Wax Craft, All about Beeswax; Its History, Production, Adulteration, and Commercial Value Book

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This is an OCR edition with typos.
Excerpt from book:
Chapter III. WAX RENDERING. SOME of the primitive methods of separating wax from its impurities were extremely crude; even now the natives of different countries from which we obtain wax are most careless in its preparation, so that the imported article when put on the market here is not seldom full of foreign substances. The common practice is to break up the combs and strain the honey from them, after which they are placed in a cauldron of water. As the combs generally contain pollen and brood, they are allowed to soak for a time in order to soften the pollen and cast off skins of the cocoons. A fire is then lighted under the cauldron and the mass boiled, being stirred meanwhile with a stick to cause the combs to go to pieces. When the wax is all melted that which floats on the top is ladled out on to a canvas or other strainer placed over a pan containing a little water. More combs are put into the cauldron, and the process continuedso long as there are any combs to melt. When cool enough the refuse is squeezed with the hands to remove what wax remains, the debris being thrown away. But a good deal of pollen with small particles of rubbish passes through the strainer. In dealing with best samples the wax is re-melted in clean water and strained again. This method is a very wasteful one, it being impossible to impart sufficient pressure by squeezing to extract all the wax, consequently a good deal is thrown away with the refuse. The crude method described also frequently ends in the wax becoming discoloured from burning. A better plan, that of boiling in bags, will be described later, being one still extensively adopted by those who have not taken to modern methods. Formerly the production of wax was much greater than now. Modern bee-keeping does not yield so much...