THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



the old queens and sacrifices all young ones 

 whether reared for swarming or for super- 

 seding. Who conld long stand this item of 

 cost? 

 Lapkbr, Mich. March 21, 1893. 



Old Combs, in Sections Left Over, Made 

 Level and Better Than New. 



B. TAYLOK. 



I.i*SL 



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,-j>i»»i, 



yRIEND H., you 

 xy know that the 

 use of old sections 

 of comb left over 

 has caused much 

 discussion among 

 bee - keepers. All 

 agree that they are 

 of great value to 

 give the bees to re- 

 fill during a good 

 honey flow. The ob- 

 jection to their use 

 being that they cannot be made into first- 

 class goods. The nearly universal failure to 

 secure fine sections when old combs are 

 used has led a large number of our best bee- 

 keepers to decide that they had better be 

 thrown away. The last three years I have 

 had a large number of unfinished sections at 

 the end of the season. I extracted the honey 

 and used them the following year and they 

 proved very profitable so far as getting them 

 finished up was concerned ; in fact, nearly 

 all the finished section honey I have secured 

 the last two seasons was of this kind. I had 

 shaved the combs down with a knife as even 

 as possible, but the honey was still unsatis- 

 factorily uneven and of bad color, and I set 

 about searching for a remedy. I have found 

 it. It consists of a little machine made of 

 tin or sheet iron bent so as to make a square 

 cup, D, the size of the inside of the sections 

 and two inches deep. This is turned upside 

 down in another pan, C. like a square pie 

 tin with sides one inch high. This latter pan 

 has a hole three inches in diameter cut in its 

 center and the edge of tin around the hole is 

 turned up one inch and the first square cup, 

 D, is soldered open side down on the bottom 

 of the larger pan over the three inch hole. 

 The pan is then set on a suitable box. A, to 

 allow a small lamp to be set under it with 

 the chimney directly under or rather up in 

 he hole in tho bottom of pan. We now- 



light the lamp, turn up the wick so as to heat 

 our small square box, D, just right to melt 

 the combs in the sections which are pressed 

 first on one side and then on the other on 

 the hot iron, D. (By the way the tendency 

 is to heat the center of D too hot, while the 

 edges are not hot enough. For this reason a 

 tin cone is fastened to the center of the un- 

 derside of D, and it completely remedies the 

 difficulty.) A stop at each end of D allows 

 the section to go down just far enough. 

 When the section is pretty full, put the wide 

 sides on the stops, and when the comb is 

 thin, put the narrow sides on the stops. 



The perfect way in which the surface of 

 the combs is melted down smooth and level 

 is worth coming from Michigan to Forest- 



TAYLOB S COMB I^EVELER. 



ville to see. The comb is not only leveled, 

 but the thick, dark wax on the ends of the cells 

 is melted away and the cell edges left thin 

 and white, and all is done as fast as yon can 

 pick the sections up and lay them down 

 again. 



