82 
FOLLOWING THE BEE LINE 
and can be taken off when cold, like fat on top of 
soup. To clarify the wax, it must be melted once 
again and strained through cheesecloth into flaring 
moulds. 
Honey is the main product of an apiary, and bees¬ 
wax is its most important by-product. Its uses are 
many, in mills, offices, and homes. Housekeepers 
know it is the best of floor waxes, dentists use it 
for “impressions” in bridge and plate work, tailors 
for waxing their thread. Innumerable are its uses 
for making molds and impressions of all kinds. 
. . . A prominent professor of horticulture in¬ 
sists on “real bees' beeswax” for grafting trees. 
“Sandy” Cairns, a young Scotchman studying for 
the Roman Catholic priesthood, came to me one 
summer for three intensive lessons in beekeeping. 
He came expressly to acquire sufficient working 
knowledge to take charge of the bees at his Seminary 
on the Hudson River. We spent three long after¬ 
noons working over the hives, while I showed and 
told him everything I could think of, relating to 
the subject. I thought perhaps the cramming had 
been overdone, but he went back to the Seminary 
an ardent beekeeper and wrote me later that he was 
supplying the table with honey and making beeswax 
candles for the altar. He became a missionary in 
