228 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



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COMB FOUNDATION 



What Weight to Use and How to Use it 



BY R. F. HOLTERMANN 



Opinions as to the use of comb founda- 

 tion vary greatly. To one beekeeper its use 

 at all is deemed an extravagance; another 

 wants full sheets everywhere; and a third, 

 after wrestling between his own sense of 

 what is right and his innate penny-wise- 

 and-pound-foolish tendencies, gives the bees 

 in the brood chamber half a sheet of foun- 

 dation. 



To the beginner let me say that the bee- 

 keeper who uses foundation secures straight 

 combs of worker cells which may be used 

 for twenty years — a very important item; 

 and the bees are saved at least a portion of 

 the labor of producing wax and of the hon- 

 ey necessary to produce the wax, because 

 honey is to the bee in the production of wax 

 what grass is to the cow in the production 

 of milk; and the secretion of wax is largely 

 a voluntary act, and to that extent unnec- 

 essary. 



In Canada it is safe to say that every bee- 

 keeper who wants to feel" sure of straight 

 combs uses at least starters in his frames. 

 A starter is vastly better than no comb foun- 

 dation at all; for it is natural for the bees to 

 get their suggestion of worker comb from 

 the nature of the cells above. It is true that 

 bees in cell-building often turn from worker 

 cells to drone; but it is seldom that a comb 

 started drone is changed to worker. I am 

 not now referring to worker combs which 

 had a hole in them, which the bees filled 

 with drone comb. Half-sheets of founda- 

 tion tend more to encourage the building of 

 drone comb than mere starters, probably 

 because the worker bees get the start of the 

 queen's laying, and turn to building comb 

 for storage purposes which, in a fast flow, 

 means drone comb. To me it has been 

 amply demonstrated that when starters are 

 used there is likely to be a larger proportion 

 of worker cells in the brood chamber than 

 when half-sheets are used. If your pocket- 

 book is empty, therefore, use full sheets as 

 far as you can, and then finish up with nar- 

 row starters rather than half-sheets. 



THE EXTRACTINGr-SUPER. 



For extracting-combs I always use full 

 sheets of foundation, and the?e combs may 

 then be used interchangeably with those in 

 the brood chamber. There is not much of 

 this shifting in our apiaries, yet occasional- 

 ly the need is great. Again, there are oc- 

 casions, if drone comb is absent in the brood 

 chamberwhen the bees will prepare the drone 

 cells in the supers for the queen, and will 

 hold them for her to the exclusion of honey. 

 Under such conditions there must be a lack 

 of harmonious conditions in the hive, which 

 more or less antagonizes the worker bees 



toward the queen — a condition which it is 

 not well to bring about. 



WEIGHT OF FOUNDATION, 



The proper weight of comb foundation to 

 use is a matter upon which there is a great 

 variety of opinions. The make of the foun- 

 dation, the wax, the climate and tempera- 

 ture, and the conditions under which the 

 foundation is used, such as the strength of 

 the colony and number of bees which cling 

 to the foundation, room and ventilation, 

 the support the foundation receives, all have 

 an effect upon the resisting power of the 

 wax and the pressure brought to bear upon 

 it. I use a grade halfway between medium 

 and light brood foundation, and I support 

 the sheet by means of three horizontal 

 strands. There are those who advocate ver- 

 tical wiring. I have no quarrel with such; 

 but, in passing, I want to say such wiring 

 necessitates a thicker and stronger bottom 

 bar than is generally used, or a substantial 

 stay between the top and bottom bar; and 

 this and the other "fixings" take much 

 more time than is worth while for me. This 

 season I expect to run over 10,000 su])er 

 combs, and the horizontal wiring is all I 

 care to undertake. Perhaps it may be well 

 to state right here that probably no plan 

 embraces all the advantages. 



In wiring, let us remember that, without 

 support, the greatest strain on the founda- 

 tion is on that portion of the sheet nearest 

 the top, and the wire should be placed ac- 

 cordingly. For instance, to put a wire at 

 the bottom of the sheet only prevents the 

 sheet from sagging at the bottom; and if it 

 stretches at all, such a wire will cause it to 

 buckle. The upper part of the foundation 

 bearing the greatest weight should have the 

 greatest support from the wires used. 



HOW TO GET FOUNDATION DRAWN OUT. 



A long thin sheet of comb foundation at- 

 tached only at the top brings about a condi- 

 tion not found in nature. When the bees 

 build comb they fasten it to the top. The 

 sides are rounde 1, and the side walls of the 

 cells are largely built out by the bees before 

 the lower half of the comb is built. Then 

 come the excitement and heat generated 

 by the bees when they first cluster in the 

 hive after swarming is over before they be- 

 gin building comb. Foundation has to 

 stand all these strains when the bees are 

 hived on full sheets. The best place to 

 draw out foundation, barring weak stocks, 

 is in an extracting-super with a moderate 

 honey flow, giving the bees partly drawn 

 comb and the rest foundation. In drawing 

 out foundation the frames should not be 

 spread beyond the normal distance. Thus, 

 in my twelve-frame super (for that is the 

 hive I use), I put on one side five drawn 

 combs, on the other side six sheets of foun- 

 dation. Before this foundation is entirely 

 built out or capped, one of the frames (now 

 combs) is taken out, and the remaining 



