'I HE AMERICAN BEEKEEl'tR. 



107 



COMB FOUNDATION AND ITS DSE. 



Foundation is not a new invention, 

 yet there are many people who have 

 handled bees for years who have but 

 little idea of its use ; and some do not 

 even know what it is. As I remarked 

 in a former article foundation is sim- 

 plv beeswax made into sheets of the 

 proper thickness, with the imprint of 

 the cells in them. The wax is first 

 cleansed from all impurities and then 

 made into sheets for the imprints of 

 the cells. These are made by run- 

 ning the sheets between rollers 

 which are manufactured for the pur- 

 pose. A foundation machine looks 

 very much like a clothes-wringer, but, 

 of course, the rollers are made of metal. 



Some of the advantages growing out 

 of using foundation are the following: 

 first it enables the bee-keeper to secure 

 straight and even combs, which is no 

 small item in manipulating a movable- 

 frame hive. It prevents the building of 

 so much drone comb, the imprints are 

 the size for worker cells, and the bees 

 finish out most of the cells as they are 

 started in the foundation. Every bee- 

 keeper who has studied the subject 

 carefully knows that it is a great ad- 

 vantage to regulate the number of 

 drones. The greatest benefit, howev- 

 er, is in the saving of honey. Wax 

 is secreted by a number of glands 

 found in the lower part of the bee's 

 abdomen. Every farmer knows that 

 it takes a good supply of nourishing 

 food to produce plenty of rich milk, 

 which is secreted by the milk glands. 

 So a bee must v'at plenty of rich food 

 to secrete an abundance of wax. Es- 

 timates as to the amount of honey con- 

 sumed to produce a pound of wax vary 

 from ten to twenty pounds. Now, a 

 pound of what is known as heavy brood 



foundation costs from -15 to 48 cents, 

 depending on the quantity bought. 

 Ten pounds of section honey is worth, 

 at a low estimate, $1.25, so that there 

 is a gain of at least 75 cents. But if 

 we take the average estimate of honey, 

 fifteen pounds, and the price at 15 

 cents per pound, which is not high for 

 good honey in any market, we have a 

 very much larger gain. In these es- 

 timates Ave have made no reckoning 

 of the time lost by the bees that secrete 

 the wax, or of the honey that may go 

 to waste, during a rapid flow, because 

 the bees have no combs ready in which 

 to store it. 



It takes time to secrete wax and 

 build combs, but it does not take a 

 strong colony of bees long to draw out 

 a number of sheets of comb founda- 

 tion. Foundation is generally as val- 

 uable, if not more so, in the sections 

 as in the brood chamber. In fact, as 

 we have remarked before, it will not 

 pay any one to use sections who does 

 not use foundation. The bees will fre- 

 quently not go to work in the sections 

 unless they have foundation in them. 

 If they do enter them without found- 

 ation, they are sure to build their combs 

 crooked. Some use what bee-keepers 

 call "starters" while others use full 

 sheets of foundation. That is, they 

 fasten the foundation to the top of the 

 sections and cut the sheets large 

 enough to fill them. Starters are 

 made any size from one an inch square 

 to one filling half the section. Foun- 

 dation for the brood frames comes 

 cut in sheets to fit the frames. Foun- 

 dation for sections, which should be as 

 thin as possible, comes in sheets cut 

 about four inches 1 wide and such a 

 length ^as suits the convience of the 

 dealer or manufacturer. These sheets 



