EXTRACTING 
333 
amount of honey, or even more, and the 
comb, being' bulged, can be much more 
quickly uncapped since there will be few 
depressions. 
A cold knife must be kept very sharp, 
and there is need of constant scraping or 
washing to keep the wax from gumming 
up the sharp edge, thus interfering with 
the work. A dull cold knife or one that is 
badly gummed up and very dirty does not 
make a clean cut, but tends to crush the 
comb. 
Because of the .necessity for frequent 
cleaning and sharpening, an increasing 
number of producers prefer to work with 
a hot knife, and especially in case of thick 
honey there is no question but that a hot 
knife will do quicker and faster work with 
less strain on the wrist. "When ordinary 
knives are used it is customary to have two 
of them, one to be left in hot water over a 
small stove, while the other is used to un¬ 
cap both sides of a comb. 
Where the honey is thick and cold 
sometimes a knife heated in hot water will 
be cooled off by the time it is half way 
thru the cappings of one side of the comb, 
so that it is little better than a cold knife. 
In fact, the wax has a tendency to gum up 
a warm blade even more rapidly than it 
does one that is entirely cold. The blade 
should be either hot or cold, therefore, and 
not lukewarm. 
Because of the necessity of frequent 
changes in and out of the hot water a 
knife heated by steam, popularly called 
the steam uncapping-knife, has become 
very popular in the last few years. 
A piece of non-rusting metal is soldered 
on top of the knife-blade, and steam is in¬ 
troduced thru a tube near the shank of the 
knife, circulates over the blade, and bloAvs 
Steam-heated uncapping-knife. 
out thru a small opening at the point. This 
knife keeps hot continuously, the wax 
melts off, and, consequently, there is no 
gumming up, nor delay necessitated by 
scraping and cleaning the edge of the 
blade. Tubing especially adapted for the 
purpose conveys the steam to the knife 
from a small boiler over a stove. Ordinary 
rubber tubing does not stand the action of 
the steam, while a specially constructed 
steam hose would be too stiff to be flex¬ 
ible. 
A regular copper boiler or other can 
may be used for a boiler, if one takes the 
precaution of making a safety valve as 
shown in the next illustration. Any tinner 
can make such an arrangement with a 
Steam honey-knife and boiler, showing construc¬ 
tion of the safety valve, made of super spring at 
filter hole. 
super spring and small tin cap, and it also 
furnishes a very convenient opening for 
filling the boiler. 
DISPOSING OF THE WET CAPPINGS. 
When the cappings fall from the uncap¬ 
ping-knife they are saturated, of course, 
with honey. There are two different meth¬ 
ods in use of separating the wax and the 
honey. The first embodies the principle of 
draining the cappings until practically all 
of the honey is separated; and the second, 
an entirely different principle, which con¬ 
templates melting the cappings as fast as 
