560 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apk. 1 



proof, any one may still maintain that we 

 were mistaken as to the thoroughness with 

 which we did the work in the German press. 

 So, in order to give absolute proof of the 

 thoroughness of our work, we have gone 

 over the ground again. We selected a bar- 

 rel of comb which was old — a very fair ma- 

 terial with which to work. We do not be- 

 lieve in making tests with comb that is al- 

 most new or with very small quantities, such 

 as a few pounds, for the only real way to 

 get at the correct results is to make the tests 

 on a large scale. This comb weighed 130 

 pounds net. There were a few small pieces 

 of wax mixed in with this, which in all would 

 amount to possibly two or three pounds; 

 that is, this much wax was free, in the form 

 of small pieces. There was also a small part 

 of the comb in the barrel which contained 

 honey. 



We first ran the contents of this barrel 

 through the little unheated press, obtaining 

 62 pounds of beautiful bright yellow wax in 

 a total time of 34 hours. This included the 

 time of melting up, pressing, and every 

 thing. The writer did the work himself, 

 and so can vouch for the truthfulness of the 

 figures. We then melted up the refuse again 

 and went through with the same operation, 

 although pressing nearly twice as much at a 

 time, so that this second rendering took only 

 1^ hours. Two pounds of nice wax was ob- 

 tained. The total time of rendering the 64 

 pounds of wax was 5 hours. So far, we 

 have taken no account of the percentage of 

 wax still left in the refuse. 



The next day we took our large hot- water 

 press, with which we have rendered a good 

 deal of wax, and went over the refuse for 

 the third time, simply to ascertain the amount 

 of waste. The refuse was put into three 

 large burlap sacks and all put into the press, 

 eacl sack being separated from the rest by 

 a cleated division-board. Water was then 

 poured in and heated up so that it began to 

 boil about nine o'clock in the morning. Af- 

 ter allowing it to boil about an hour the 

 pressure was applied slowly until the screw 

 was down as far as we could possibly turn 

 it. It was left down for about half an hour, 

 then raised for ten minutes, and then turned 

 slowly down again. This was kept up until 

 five o'clock in the afternoon, the water 

 meanwhile boiling all the time We have 

 used such a hot-water press considerably for 

 the last two or three years, and are quite 

 familiar with that plan of working. It will 

 be seen that the refuse was kept under boil- 

 ing water for eight hours, and was subjected 

 to great pressure nearly all the time, although 

 the screw was, of course, raised for ten 

 minutes about every half-hour to allow the 

 cheeses to swell up with water. 



Now for the result. We obtained just ex- 

 actly one pound and six ounces of wax, 

 which was, of course, of a very dark color, 

 due to the excessive heat and the long time 

 which it had x-emained in the metal hot-wa- 

 ter press. The percentage of loss, then, after 

 the two renderings in the little open press 

 was just exactly 2.1. You will see further 



that these results agree very closely with the 

 results which were given in Gleanings. 



By being careful, the percentage of loss 

 after two treatments can be kept not over 2 

 per cent. But if any one wishes to take the 

 time a third treatment will reduce the final 

 loss to less than 1 per cent. 



It is true that the screw which we used in 

 this pi'ess looks very small and inadequate, 

 for the engravings in Gleanings are not 

 quite exact, for the reason that the engravers 

 ran their tool too close in trimming off along 

 the screw, which makes it look very slender. 

 We have never had any trouble, however, 

 about the screws bending; and as for the 

 pressure to be exerted, we think they are 

 ample. 



To give the figures, however, we would 

 say that one man using the short double 7^- 

 inch lever at the top of the screw is able to 

 exert a pressure of 111 pounds to the square 

 inch. As nearly as we can get at it the ac- 

 tual pressure exerted is 15,079 pounds, or in 

 round numbers 7^ tons. The cheese which 

 we use contains 185.8 inches, so that the 

 pressure per square inch is 111 pounds as we 

 have stated. — H. H. Root.] 



QUEEN-REARING. 



Some Methods of Cell-starting; Inducing 



Supersedure by Clipping Queen's Leg ; 



a Queen-excluding Cage for 



Starting Cells. 



BY E. F. ATWATER. 



In queen-rearing I usually prefer some 

 simple and fairly positive method of cell- 

 starting. Sometimes I have good success 

 with the Swarthmore "swarm-box; " at other 

 times a strong colony is moved to a new 

 stand after shaking off plenty of nurse-bees 

 at the old stand, where a hive containing 

 frames of pollen, honey, and two Pratt hold- 

 ing-frames and one frame of open brood 

 receives them. This operation is performed 

 in the afternoon or evening. Next morning 

 we remove the brood from this now hope- 

 lessly queenless lot of bees, and graft the 

 cells with larvse from our best breeder. 

 Sometimes an extracting-super with its combs 

 and a big force of bees is set off on to a 

 screened rim, water poured into one of the 

 combs, then about six hours later we give 

 these confined queenless bees about 32 cells 

 to start. Cells started by any of these meth- 

 ods are best finished in a queen-right colony — 

 the queen, unless failing, being separated 

 from the cells by queen-excluding metal. 



Early in the season we seldom have colonies 

 so strong that the queen-cells should be 

 finished in an upper story above an excluder. 

 We can cut off one of the legs of the queen, 

 which causes supersedure in about five out 

 of six cases; but here queens so treated never 

 do as good work at laying, and sooner or 

 later come up missing. If the leg-clipping 

 plan of inducing supersedure is adopted, the 

 queens should be operated on, about a week 

 before their colonies will be called on for 



