6i8 Journal of Agriculture. [lo Oct., 1910. 



bee-keepers have roller mills and manufacture their own foundation; but, ir. 

 many instances, the sheets turned out are little more than marked with 

 the rollers and good straight combs cannot be expected from them. Well 

 brought up foundation differs from that which is flat, in the same way 

 as corrugated iron does from plain. In both instances, the flat sheet is 

 less rigid and expands more under the influence of a rise of temperature. 



The necessity of having straight combs for brood, as well as for ex- 

 tracting, is .so self evident that it is surprising so many poor combs are 

 found in the majority of apiaries. It does not involve extra labour to 

 produce good combs, but only the same amount done in a different way. 



The disadvantages of crooked combs are : — A reduction of the brood 

 capacity of the combs, brace combs, difficulty in handling of frames, loss 

 of time in uncapping when extracting, and breakage of combs in the 

 extractor. 



The reduction of the brood capacity resulting from crooked combs 

 amounts in bad cases to one quarter of the total comb surface of the brood 

 nest. Only when combs are quite straight is the whole of the comb sur- 

 face available for the raising of brood. The normal spacing of brood 

 frames is if inch from centre to centre. This distance has been arrived 

 at as the average of many measurements of the worker-combs of bees 

 built in a state of nature. Left to their own devices, as in box hives, bees 

 will rarely build their combs in straight lines, but, whatever their shape, 

 there is always a space just sufficient ior the purpose between opposite 

 faces of brood combs. 



It is different in the case of combs in frames. The placing ot 

 crooked combs between straight ones or bent the reverse way, brings the 

 surfaces in places .so clo.se together that one side cannot be occupied by 

 brood or, if containing brood already, it will be removed by tlie bees to 

 produce the required space. Large patches of vacant cells are thereby 

 created, spreading the raising of brood over a larger surface, or restrict- 

 ing development of the colony in early spring owing to insufficient animal 

 heat for the larger space. Apart from the blanks referred to, there are, 

 in combs built on buckled foundation, a considerable number of cells which 

 cannot be used for worker brood. The cells on the convex side of the 

 curve of the comb are too large, while on the concave they are too small. 



The greatest drawback of crooked combs, however, is the difficulty 

 of. anrl waste of time, in uncapping the combs for the extractor. A 

 straight comb can be uncapped with one cut of a 12 -inch honey knife, 

 while a crooked one requires a number of cuts at different levels. During 

 this operation the structure of the comb is more or less damaged and the 

 comb weakened, resulting in fractures in the comb baskets of the extractor. 

 Combs are in use for many years. I have some twenty years old. It is 

 therefore good economv to get them as nearly perfect as possible in the 

 first instance and save the time wasted in handling bad combs. The 

 ]af)Ou.r nf the bees 's also put tn the best use in the raising of l)rood. 



