STATE BEE-KEEPERS ASSOCIATION. SI 



it didn't amount to very much, but I believe it does amount 

 to more than v\:e would ordinarily think. 



Down in Cuba there are a lot of men keeping bees for 

 the wax only. They spill the honey — use it to wash with, I 

 suppose — but here a good many don't care anything about 

 the wax we get; we are all after the honey. Some of us go 

 after the wax, but we don't get it all. I don't know that it 

 would be very hard to give an estimate as to how much wax- 

 is wasted in a sun wax- extractor. There is so much left in 

 the old combs that cannot be gotten out. I am very well 

 aware of the fact that many don't use the sun extractor, but 

 most people use the method that I will designate as the cold- 

 pressure method. I mean they heat the old comb in some 

 other place and then press it in a press, and they don't sur- 

 round that mass of wax and old comb with any heat during 

 the time of the pressing. 



About a year ago I spent considerable time working on 

 this very question. My brother was anxious to see, if he 

 could, which was the best method to use, steam, hot water, 

 or this cold-pressure method, and also to determine which 

 was better, a lever or a screw, and I was very much interested 

 in these experiments that I conducted myself at that time. 



I don't intend to make this an advertisement for the 

 German wax-press. In fact, I shall not speak of that. I will 

 describe the method that I used, in which I got more wax 

 by considerable extent than I did by pressing under a screw 

 and applying no heat at the time of the pressure. I found 

 that I couldn't get anywhere near as much wax by pressing 

 on wax without the heat at the time, and it seemed to jne 

 that this was the reason : The wax as it is being pressed, 

 oozes out. It oozes out and comes in contact with a little 

 cocoon, little piece of the debris. It is -chilled. I reason in 

 this way, that if there was some heat to carry that on out 

 we could get so much more wax. That is a theory. Now I 

 will try to show that this theory is a good theory. 



I found that I could get — of course the amount of wax 

 varies greatly that could be gotten from the comb. We had 

 8 or ID barrels of old comb that had been accumulating 

 around there for a year or so. With that old comb I found 

 that with the hot water method I could get about i8 ounces 

 of pure wax out of five pounds of the old comb. Using the 

 same old comb and pressing without heat, that is, having 

 heated the old comb in some other place, I found that I 

 could get only about lo to 12 ounces. That would seem to 

 show that there was something lacking in that method. Well, 

 I thought then that perhaps I didn't do it right some way or 

 other, so I had some samples sent in from men who used 

 that method of pressing out the old comb, having heated it 

 some place else with a little water, perhaps. A man sent in 

 a sample, and said that it was from cappings, and he defied 

 me to find any wax in it. By the hot-water method I found 

 that it contained 25 per, cent of pure wax. It astonished me. 

 I didn't expect to find anywhere near that much. I don't 

 suppose that there would be that much, ordinarily, but I 



