GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



When there is much wax to make, it is 

 advisable that there be two to work at ren- 

 dering, as they can work to better advan- 

 tage, "and press the wax cleaner. The sec- 

 ond person twists the bag while the first 

 holds it between the two sticks. Combs or 

 cappings with honey should be first melted 

 with a little water to get the honey out over 

 a slow fire, and should not be heated until 

 the wax boils, as it will spoil the honey, 

 and the wax will be harder to render after- 

 ward. When the wax is rendered with a 

 quantity of honey in it, it comes out in a 

 mess of gi-anules like shot when cold, and 

 must be melted again. 



The cans cost here 15 cents each, and 

 last about three months. A bag lasts long 

 enough to make from 500 to 1000 pounds if 

 it does not get bad treatment by pressing 

 hard enough to tear it. The wax, when 

 melting, should be constantly stii-red from 

 the bottom upward, and not pressed down 

 from the top, else it will burn the cans, and 

 the wax will have a burnt flavor. When 

 wooden utensils are used to hold the melted 

 wax they should be soaked with water first 

 so the wax will not stick to the sides. When 

 tin cans are used they should be about two- 

 1 birds full, and inclined at an angle after 

 the wax is in the can so it will come out 



easily when cold. This trick I learned about 

 ten years ago when I had a can tliat leaked 

 on one side when I inclined it to stop leak- 

 ing. In the morning the can let the wax 

 out easily, while I had to work at the others 

 to get the wax out. For the last ten years 

 ! have always had about 1500 hives of bees 

 in eight to ten yards. My average crop of 

 wax is about 5000 lbs. a year. 



At present the price is 40 cts. per gallon 

 for honey and 24 cts. a pound for wax. 

 Russia is our chief buyer of wax, which 

 market is at present shut off by the war. 

 The honey moves as usual, being shipped 

 to Germany via Holland. 



Cauto el Paso, Cuba. 



[Different parties who make a business 

 of buying up slumgum and rendering it into 

 wax report that the refuse left when combs 

 are rendered by the hinged-board method 

 yield from five to fifteen per cent of its own 

 weight in wax. In our opinion, for a wax 

 crop of 5000 pounds a j'ear a large-sized 

 powerful press should be used in a can or 

 tank to permit the combs to be under boil- 

 ing water during the pressing. We do not 

 believe there is any other practical way of 

 getting all the wax. See report by F. A. 

 Hooper, page 458. — Ed.] 



GIVING WAX 



THE MAIN TRACK WHERE THE COST OF GETTING 

 HONEY TO MARKET IS PROHIBITORY 



BY W. G. HEWES 



In this locality the price to the producer 

 for extracted honey during the past two 

 years has been 3Yz cents a pound. Beeswax 

 has brought from 27 to 32 cents or from 

 eight to nine times as much as honey. It 

 seems to me that, under thase conditions, it 

 would be wise for the 3^/'2-cent honey-pro- 

 ducer to run his bees for wax and let honey 

 be the incidental instead of wax, as is now 

 the case. 



Between my bees and a depot are fifteen 

 miles of awful road. Twelve cases of honey 

 weighing 1600 pounds- is a load for two 

 horses. Such a load, when delivered in 

 Yuma, is worth $50.40. A load of wax of 

 the same weight is worth $432. In other 

 words, it costs more than 8V^ times as much 

 to get a dollar's worth of honey to town as 

 it does to get a dollar's worth of wax. The 

 wax is shipped in sacks, which, so far as I 

 am concerned, cost nothing. It takes 20 per 

 cent of what my honey sells for to pay for 

 the cans and cases. Were that old chestnut 

 true, about its taking twenty pounds of 

 honey to make one pound of wax it would 



not pay to make a specialty of wax pro- 

 duction, even if it is worth eight times as 

 much as honey. But that is fol-de-rol. 

 During a honey-flow I don't believe a hive 

 ha\'ing plenty of young bees will consume 

 five pounds of honey to make a pound of 

 wax. But here is another point : If the 

 producers of three-cent honey would so 

 generally turn from honey production to 

 wax production as to make a material re- 

 duction in the honey crop, the short supply 

 would cause an advance in price, and prob- 

 ably sell for as much as would a large crop. 

 Four years ago cotton was selling for 16 

 cts. a pound, buyers believing the output 

 would be 12,000,000 bales. When the Gov- 

 ernment came out with its report, saying 

 the output would be 15,000,000 bales, the 

 price dropped so that the large crop sold 

 for several hundred million dollars less than 

 the small one would have done. The cotton- 

 gTowers would have been better off had they 

 fished more and worked less. Put this old 

 world on half rations, and it treats you 

 well. You can sport around in automo- 



