662 



Aug. 2, 1906 



American Itee Journal 



pounds of wax frequently, I would imagine you would have 

 considerable slumgum, and I stand here ready to pay $i per 

 ioo pounds for it. And I will pay the freight to Buffalo. 



Mr. Sherburne — If the gentleman would come after it he 

 could have it for nothing. 



Mr. Hershiser — There are a good many bee-keepers that 

 have been in the business a long time, and they are "dead 

 sure" they get all that wax out; and it is just like this: 

 They don't want to sell anybody a gold brick, or even give 

 them one, but all the same, I met one of these gentlemen in 

 St. Louis last summer, and I almost begged of him to let me 

 buy his slumgum. He says, "There is nothing in it; I get all 

 the wax out, and I would feel pretty bad if I didn't. But," 

 he said, "I will send you a barrel of it, and you can try it; 

 all I will ask you is to tell me how much wax you get out 

 of it ;" and he extracted it similar to Mr. Sherburne. About 

 5 weeks after I got back to Buffalo I wrote and reminded 

 him of the promise he had made. He wrote back and said, 

 "I have been extracting wax the last 2 or 3 weeks, and I have 

 about 5 barrels and I will send you one barrel." He said, 

 "If you get 2 pounds of wax out of that I you will not get 

 4 pounds out of all the rest." In due time the barrel came, 

 and such a mucky looking mass I never saw. All the same, 

 out of about 85 pounds of refuse that he sent me I took out 

 23 pounds of pure wax. I want your slumgum for the same 

 purpose. 



Mr. Hatch — I will give you a word of advice. Don't 

 let him have it. I have been something of a crank on the 

 wax question. I have talked to every, beekeeper that has 

 come to visit me, on the wax-press, and I heartily wish to 

 endorse everything in Mr. Hershiser's paper. I had been 

 using a press myself for quite a number of years, but I 

 realized I wasn't getting all of the wax out, but I can say 

 during the time since I have been using the press I have felt 

 very well pleased. If anyone has 100 colonies of bees I 

 would say that in one season he can pay for a good press 

 by the extra wax he gets ; and he gets it nicer. You won't 

 have half as much fuss as this man here, that fusses all day. 

 I can take his wax and run it over and get, I suppose, 25 

 percent of it, and have it all done in half a day, and have 

 the wax caked and ready for the market. I say, get a wax- 

 press. If you haven't got one, get a bench-screw and make 

 one ; it won't cost you more than three or four dollars, and 

 the wax you get is what counts. 



Mr. McEvoy — I would like to endorse Mr. Hershiser 

 and Mr. Hatch on that. Mr. Hall used to sweat and work 

 with his old comb, and thought he didn't lose a drop of 

 wax. Mr. Gemmill wanted to bring down his press and try 

 it, and after melting up the slumgum, dish after dish of 

 pure wax came out. Mr. Hall said, "I want that." I have 

 4 presses, and I have loaned 3, but I could get use for 53 

 as soon as the people got to know them. 



Mr. Ferris — I have had some experience in this line. 

 The gentleman spoke of dipping the wax. I have dipped 

 and dipped all day, and got out every bit of wax I could find, 

 and I had about 1J/2 bushels of slumgum. I constructed a 

 wax-press mentioned in the "Review," and from that i J / 2 

 bushels or 2 bushels of slumgum I secured 23 pounds of as 

 fine wax as you could ask to look at. 



Mr. Bartz — I want to say something in regard to wax- 

 presses that has not been mentioned. Those who have not 

 a wax-press, and who render their wax by the hot-water 

 process, would do well to take the comb to be rendered, 

 on a cold day, and put it through fine wire before they put 

 it in the water. Take a sieve made of this common wire, 

 and sift the wax or comb through this sieve into a 

 sack, and the pollen will stay in the sieve. Immerse this 

 pollen in the water and weigh it down with a screen and I 

 am pretty sure I can get more wax by the water-process 

 than I can with the best wax-press now in use. 



Mr. Hershiser — I desire to make Mr. Bartz an offer of 

 $1.00 a hundred pounds for his slumgum, and I will pay 

 the freight on it; and I will say that to all. 



Mr. Wheeler — I have had considerable experience with 

 a wax-press and wax-extractor. I melt my comb in the 

 Ferris extractor, and press it with the Swiss Extractor, and 

 that works nicely. I have always had in mind something 

 different. If I were a mechanic, and had a factory, I would 

 try a scheme I have in mind, and that is of using the same 

 force in extracting wax as is used in extracting honey, and 

 use steam for heating, and use centrifugal force for extract- 

 ing. I would like to try it. 



Mr. Hershiser — Adhesion and capillary attraction will 

 beat you on that proposition. 



Mr. Hintz — I have been in the habit of getting my wax 

 with a solar-extractor. I like that very well, except where 

 we have to get it out of old black combs ; and in my 

 experience in that case I don't believe I get very much of 

 the wax. I think perhaps a very large percentage of it re- 

 mains in the combs. Whilst I have always gotten it out in the 

 old way in water, in a kettle or something of that kind, since 

 there has been so much said about their being so much wax 

 left in the combs, I have rather come to the conclusion to 

 keep my old slumgum. 



Mr. Hatch — There is one thing we are overlooking en- 

 tirely, and that is the advantages of the solar wax-extractor. 

 I think every bee-keeper, especially an extracting man, should 

 have a solar extractor. Not but what you can get all the 

 wax out of the cappings by a press, but they work so easily 

 and board themselves, and cost nothing for fuel. If you 

 have made it on the plan suggested by Mr. J. H. Martin, 

 or "Rambler," you will find your wax all caked ready for mar- 

 ket right in the extractor. There is another advantage: You 

 may bring the cappings just as dry as you can get them, and 

 then melt them up for wax, and you will get an astonishing 

 amount of honey out of those dry cappings if you put them 

 into the solar wax-extractor. If you run 100 colonies of 

 bees you will get honey enough out of the cappings to pay 

 for the expense of a solar wax-extractor in one year. 

 Mr. McEvoy — Three of them. 



Mr. Hatch — And if you want to be real careful and 

 watch it, you can save that honey even for table use. As 

 soon as it is melted draw it out and it is all right. If you 

 leave it there it is stronger. I use it for feeding the bees. 

 You can't afford to be without, first, a solar wax-extractor, 

 and, second, a good press, if you are in the bee-business 

 at all. 



Mr. Stewart — I am very much interested in extracting wax. 

 I am one of those poor unfortunate fellows that has a lot of 

 foul brood, and that has given me something over 1,100 pounds 

 of wax in the last two years. I have a solar extractor and 

 also a Root wax-press; and while the Root wax-press is a 

 good thing, I know that in my slumgum I buried up more 

 than 100 pounds of wax; and for that reason I have been 

 very much interested in the matter, and was determined to 

 endeavor to find some method by which I could get some of 

 that wax out. I ship each year into the New England States 

 my honey, and go with it and sell it, and I formed the 

 acquaintance of Arthur C. Miller, Rhode Island, and, last 

 year, while there I had a talk with him, and he told me he 

 was working on the lines of a wax-extractor. He said it 

 was something different entirely from anything there was, 

 and something that he had great confidence in, in revolu- 

 tionizing the wax-tracting business. Going down to New 

 York City, I stopped off this year, and saw Mr. Miller, and 

 saw his machine, and he has it perfected, and they are manu- 

 facturing them now. He had as many fifty in the process 

 of construction, and it is so different from anything else that 

 I will endeavor to give you the process upon which he works. 

 The wax-extractor is round, something the same as the Root 

 press. It has an inside can, but instead of being perforated all 

 around, it is perforated only at the top and bottom. That 

 is immersed entirely in water, and there is a cover put on 

 the inside can after it is filled, so that there is no possibility 

 of any slugum coming out. Inside of that there is a shaft 

 running down through the machine, and on that shaft there 

 are flanges, and also on the inside can, and that is soldered 

 fast. He puts a conical shaped cover, and so fitted as to 

 prevent any leakage, and that goes up to a cone. Built out 

 from this is a hot-water tank. There is a shaft running 

 down to the bottom, as it is boiling he turns that shaft slowly, 

 and in that process it grinds the slumgum up as fine as possi- 

 ble. These flanges on the inside and outside can are ar- 

 ranged so that they come together, and they are made of 

 perforated metal, and the slumgum is all ground between 

 them, and at the same time there is a pressure there that 

 presses them. The kettle is boiling, and the hot water which 

 is constantly fed, causes an over-flow at the top. At the top 

 of the over-flow there is a spout that runs down through 

 the hot-water tank to keep it hot; and the wax as it is 

 liberated overflows and flows out at the bottom. Mr. Miller 

 says he can get every particle of wax out of the slumgum. 

 If it will do what he says, it is a great thing for the bee- 

 keepers. 



