236 



To Save the Wax. 



the supply of wax in the country is scarce equal to the demand. 

 Soiled drone-comb, old, worthless worker-comb, all the comb 

 in the old hives if we use Mr. Heddon's method of transferring, 

 and all fragments that cannot be used in the hives, together 

 with cappings, after the honey is drained out through a coarse 

 bag or colander — which process may be hastened by a moderate 

 heat, not suflScient to melt the wax, and frequent stirring — 

 should be melted, cleansed, and molded into cakes of wax, 

 soon to be again stamped, not by the bees, but by wondrous art. 



METHODS. 



A slow and wasteful method is to melt in a vessel of heated 

 water, and to purify by turning off the top, or allowing to 

 cool, when the impurities at the bottom are scraped off, and 

 the process repeated till all impurities are eliminated. 



A better method to separate the wax is to put it into a 

 strong, rather coarse bag, then sink this in water and boil. 

 At intervals the comb in the bag should be pressed and stirred. 

 The wax will collect on top of the water. 



To prevent the wax from burning, the bag should be kept 

 from touching the bottom of the vessel by inverting a basin in 

 the bottom of the latter, or else by using a double-walled vessel. 

 The process should be repeated till the wax is perfectly cleansed. 



But as wax is to become so important, and as the above 

 methods are slow, wasteful, and apt to give a poor quality of 



Fig. 111. 



Sums Wax Extractor. 



wax, specialists, and even amateurs who keep as many as ten 

 or twenty colonies of bees, may well procure a wax extractor 

 (Fig. 111). This is also a foreign invention, the first being 



