July, 1909- 



(American ^Bec Journal 



ing commission and express charges, 12 

 cents net ; and buckwheat honey g to 

 10 cents net. Since I manage my own 

 retail trade, I get for fancy and No. i 

 white clover, 18 and 16 cents respec- 

 tively per section, and 14 cents for buck- 

 wheat, all in 4x5xi5'4 bee-way sec- 

 tions. 



It is plain to be seen that the differ- 

 ence in these prices leaves quite a mar- 

 gin in favor of selling direct to the 

 consumer, besides paying fair wages to 

 the seller. But to obtain these prices, 

 I put up my section honey in neat, at- 

 tractive style; all propolis is scraped 

 from every section, and every one is 

 wrapped in white manila paper, with a 

 piece of cardboard the size of the sec- 

 tion on each side to protect the cap- 

 pings. It takes a little time and mate- 

 rial to prepare the honey in this way, 

 but it makes it so much more conven- 

 ient to handle, it keeps it so much 

 cleaner, and makes it so much more at- 

 tractive, that it more than pays for all 

 the trouble. And after all, it is not an 

 extra expense; it saves the cost of 

 shipping cases, which we would have to 

 furnish if our honey had to be shipped. 



In regard to extracted honey, I can 

 not draw a comparison. I have never 

 shipped any to the city on commission. 

 But I am well satisfied that it could 

 be made a paying occupation, if a per- 

 son were so situated that he could spend 

 his time on the road, selling his own 

 products. 



La Salle, N. Y. 



Rendering Combs into Wax 



BY C. A. HATCH. 



I accept Mr. Lathrop's challenge 

 (page 141). and will tell what I know 

 about rendering combs into wax, al- 

 though this is not the first time I have 

 made the attempt. 



The first thing I would try to im- 

 press on the reader, or any one who 

 has a lot of old combs to render, is that 

 only about half of the" wax can be got- 

 ten out of them unless a press is used, 

 and I am conceited enough to think 

 that the Hatch-Gemmill-Root press is 

 the one '.i' use. 



Some 1 ud of a vessel to melt the 

 combs in is necessary, large enough so 

 that 5 or 6 combs and their frames can 

 be put in at one time. This may be a 

 large iron kettle swung over an open 

 fire outdoors, or it may be a large boiler 

 on the stove indoors. Mine is an iron 

 box made of heavy galvanized iron, 15 

 inches deep, and 15 inches square. I 

 have two of them which I set on bricks 

 and use 2 joints of 6-inch stovepipe 

 to give draft. One boiler is used to 

 put the combs in, and the other to re- 

 melt the cheeses for the second press- 

 ing. 



When the water boils is the time to 

 begin. Have the press handy to the 

 boilers, and set up on some kind of 

 a platform, so that a square honey- 

 can with the top cut out (the 5-gallon 

 kind) will easily set under the outlet. 

 Have several of these cans ready, and 

 also the forms in which the wax is 

 to be moulded, all ready, then when 

 the combs are melted into a soft mush, 

 dip out into the cloth which you have 



spread over the rack and form of the 

 press, about 2 gallons of water and wax 

 "slumgum" together. Fold the cloth, 

 put on the top rack and follower, and 

 run down the screw — not too fast, but 

 let the wa.x have time to run off. 



When the can under the outlet gets 

 full enough dip off into the moulds, 

 stopping when the dipper shows dirt. 

 When the can gets too much water in 

 it to operate well, replace by one of the 

 empty ones, let it stand a few minutes, 

 dip off all the clear wax, and dump 

 the rest back into the boiler. 



A little water — hot, if you can get 

 it — in the bottom of each mould, is quite 

 a help. It gives the dirt a chance 

 to settle, and helps in getting the cake 

 of wa.x out of the dish. 



The best wa\- to purify wax is never 

 to let it get impure. If the above di- 

 rections are carefully followed, I will 

 warrant a lot of wax that will need no 

 purifying, and that will bring the top 

 of the market price. 



Mr. Lathrop is wrong when he says 

 to re-heat the wax from the press and 

 solar. Every time wa.x is heated more 

 than just enough to get it out of the 

 "slumgum" it is a damage to it. 



Slow cooling is an advantage. There- 

 fore, if working out-of-doors, all ves- 

 sels containing cooling wa.x should be 

 covered. 



Iron rust will turn w'ax black, so if 

 any of the vessels used are rusty they 

 should be scoured bright first. 



Rain-water I think is preferable to 

 hard water, but well-water will do un- 

 less it contains iron. 



I have never found any use for acid 

 to purify wax that 1 made myself, and 

 I think it injures its strength at any 

 time. 



Richland Center, Wis. 



Size of Hive- Introducing 

 Queens 



BY EDWIN BEVINS. 



In the February .'\merican Ree Jour- 

 nal, Mr. Aikin argues for the use of 

 two 8-frame Langstroth hive-bodies, 

 one above the other, in spring, in which 

 to rear bees for the coming harvest. 

 He was speaking for Colorado. Would 

 he pursue that practise in Southern 

 Iowa ? 



In the same issue I spoke disparag- 

 ingly of the use of one 8-frame hive- 

 body above another for the purpose of 

 rearing bees in spring, and advising the 

 use of hives wide enough to take a 

 sufficient number of frames to accom- 

 modate the most prolific queens. Prob- 

 ably I used the word "most" without 

 due consideration, and yet I would like 

 to ask Mr. Poppleton what he thinks 

 about it. He uses the " Long Ideal" 

 hive, which is wide longitudinally, if 

 such a paradoxical expression may be 

 allowed. 



At the time wlien so much stress was 

 laid on the importance of having a 

 strong force of bees ready for work at 

 the opening of the harvest, and the 

 necessity of keeping the whole force of 

 bees and brood together during the 

 harvest, I used many S-framc hives in 

 the way advised by Mr. Aikin. .\ few 

 queens would have the 16 frames nearly 



full of brood when the white clover 

 began to bloom. Some would have all 

 of the brood in one story, and some 

 would have from one to 4 frames of 

 brood in excess of the 8. So I made 

 up my mind that a lo-frame hive would 

 be about right for the majority of 

 queens. 



By stimulation I have had queens fill 

 the 2 stories practically full of brood, 

 but such colonies almost always proved 

 disappointing in results. 



When the time for supering came, tlie 

 effort was made to get the combs hav- 

 ing most brood in one story on the old 

 stand, with the old queen, and then tlie 

 most of the bees of the other story 

 were shaken in front of the hive on the 

 old stand and the nearly beeless brood 

 put in a new place. No matter how 

 many supers prepared for section honey 

 were piled on the hive on the old stand, 

 the great mass of bees forced into this 

 hive would become full of discontent, 

 and swarming was almost sure to fol- 

 low. So much for trying to keep the 

 queen and all the bees and as much of 

 the brood as the hive will hold of an 

 excessively strong colony, together dur- 

 ing the honey-flow when working for 

 comb honey. If I had known enough 

 to have done some of the things men- 

 tioned by Mr. Aikin, I think results 

 would have been different. Let those 

 who want to, practise stimulative feed- 

 ing. All I want is to have plenty of 

 feed in the hive at all times, and let 

 the bees do the rest. A queen exces- 

 sively stimulated is not worth much the 

 year following. Not all are willing or 

 prepared to requeen every season. 



Air. Aikin concedes that a 1'2-frame 

 hive is wide enough. It is probable that 

 but few queens need one as wide as 

 this. If I should have one that would 

 exceed this number, I would give her a 

 deeper hive instead of a wider one. Ten 

 Quinby frames have been proven to be 

 sufficient for almost any kind of queen. 

 Let me say here that a Dadant hive 

 with flat bottom-board may be made 

 into an ii-frame Langstroth hive in a 

 very few minutes. Saw off enough of 

 the bottom to leave the rest of the re- 

 quired depth, and you have it. The 11 

 frames will accommodate almost any 

 queen you are likely to get. If you 

 get the 10 frames of a lo-frame hive 

 full of brood when clover blooms, you 

 are doing well. These hives thus re- 

 duced in depth arc good for botli comb 

 and extracted honey, but do not insure 

 against swarming like the deeper hive. 



Mr. Aikin's management of the 2 

 hives of bees and brood at the opening 

 of the honey-flow may be, and probably 

 is, a very effective safeguard against 

 swarming, but he has, as a result, 2 

 colonies where he had one before. What 

 would he do if increase is not desired? 

 The practise so long urged of getting 

 all of the bees, and all of the brood 

 possible, into one brood-chamber for 

 comb-honey production at the beginning 

 of a honey-flow, is admirably calcu- 

 lated to bring about the very thing you 

 least desire. Mr. Aikin's way I believe 

 to be the better of the two. Mr. Doo- 

 littlc accomplishes the same thing in a 

 different way. The aim of liolh is to 

 get the most or all of the bees into an 

 uncrowded brood-chamber. Mr. Doo- 

 littlc puts the old queen into this brood- 



