THOUSAND answers 
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established beekeeper may not produce enough wax for his own 
foundation, and again he may. If he works for extracted honey, 
and has reached the point where he makes no more increase and 
needs no more combs, he may have a surplus of wax from his 
cappings, and probably will have; even if he renews his combs, 
the melted combs should furnish wax for the new ones. Upon 
him the comb-honey man may depend for his wax. There are 
also beekeepers who use little or no foundation, and such men 
are likely to produce surplus wax by means of the combs they 
melt up from the diseased colonies. 
Q. What is the best method of producing beeswax? I want 
beeswax instead of honey. (New York.) 
A. So far is I have ever learned, those who make a business 
of producing wax rather than honey have done it by feeding back 
the honey, thinned, as fast as the bees built combs and stored it. 
But that was in places very far from market, where the honey 
would not pay for transportation and wax would. It is not likely 
that you can make it pay in your region. 
Q. Please tell me how I can purify beeswax. I can melt it and 
get it out of the combs by the hot water process, but after I get 
it melted I cannot get the dirt separated from the wax, as under- 
neath the wax there is some kind of fine dirt; that is, the dirt 
does not settle to the bottom of the vessel that the water and 
beeswax are in. I would like to know some way to get this dirt 
out of the wax, and will you please give me a way to mould the 
beeswax into one or two pound blocks? 
A. Your wax is only following the general rule. A large part 
of the impurities, while heavier than wax, are lighter than water, 
so they settle between the water and the wax. In other words, 
you will find a layer of sediment on the under surface of the cake 
of wax when it cools. There is not much difference between the 
weight of the wax and the sediment, so that it takes it a long 
time to settle. So if the wax cools very rapidly, much of the sedi- 
ment will be mixed up with it. Your effort must be to keep the 
wax in the liquid state a long time; or, as it is often expressed, 
you must let the wax cool slowly. One way to do this is to cover 
up warm with blankets or something of the kind. If the amount 
of wax is small it will be longer cooling if you have a good deal 
of water under it. Another way, with a small amount, is to put it 
in the oven of the cook-stove, leaving the oven door open until 
the fire begins to die down in the evening, then shut the door and 
leave it until morning. Put the stove handle in the oven, and 
