594 
amber, and dark. For instance, there 
will be “fancy light,” “fancy amber,” and 
“fancy dark,’ “No. 1 light,” “No. 1 am- 
ber,” and “No. 1 dark.” 
The sections, after grading and scrap- 
ing, are to be placed in clean shipping 
cases having glass in one or both ends. 
Several of these may be placed in a single 
crate for shipment. To prevent breaking 
down of the combs it is best to put straw 
in the bottom of the crate for the ship- 
ping cases to rest on, and the crates 
should be so placed as to keep the combs 
in a perpendicular position. The crates 
are also likely to be kept right side up 
if convenient handles are attached to the 
sides—preferably strips with the ends 
projecting beyond the corners. Care in 
handling will generally be given if the 
glass in the shipping cases shows. 
Production of Wax 
No method has yet been brought for- 
ward which will enable one, at the pres- 
ent relative prices of honey and wax, to 
turn the whole working force of the bees, 
Fig. 8. Solar Wax Extractor. 
or even the greater part of it, into the 
production of wax instead of honey; in 
fact, the small amount of wax produced 
incidentally in apiaries managed for ex- 
tracted 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 
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 
employed than wax produced; hence less 
progressive bee keepers — those who ad. 
here to the use of box hives and who can 
not therefore utilize comb foundation— 
are called upon for their wax product. 
As each pound of wax represents several 
pounds of honey, all cappings removed 
when preparing combs for the extractor, 
all scrapings and trimmings and bits of 
drone comb, are to be saved and ren- 
dered into wax. This is best done in the 
solar wax extractor (Fig. 8), the essen- 
tial parts of which are a metal tank with 
wire-cloth strainer and a glass cover, the 
latter generally made double. The bot- 
tom of the metal tank is strewn with 
pieces of comb, the glass cover adjusted, 
and the whole exposed to the direct rays 
of the sun. A superior quality of wax 
filters through the strainer. 
The Wintering of Bees 
How to bring bees successfully through 
the winter in the colder portions 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 
even many who have kept bees for years 
still find it their greatest difficulty. A 
queen may die and the colony dwindle 
away. But care as to ventilation, damp- 
ness, age of the bees, etc., will usually 
insure a successful wintering. Out-of-door 
wintering is to be preferred where the 
climate is not too severe. 
General Considerations 
Whatever method be followed in win- 
tering, certain conditions regarding the 
colony itself are plainly essential: First, 
it should have a good queen; second, a 
fair-sized cluster of healthy bees, neither 
too old nor too young; third, a plentiful 
supply of good food. The first of these 
conditions may be counted as fulfilled if 
the queen at the head of the colony is 
not more than two years old, is still 
active, and has always kept her colony 
populous; yet a4 younger queen—even one 
of the current season’s rearing, and thus 
but a few weeks or months old—is, if 
raised under favorable conditions, much 
to be preferred. The second point is met 
if brood rearing has been continued with- 
