 result generally is about the same as we used to read in our 

 old school-boo^s, "For the want of a horseshoe nail the shot- 

 was lost; for the want of a shoe, the horse was lost; for the 

 want of a horse the rider was lost; and all for the want of 

 a little horse-shoe nail." So. many and many a beginner 

 has been lost, and also lost much of his worldly possessions, 

 because he would insist in entering the bee-keeping ranks 



