284 QUANTITIES WAX FOOD. 



general cleanliness are highly necessary. The 

 combs are cut into small pieces, always best in a 

 horizontal direction, that is, not across the middle, 

 but twice at the top and the bottom. Warm sunny 

 weather suits this operation best. All the utensils, 

 cloths, &c. should be taken to the apiary, after 

 having been used, when the bees will clear them of 

 every sweet particle left: but this should be per- 

 formed in the morning of a fine day, and no old or 

 candied honey should be given them, because it 

 daubs and adheres to their feet and bodies, and 

 may destroy them. In this country, one hundred 

 pounds of honey-comb will yield from three to five 

 or six pounds of wax ; in some of the southern 

 countries nearly double that quantity. Transparent 

 white honey is to be preferred to the higher co- 

 loured ; new to old, and that of the spring to the 

 summer or autumnal honey. 



The WAX being crumbled or pressed, must be 

 boiled in water, and then strained from bags into a 

 tub of water. The water being strained when the 

 wax is cold, it may be collected, boiled, and when 

 cool, will be found in a cake on the surface. It is 

 refined by repeated boilings in fair water. 



The feeding of bees, though slighted by some 

 writers, is attended with the greatest advantage, 

 not only to weak hives, but even to the most po- 

 pulous ones : and the practice is generally recom- 

 mended by our most experienced Apiarians, to 

 give every hive, whether weak or strong, a certain 

 quantity of food in the spring. It cheers and en- 

 courages the bees at the outset of their labours, and 



