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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Dec. 5, 



home, as some of these men are workers that I have labored 

 with in the institute work for the past four or five years. 



I was specially requested to give a talk on bee-culture. 

 The Board of Agriculture has not seen fit to have apiculture 

 represented at the institute work this year, but some of the 

 people want it any way, and so secure speakers of their own 

 choosing. 



On account of poor honey seasons here in Missouri for the 

 past five years, there is not quite the interest in bee-keeping 

 that there should be. I take the ground that all fruit-growers 

 should keep at least a few bees, even if they never get any 

 honey at all. I went into no technicalities, or grand display of 

 words, to give a history of the honey-bee, but got down to 

 practical instruction on how to handle bees to secure the best 

 results as we have it to-day. 



I have been at work on the management of our Agricul- 

 ture College and Experiment Station, to have bee-keeping 

 taught there. The Dean of the Experiment Station, Prof. H. 

 J. Waters — a Missouri boy of which many of the State are 

 very proud — has assured me that as soon as practical they will 

 take up bee-keeping, and teach it at the Station. They 

 already have about a dozen colonies of bees there, but some of 

 them are in very poorly-constructed hives. I was at the 

 Station last .Tune, and examined the bees, and found some of 

 them in good hives and good condition, while some were in 

 such poorly-constructed hives that the surplus honey being 

 stored was not iu good condition to bo removed from the hive. 



I will not speak any more of the condition of the bees at 

 the Station, but wish to say that to teach a class there, 

 and to make practical mauipulations with the bees before 

 the class, so that the pupils could go to their homes and 

 handle their bees, would be of incalculable benefit. I am in 

 hopes the managers at the Station will get around to bee-keep- 

 ing at an early date. Mexico, Mo. 



The Production and Use of Beeswax. 



BY J08IAH GREGG. 



All bee-keepers of experience know the origin of beeswax. 

 It is simply the fat of the bee. Of its production by the bee I 

 quote Prof. Cook, of Pomona College: "It is secreted by 

 thin, membranaceous glands, just beneath the ventral seg- 

 ments of the abdomen. These glands take elements from the 

 blood and form liquid wax, which passes through the eight 

 wax-plates, and is molded into thin scales." 



Wax, as produced by the bees and worked into comb, is 

 almost pure white, but that which comes from the hive, on 

 being melted and cooled, on the other hand, is of a yellowish 

 cast. Honey and wax, two natural products, which, in their 

 pure state, are obtainable from bees only, have, from the ear- 

 liest dawn of human history, played a role of the highest im- 

 portance iu human economy. 



The Bible mentions milk and honey as typical of all 

 earthly blessings; the Greeks and Romans flavored their wine 

 with honey ; the ancient Germans prepared an intoxicating 

 drink from it called mead. I have often made it myself ; it is 

 commonly called uietheglin. And in a time when men had 

 neither sugar nor syrup, honey served exclusively as a sweet- 

 ening for their food and drinks. 



Wax, on the other hand, was the only illuminating ma- 

 terial for churches and the palaces of the rich, and for thou- 

 sands of years the product of the bee had no competitor. But 

 now it is all different. A whole list of substitutes ma_y be 

 mentioned, as paraUiue, ceresin, and many vegetable and 

 animal fats. And they may be so mixed by the help of mod- 

 ern science in chemistry as to resemble pure wax, and it is so 

 well done that for all practical purposes, as for illuminating, 

 etc., the compound may be considered as perfect. However, 

 I will venture to say there is no substitute for the natural pro- 

 duct of the bee; that is, for use in the apiary, for the manu- 

 facture of comb foundation. 



To Detect False Wax. — Beeswax, due mostly to its 

 high price, I am sorry to say, is adulterated to a great extent ; 

 more so perhaps in Europe, but to some extent in the United 

 States. Mr. Mathey. in Gleanings for June 15, 1895, says 

 that many European makers of foundation do not use the re- 

 quired amount of pure wax, but adulterate it with one-half or 

 even two-thirds ceresin. Ceresin is a mineral wax made from 

 petroleum. 



So it becomes necessary that every bee-keeper should un- 

 derstand some simple method of detecting adulterated wax or 

 foundation. The most simple test, and one which will an- 

 swer for all practical purposes, is to chew a piece eight or ten 

 minutes. If it crumbles it is pure wax; if not, it is adul- 

 terated.* 



Solar Wax-Extractor. — I advise every bee-keeper who 

 expects to make bee-keeping a business, to use the solar wax- 

 extractor. It is cheap at a high price, even if he has but one 

 dozen colonies, because it is cleanly and economical. All you 

 have to do is to raise the lid and put in your pieces of comb 

 and all the scrapings from the frames, or anything that has 

 wax in it. and it will be melted into beautiful wax by the rays 

 of the sun. No wood, no fire, no water. Old Sol does the 

 work for nothing, and, best of all, you keep the wife in good 

 humor. It is certainly the very best known method of ren- 

 dering wax. Yet your wax will not be clear enough for mak- 

 ing comb foundation, and it becomes necessary to clarify it. 



My method is to use a tank made from two coal-oil cans 

 soldered together. I put in a metal faucet about the center 

 of the lower can. Fill with clear water till the faucet will be 

 IJ^ inches above the water. You can melt about 60 pounds 

 of wax in such a tank, and when it is thoroughly melted take 

 it from the fire and set it upon some elevated place, say a 

 table, for convenience of drawing ofl into another vessel. 



Comb Foundation. — As to the use of comb foundation, it 

 would be hard to estimate its value ; in fact it is the greatest 

 invention of the age for the bee-keeper, and I would recom- 

 mend an extravagant use of it, particularly in the brood- 

 chamber, and in the supers used in extracting. In fact, ex- 

 travagance in the use of comb foundation is economy. By the 

 use of full sheets in your brood-frames, you insure straight 

 combs and govern at your will the production of drones and 

 for extracting-combs. They are tough, and will stand even 

 rough handling, and are always convenient for interchanging 

 in the brood-chamber, in feeding and for hiving new swarms. 

 In fact, you can hardly estimate their value, and they will 

 last for an indefinite time. With proper care they will last 

 20 years. — Read at the Visalia, Calif., Bee-Keepers' Conven- 

 tion. 



[*Will Messrs. Chas. Dadant & Son please give their opiu- 

 ion of this test, and also tell us any other tests that they may 

 feel like mentioning ? — Editor.] 



CONDUCTED BY 



Re\^. Emerson T. Abbott, St. Josepb, Afo. 



T'wo Queens in a Hi've. — "I have one colony 

 that has an Italian and a black queen in it, both been laying 

 and hatching young brood all summer, and seem to get along 

 as well as twin sisters, each one trying to outdo the other in 

 producing young bees." — Extract from a letter. 



If there is no mistake, here is another illustration of the 

 fact that it is not always safe to be positive about what bees 

 will or svill not do. If two queens will work harmoniously in 

 one hive all summer, I see no reason why they should not do 

 the same thing in a number of hives. Is it not barely possible 

 that this condition of things occurs more frequently than is 

 generally supposed '? Had it not been that one of these 

 queens was black and the other an Italian, perhaps the fact 

 would not have been noticed. It may be that many of us 

 have had a similar condition of things, and did not notice it, 

 owing to the fact that the bees were all alike. Several times 

 I have had two queen? working together for a short time, but 

 not " all summer." In every case which has come under my 

 observation it has been a young queen and an old one, which 

 was about to be superseded. I would be glad if this corres- 

 pondent, who is a reader of the Bee Journal, would give us 

 further particulars about these two queens. 



Ho'w l,ongf "Will Honey Keep?— "Two or 

 three years ago excavations were taking place on the site of 

 an old house at Dresden, when some jars were discovered con- 

 taining honey in perfectly good condition, which had been 

 deposited there as far back as the 15th century." — Mb. Cowan, 

 as reported in the British Bee Journal. 



" If your honey is not first-class, make it so by sterilizing, 

 or, iu other words, heating, not enough to injure it, but so as 

 to kill even imperceptible fermentation, and make it whole- 

 some."— A. I. Root, in tileanings. 



If honey, after being buried for over 300 years, was 

 found to be in " perfectly good condition," one would think 

 that ordinary honey would not need much heating to "kill 

 even imperceptible fermentation." Fermentation, of course. 



