SEPARATION OF WAX AND HONEY.
After deprivation, the box or hive containing the combs should be kept in
a warm room, till it is convenient to drain it of its contents, as the
more fluid the honey, the sooner and the more completely will it run off;
this is of course a reason for not deferring the draining longer than can
be avoided.
The combs should be separated from the boxes or hives with the broad
spatula and the double-edged instrument recommended in chapter XI. and
placed afterwards on a clean dish. The waxen covers, on both sides of
the scaled combs, should be sliced off, when by placing them on a hair
sieve the honey will run through tolerably fine, and may be caught in an
earthen pan. For prime purposes the purest combs should be selected, and
their honey passed through a separate sieve. Mr. Isaac recommends letting
this fine honey drop through the sieve into a silk sarse, such as is used
by the apothecary for sifting fine powders, and from the sarse into an
earthen pan; this would enable the apiarian to obtain his honey in a more
depurated state. The sarse must be first wetted, or the honey will not
run through it. If the weather be cool, this business should be done in
a room where there is a fire.
The ordinary combs may be chopped up, or broken down with the hands, and
together with the refuse combs after draining, may be thrown into as much
clear water as will cause the wax to swim: the whole may remain in this
state for some days to dissolve all the honey for making common mead;
or the combs may be spread out upon broad dishes, and set before the
bees in an evening, as also the utensils which have been employed during
the process, first strewing them over with short straws, to prevent the
bees from smearing their wings. The former is the best mode of disposing
of the refuse combs and utensils, as the latter is apt to produce
quarrelling and robberies.
The combs having been cleared as completely as possible, the finest
should be boiled in water enough to float them, till they are thoroughly
melted: the melted mass should be poured into a canvass bag, made in the
form of a jelly bag, with a draw tape or string at the top, and then be
suspended over a tub or pan of cold water. The strings of the bag being
tightly drawn, the expression may be effected in various ways. Some press
the bag between two strong round sticks, tied or strapped together at
their ends, so as to resemble a pair of nut-crackers, with which two
persons may by repeatedly stripping down the sides of the bag, express
the whole of the wax. Others express it by making an inclined plane of a
board about four feet long, placing one end of it in the tub or pan of
water, and the other against the breast of the assistant, who puts the
bag on the board and passes a round stick firmly down it, as long as the
wax will run. A screw press, made hot, would of course answer the purpose
better than either of the above modes.
The crumbled combs might be put over the fire, in a steam kettle, with
water under it, and the wax which runs through might be afterwards
melted again and passed through the bag. The new combs will melt almost
entirely; but the old ones, owing to their cells having received so many
linings, will preserve their form, the wax running from them but in small
quantities.
The vessel used for melting the wax should be capable of containing a
good deal more than is put into it, as the contents may boil up suddenly,
and occasion loss and inconvenience as well as danger. The wax having
been separated from the water in which it was melted, should be remelted
with just water enough to prevent burning; and having been well skimmed,
may be poured into proper moulds for forming cakes, the vessels being
first rinsed with cold water to prevent the wax from adhering to them.
The melted wax should be placed near the fire and covered over, to cool
gradually, or the cakes will be liable to crack. If it be desirable to
have the wax in a very pure state, it may be boiled over and over again
with fresh water.