CHAPTER XI 
WAX A BY-PRODUCT OF THE APIARY 
Attrouaen honey is the principal product, considerable wax 
is produced in every well-regulated apiary. Although bringing 
the highest price of anything the bee-keeper has to sell, the possi- 
bilities of this special output are too often overlooked because 
much of it is gathered in small quantity in scraping sections, 
cleaning burr combs from the tops of frames and scraps of combs 
that accumulate about the bee yard and honey house. If the 
bee-keeper who has not carefully saved these odd bits of comb 
will provide a bucket or other receptacle which is always kept 
at hand in which to place all scrapings and bits of wax he will 
be surprised to see what a quantity will accumulate during the 
season. In addition the apiary and equipment will be much 
cleaner as a result. It is very annoying to the housewife to have 
someone coming into the house with bits of wax clinging to his 
heels to be left on the rugs or carpet, as will frequently be the 
case where such refuse is dropped on the ground about the bee- 
hives. 
Old combs that are to be discarded and cappings which are 
present in quantity are usually saved, as they should be, but 
unless some care is used they are likely to be destroyed by the 
wax moths during the warm weather. It is a good plan, no 
matter what method of wax rendering may be adopted, to throw 
all such material into a solar extractor at once. In this way it 
will be melted so thoroughly that there is little troubie with 
moths, even though it is not separated sufficiently to avoid the 
necessity of rendering. 
Production of Wax.—When the bees are feeding heavily, 
as during a good honey flow, wax is secreted as a direct result 
of the quantities of food consumed. After a colony has swarmed 
in warm weather large numbers of bees will cluster together 
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