35 
tion of wax instead of honey; in fact, the small amount of wax produced 
incidentally in apiaries managed for extracted or for section honey is 
usually turned into honey the following season; that is, it is made 
into comb foundation, which is then employed in the same hives to 
increase their yield of marketable honey. It is even the case that in 
most apiaries managed on approved modern methods more pounds of 
foundation are employed than wax 
produced; hence less progressive 
bee keepers—those who adhere to 
the use of box hives and who can 
not therefore utilize comb founda- 
tion—are called upon for their wax 
product. As each pound of wax 
represents several pounds of honey, 
all cappings removed when prepar- 
ing combs for the extractor, all 
scrapings and trimmings and bits of 
drone comb, are to be saved and 
rendered into wax. This is best 
done in the solar wax extractor (fig. 
15), the essential parts of which are a metal tank with wire-cloth 
strainer and a glass cover, the latter generally made double. The 
bottom of the metal tank is strewn with pieces of comb, the glass 
cover adjusted, and the whole exposed to the direct raysofthesun. A 
superior quality of wax filters through the strainer. 
Another method is to inclose the cappings 
or combs to be rendered in a coarse sack and 
weight this down in a tin boiler partly filled 
with rain water or soft spring water and boil 
slowly until little or no more wax can be 
pressed out of the material in the sack. Melt- 
ing in an iron receptacle makes the wax dark 
colored. A special utensil made of tin, for use 
as a wax-extractor (fig. 16) over boiling water, 
- ean also be had. The bits of comb are placed 
in this, in an inside can having fine perfora- 
tions, through which the steam from below 
Fig. 16.—Steam wax-extractor. enters and melts out the wax, which drips 
from a spout into another receptacle partly filled with water, from 
the surface of which the cake of wax may be removed when cold. 
THE WINTERING OF BEES. 
How to bring bees successfully through the winter in the colder por- 
tions of the United States is a problem which gives anxiety to all 
who are about to attempt it for the first time in those sections, and 
Fic. 15.—Solar wax-extractor. 
il 
59 
