e (i)ee- 



eepeps j 



V' 



A MONIHLY JOURNAL 



Devoted to tlqe Iqterests of Hoqey Producers. 



$1.00 A YEAR. 



W. Z. HDTCHINSON, Editor and Proprietor. 



VOL. IX, FLINT, MICHIGAN, MAR, 10. 1896. NO. 3. 



AVork at ]VEich.igaii.'s 



Experimental 



^piarv. 



K. L. TAYLOB, APIABIST. 



THE PKESEKVATION OF 00MB AND THE EENDEE- 



ING OF WAX. 



¥ 



HILE the 

 production 

 of wax is not 

 made a special 

 object by bee- 

 keepers, at least, 

 not in northern 

 latitudes, yet, in 

 every apiary, con- 

 siderable wax 

 may be obtained 

 from burr-and 

 brace - combs 

 trimmed from frames, honey-boards, etc. 

 and from drone comb and broken bits of 

 other comb, if one is careful to preserve 

 them for that purpose. Often, too, a con- 

 siderable portion of the bees of an apiary 

 perish during the winter and spring, espec- 

 ially where little or no care has been taken 

 to secure their comfort during those seasons, 

 and sometimes combs become affected by 

 the germs of the contagious disease known 

 as foul brood. In this latter case the des- 

 truction of the combs is absolutely necessary 

 in order to prevent the spread of the disease, 



and in the former, in such apiaries, there 

 will be many combs from crookedness, or 

 because they are made up largely of drone 

 cells, that are of little value as such, and in 

 many such cases it will not be deemed de- 

 sirable to undertake the preservation of 

 first class combs from the prospect that the 

 moths or the mice may destroy them before 

 they can be put to use among the bees. In 

 all such cases it is important that the wax 

 the comb contains should be secured by 

 rendering. 



However, the value of choice comb is so 

 great that its destruction should not be en- 

 tered upon hastily, nor until it is fully set- 

 tled, after a careful canvass of all the cir- 

 cumstances, that to its owner the wax it 

 contains is all there is of value. To deter- 

 mine its value as comb, consider that ex- 

 perienced bee-keepers think it very profita- 

 ble to purchase comb foundation at the rate 

 of ten cents for enough to fill a Langstroth 

 frame, besides the cost of transporting it 

 and the labor of putting it into the frame, 

 say 12,1.2 cents in all. The comb is certainly 

 as such worth no less and for some purposes 

 very much more, but the wax that can be 

 got from it, i. e., from the comb of a Lang- 

 stroth frame, is not worth more than five or 

 six cents, which must still be heavily dis- 

 counted on account of the labor involved in 

 rendering the wax. So the least that can be 

 said for good combs is that they are worth 

 at least fifty cents more per eight frame 

 hive for use as combs than for purposes as 

 wax. 



