Bee products form an important item of income in the United States, more than two billion pounds of honey and wax being produced in a single season. When we consider that this appalling amount of sweetness is gathered a drop here and a drop there it leads us to figures too large to be comprehended. In considering the value of bees we must by no means think of honey as their sole product, as beeswax is an important article. After the honey has been extracted from the comb the latter is mixed with water and boiled down and run into firm yellow cakes, from which the color disappears if exposed for a certain length of time to the air. Thin slices are exposed until thoroughly bleached, when it is again melted and run into cakes, and is then known as the white wax of commerce. Before oil lamps came into use large quantities of this white wax were used in the manufacture of candles, which made the best light then known, as they burned better than tallow candles and without the smoke or odor which made the tallow article objectionable. The advent of the oil-lamp, the gas jet, and the electric light have practically disposed of its usefulness in that direction, except in devotional exercises, although colored tapers made of white wax are now used for decorative purposes, especially during the holiday season, when numbers of them are used to light our Christmas trees. White wax is also used extensively for making ornamental objects such as models of fruits and flowers. Whole plants are sometimes reproduced and models of various vegetable and animal products are reproduced in colored wax and used for educational or museum purposes. The anatomist finds it of great value in reproducing the normal and diseased structures of the human form. No doubt the original wax works of Mrs. Jarley, made famous by Dickens in “The Old Curiosity Shop,” were a collection of wax images made from the product of the honey-bee. Metheglin is a drink made from honey, and is consumed largely in some parts of the world. It is the nectar which the ancient Scandinavian expected to sip in paradise, using skulls of his enemies as goblets. The East Indies and the Philippine Islands seem to be under special obligations to astonish the world in everything, and in order to keep pace with their reputations have produced honey-bees of three sizes, one of which is the smallest honey-bee known, and another the largest. The smaller variety is so diminutive that one square inch of comb contains one hundred cells on each side; the entire comb, as it hangs from the twig of a small tree or bush, is only about the size of a man’s hand. The workers are a little longer, but somewhat more slender than our common house-fly, and are blue-black in color, with the exception of the anterior third of the abdomen, which is bright orange.

The giant East Indian honey-bee, which is probably identical with the giant of the Philippines, is the largest known species of the genus. They are about one-third larger than our common bee and build huge combs of very pure wax which are attached to overhanging ledges of rock or to the limbs of large trees. These combs are often five or six feet in length, three or four feet in width and from one and one-half to six inches in thickness. The amount of honey that they gather in the course of a season is enormous and it has been suggested that if introduced into this country they might be of immense value as they would doubtless visit mainly the plants which our honey-bees could not well gather from, such as red-clover, and thus increase the amount of clover seed as well as the quantity of honey already produced. Up to date, however, it is not proven that they will live in hives or that they can live at all in this climate; the latter being regarded as extremely doubtful by some of our best informed bee-men. Not the least interesting thing in an apiary is the honey extractor, consisting of a large can inside of which a light metal basket is made to revolve by means of a simple gearing. The frames containing the full comb are placed in this basket, the caps being shaved off. After several rapid revolutions the comb is found to be empty and is then returned to the hives to be refilled by the bees. The queen bee is about one-third larger than the worker and is the mother and monarch of the hive. Queens are sometimes raised by bee-keepers for sale, especially by those who have an improved strain of a certain species, or a new and desirable species of bee. When the bee-keeper gets a mail order for a queen he procures a mailing-cage, which is a small box-like cage covered with wire screen and cloth, in one end of which he places a supply of food, the other end being occupied by a ventilator. The queen and from eight to twelve workers, as royal attendants, are then placed in the cage, the wire-screen and cloth covers carefully wrapped around them, the address written, a one cent stamp affixed and her royal highness is ready for her trip across a continent, or, with additional postage, around the world. When, from any cause, the bee-pastures become unproductive bees from different hives often declare war on their neighbors, the strong colonies singling out as enemies those that are weak or disorganized by the loss of a queen. The war is always pursued without quarter and thousands on each side perish in the fray, the victors always carrying off every drop of honey in the hive of the vanquished, leaving the unfortunate survivors of the defeated hive to perish by starvation.