THE bKE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



107 



A SOLAR WAX HXTRACTOR. 



Oik- Peculiarly Ahapted to the MellinjT of 

 Cappings and the Piirifvinjj of Wax. 



\VM. M'i:vov. 



i*J 



A-W thanks 

 to 30U, Mr. 

 Beck vvi 111, for that 

 very valuable let- 

 ter on rendering 

 wax; and, also, for 

 the photo of the 

 ])ress which ap- 

 peared in the Re- 

 view' for January 

 I S99. 1 shall 

 make a press like 

 it; and when rendering old combs will 

 use it; and therebj- get a Jiiuch larger 

 amount of wax than can be gotten out of 

 old combs in any other way. 



in the melting up of old faulty combs of 

 anything that has been brought to the 

 trout in the bee industry for many years. 



While on my rounds through the Pro- 

 vince of Ontario I have seen, during the 

 last nine years, many thousands of old 

 combs in use that should have been made 

 into wax, and would have been had they 

 been mine; because I do not believe in 

 keeping even one~ old comb that is not 

 perfect in every respect. 



I have a fine solar wax extractor which 

 I bought of its inventor, Mr. Alpaugh; 

 and it is worth |;io.oo a season for melting 

 the cappings into wax. It has a fine, 

 wire-cloth basket, about the size and 

 shape of an old-fashioned, wooden, sap- 

 trough, which hangs across the high end; 

 and when the cappings melt the wax falls 

 down in showers upon a slanting sheet of 

 tin, and then runs down to the end of it, 

 and drops into a tin pan. The basket is 

 hung so high that the sun shines in be- 



THIC ALPAUGH SOLAR WAX EXTRACTOR. 



Mr. Gemmill, of Stratford, Ontario, 

 Canada, who is the most thoroughly prac- 

 tical bee-keeper that I ever knew, has for 

 some time been using a])ress of his own 

 contrivance; and his gre;it success in gel- 

 ting so much more wax out of old combs 

 than was ever suppo.sed to be in them, is 

 going to cause one of tlie biggest "stirs" 



tween it and the slanting .sheet of tin. 

 When the cappings are melted I lift the 

 basket out of the extractor, turn the bas- 

 ket upside down, and, from a tea-kettle, 

 pour some boiling water all over it. This 

 cleans it very nicely in two or three min- 

 utes. I then fill it again with cappings 

 and hang it in the extractor. The comb- 



