20 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



board. The convention approved this 

 change. There was not one dissenting voice. 



Win. F. Clarke sent a letter protesting 

 against the incorporation of the North Amer- 

 ican. The grounds of his protest have been 

 gone over so frequently in the journals that 

 I will not repeat tliem. E. R. Root said 

 that as the proposed change in the Bee- 

 Keepers' Union, if adopted, would enable 

 the Union to do the work that had been in 

 view when the North American was incorpo- 

 rated, it might be well, inasmuch as incor- 

 poration had alienated us from our Canadi- 

 an brethren, to have the incorporation aban- 

 doned. But this was an important subject 

 and ought not to be decided hastily, hence 

 he moved that the matter be laid on the table 

 until the next meeting with a view of giving 

 it favorable consideration at that time. 

 Carried. 



Dr. C. C. Miller was elected President ; 

 J. E. Crane Vice President ; Frank Benton 

 Secretary ; and Geo. W, York Treasurer. 

 The next meeting is to be in Chicago. Most 

 excellent men have been elected as officers ; 

 the place of meeting could not well have 

 been elsewhere, and in all probability the 

 next convention will surpass all previous 

 ones. It is proposed to hold it early in Oc- 

 tober. 



How to Use the Solar Wax Extractor, and 



How to Get the Wax Out of the 



Residue, or "Slumgum." 



To be able to get all of the wax out of all 

 kinds of combs is quite a trade, and all such 

 articles as the following written by R. C. 

 Aikin, and published in Gleanings, ought to 

 be read and studied by all who have much 

 wax to render : 



•'I read with interest H. R. Boardman's 

 article on p. 771, also the offer you make in 

 your foot-note. I want you to make your 

 test thorough. Surely much wax remains in 

 the refuse when it makes so good a fire. 

 Sometimes, however, its burning quality 

 might come from propolis, which is almost 

 equal to wax for fuel. 



Last spring we had a lot of stocks to trans- 

 fer, both with and without frames ; also a 

 like lot of hives in which the bees winter- 

 killed. In all these the honey was from one- 

 fourth to three-fourths candied. Nearly all 

 of them were old combs, some very old, and 

 many with pollen. Then the que ry was, how 

 to get this separated into feed honey, wax, 



and slumgum. We could not feed the honey 

 by letting the bees carry it out of the combs, 

 for they would waste the bulk of the candied 

 honey by 'kicking it out of doors.' The 

 honey thus wasted would be worth more than 

 the combs or wax. To render by steam or 

 water applied directly would waste much 

 honey ; so dry heat, by means of solar wax- 

 extractor, seemed the best way to do it. 



Mv heart was set on having a jumbo solar 

 (it's set yot, only more so than before) ; so, 

 early in April I bought some double-strength 

 glass, cut from broken store-windows, show- 

 cases, and such. It cost me !|2..50 at the 

 price of single-strength glass, and made a 

 sash about 2 ft. 10 in. x (i ft. G in., and I very 

 soon had a solar wax-extractor at work in 

 the yard. The thing is built on wheels, two 

 at one end and one at the other, oae of them 

 being pivoted like a bed-castor. This makes 

 it convenient to pull about, and to wheel in- 

 to the honey-house to unload and reload 

 when robbers are bad. From April to Octo- 

 ber that extractor has been at work, and has 

 turned out over 300 lbs. of wax and over 1000 

 lbs. of feed honey that was mostly candied 

 in the combs. The wax is No. 1 in quality. 



After accumulating two or three barrels of 

 the refuse I experimented on it. Some was 

 soaked four weeks in water, and cooked by 

 steam applied direct. Some was soaked sev- 

 eral days in a mixture ox water and concen- 

 trated lye, so strong it was a slick, soapy 

 mass, and it was cooked by steam applied 

 direct, with the mass in a bran- sack. I used 

 steam under pressure, and turned a jet of 

 steam into the center of the mass. I tried 

 first by having a false bottom made of slats 

 about six inches from the bottom of the bar- 

 rel, and the sack in this, so the wax would 

 drip below and run out at the bottom. This 

 brought out some wax, but left plenty to 

 make a good fire. I then plugged the hole 

 at the bottom of the barrel, and filled the 

 barrel with water, so that the whole mass 

 was submerged. I then applied the steam- 

 jet as before — that is, to the center of the 

 mass in the sack. The jet was applied for 

 nearly half a day, with stirring, turning, and 

 prodding the sack. As fast as wax would 

 accumulate on the water it was skimmed off, 

 until it seemed that scarcely a bit could re- 

 main in that sack. I then took the sack out. 

 At first it contained about four bushels of 

 the slumgum ; but now it was reduced by 

 washing out pollen, etc., until it was about a 

 bushel. I then put it under moderate pres- 

 sure. This caused the wax to flow " from 

 every pore," resulting in one or two pounds 

 more of wax. I then again put the whole 

 mass into cold water, when the wax appear- 

 ed in small grains throughout the whole 

 mass, about as butter does just as it begins 

 to gather when being churned. I now have 

 a barrel of this refuse soaking in lye-water, 

 and will experiment to see what wax can be 

 gotten from it. 



The refuse used in these experiments was 

 the result of rendering over 200 lbs. of wax. 

 using mostly those old comV>s and hive- 

 scrapings, etc. The result was something 

 over 20 lbs. of wax that was much darker 

 than the first, as gotten by solar heat. Both 

 because we had to keep the solar extractor 



