Just about the time people were figuring out how to make hot water heaters and even pump water using the sun’s heat, beekeepers in California were also realizing that they could make a little greenhouse box for separating honey and wax. The one above was displayed in England in 1907 and photographed by someone from the Canterbury Times.

A 1909 handbook for young beekeepers rhapsodized about the “efficiency” of these strange boxes.

There are many modern and up-to-date methods advised for extracting wax. The most common is through the use of the Solar wax-extractor, which was invented for extracting honey in California, where the sun can be depended upon to do its work unflinchingly day after day. There was more than myth in the story of Icarus who fastened his wings on with wax, and then dared to face the sun. The ancients evidently knew that no other substance of the sort is so susceptible to the sun’s rays. I shall never forget my amazement at the efficiency of the first Solar extractor that I ever saw; it was homemade and there was naught in its appearance to indicate its power. The comb was hard and blackened and full of dirt, while the wax that oozed out and hardened below was as shining and yellow as if the sun itself had exhaled it. A Solar extractor ought to be in every apiary where twenty colonies or more are kept, and into this every fragment of comb should be put instead of storing it to become infested by the bee moth, or leaving it around to incite the bees to robbing. The fragments thus are saved and without any expense or trouble are made into a beautiful product for the market.

And, it turns out that people are still using these things. Check out this flickr set for evidence. Want to build one? The University of Florida extension school has got you covered.

“The principles of wax extractor design are always the same, although the details of each specific apparatus may differ. Bits of wax, old comb and other scrapings from the hive are placed on a slanted (usually metal) tray inside a box. The box is then covered tightly with a glass top and oriented toward the sun. As the temperature rises inside the box, the wax melts and drips off the tray into the collector pan. This pan usually has slanted sides, facilitating removal of the wax block once it hardens.”