776 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Two hundred miles to the northeast of 

 the Chien-chang Valley, and separated 

 from it by a series of mountain ranges, 

 is the town of Chia-ting, in which insect- 

 wax, as an article of commerce, is 

 produced. The scales are gathered in 

 the Chien-chang Valley, and are made up 

 in paper packets each weighing about 16 

 ounces. Sixty of these packets make a 

 load, and are conveyed by porters from 

 Chien-chang to Chia-ting. They travel 

 only during the night, in order to avoid 

 the high temperature of the day, which 

 would tend to the rapid development of 

 the insects and their escape from the 

 scales. 



At the stopping places the packets are 

 opened out in cool places, but in spite of 

 this, each packet is found to have lost on 

 an average an ounce in transit. A 

 pound of scales laid down in Chia-ting 

 costs, in years of plenty, about half a 

 crown ; in bad years the price is often 

 doubled. 



On arrival of the scales from Chien- 

 chang about the beginning of May, they 

 are made up in small packets of from 

 20 to 30 scales, which are inclosed in a 

 leaf of the wood oil tree. The edges of 

 the leaf are tied together with a rice 

 straw, by which the packet is suspended 

 close under the branches of the ash, or 

 white-wax tree, as the Chinese call it. A 

 few rough holes are drilled in the leaf 

 with a blunt needle, so that the insects 

 may find their way through them to the 

 branches. 



On emerging from the scales, the 

 insects creep rapidly up to the leaves, 

 among which they nestle for a period of 

 13 days. They then descend to the 

 branches and twigs, on which they take 

 up their position, the females doubtless 

 to provide for a continuation of the race 

 by developing scales in which to deposit 

 their eggs, and the males to excrete the 

 substance known as white-wax. This 

 first appears as an undercoating on the 

 sides of the boughs and twigs, and 

 resembles sulphate of quinine, or a 

 covering of snow. It gradually spreads 

 over the whole branch, and attains, after 

 ^months, a thickness of about a quarter 

 of an inch. 



After the lapse of a hundred days the 

 deposit is complete, the branches are 

 lopped off, and as much of the wax as 

 possible is removed by hand. This is 

 placed in an iron pot of boiling water, 

 and the wax on rising to the surface, is 

 skimmed off and placed in around mould, 

 whence it emerges as the Chinese insect- 

 wax of commerce^ 



Where it is found impossible to remove 

 the wax by hand, the twigs and branches 

 are thrown into the pot, so that this wax 

 is darker and inferior. The insects, 

 which have sunk to the bottom of the 

 pot, are placed in a bag and squeezed of 

 the last drop of wax, and are then thrown 

 to the pigs. 



The wax is used for coating the exterior 

 of animal and vegetable tallow candles, 

 and to give greater consistency to the 

 lallow. It is also said to be used as a 

 sizing for paper and cotton goods, for 

 imparting a gloss to silk, and as a 

 furniture polish. — Scientific American. 



Cleome in the East. ' 



There seems to be a diversity of 

 opinion regarding the success of cleome 

 integrifoUa, or Rocky Mountain honey- 

 plant, in the eastern States. Its won- 

 derful success as a honey-producing 

 plant in the plateau divisions of the 

 Eocky Mountain region brought it con- 

 siderable commendation, and quantities 

 of it were taken East for trial some years 

 ago, and now the reports are coming 

 back to us. 



Prof. A. J. Cook, of the Michigan State 

 Experimental Station, and one of the best 

 bee-specialists in the country, planted 

 cleome seed in the Fall, and found it did 

 not come up well in Michigan, although 

 he planted upon both sandy and clay 

 soils. Much to his surprise the blossoms 

 contained no nectar, and bees worked on 

 them only occasionally, so he was forced 

 to report that the cleome was a disap- 

 pointment. A. I. Root tried cleome last 

 year, but success was not so great, 

 owing, he thinks, to the exceedingly dry 

 season, which had a bad effect on all 

 bee-plants. 



On the other hand, Samuel Wilson, of 

 Mechanicsburg, Pa., tried cleome for 3 

 years, and pronounces it the greatest 

 honey-plant he has ever found. He 

 probably has never experimented with 

 alfalfa, which we hold to be the greatest 

 bee-forage the world has ever known. 



Prof. Cook must remember that 

 cleome, so great a success with us, is a 

 leguminous plant, and, like alfalfa, it 

 draws its life and nutriment mostly from 

 the atmosphere. The bright sunshiny 

 days of Colorado contribute largely to its 

 growth, and the absence of these in 

 murky Michigan would necessarily pro- 

 duce an opposite effect. On its native 

 heath the cleome is a triumph, and we 

 regret that our eastern friends have not 

 been more successful with it. — Denver 

 Field and Farm. 



