foreign ^otts. 



Translated from L'ApicuHeur Atiacien-Lorrain, 

 by Frank Benton. 



Comb Foundation— No. 4. 



Liepvre, September, 1878. 



My Dear Friend :— I read in ISApl- 

 culteur. of Paris, January, 1878: "They 

 (sheets of comb foundation) are not easily 

 fastened in the frames, heat bends them, 

 they get broken very easily, and finally, 

 the bees build them out less willingly than 

 they use a foundation of natural comb." 

 This sounds like overwhelming testimony, 

 but please accept it only conditionally. In 

 fact, let us take up the case and discuss it 

 item by item, who knows but that our con- 

 clusion may be directly opposed to that of 

 M. Pellenc, the author of these severe lines? 



1. It is difficult to fasten them in the 

 frames. Schultz advises cutting a board 

 just large enough to fill the interior of the 

 frame, and yet having play enough to pre- 

 vent its rubbing when the frame is placed 

 over it. Two parallel sides of this board 

 are furnished with strips so nailed on that 

 when the side pieces of the frames rest on 

 them the surface of the board will come 

 nearly to the middle of the frame. You 

 then place a sheet of comb foundation on 

 the apparatus thus arranged, and pour 

 liquid wax in the angle which the sheet 

 forms with the top bar all along, and also 

 with the upper third of each side piece ; af- 

 ter which you turn the frame over and pro- 

 ceed in the same manner with the other 

 side. The lower two-thirds of the sheet are 

 left free, and their edges should be from 7 

 to 10 millimetres (about % to 2 5 of an inch) 

 from the side bars, in order to permit the 

 expansion of the wax in the heat of the 

 hive. 



Is this operation simple enough ? Well, 

 here is another still more simple. I think it 

 was devised by M. Duck, of Mulhouse : 



You make with a saw a cut in your frame, 

 dividing the top bar from one side to the 

 other into two equal pieces, letting the di- 

 vision extend the length of the upper third 

 of the side bars ; you cut the sheet of comb 

 foundation in the shape of a trapezoid, leav- 

 ing the upper edge the size of the frame, 

 wood included, and the lower edge the size 

 of the inside of the frame, less 14 to 20 mil- 

 limetres (about % to 4-5 of an inch) for the 

 expansion of the sheet ; you then slide this 

 foundation from the upper side into the 

 groove which the saw has left, and make 

 the whole solid by means of a few drops of 

 melted wax. Sheets of foundation and 

 frames can be prepared beforehand, and 

 this done, the fastening will not take two 

 minutes a comb. 



Just here an objection to this latter method 

 might be brought up. It may happen that 

 one will be obliged to remove one of these 

 combs, finished or not, and in this case to 

 do considerable scraping, in order to remove 

 the wax from the groove and leave this as 

 large as at first. It is true that this occurs 

 rarely, and it is likewise true that instead 

 of stopping to scrape off the wax, there is 



nothing to hinder the use of the saw in re- 

 moving it. 



You see, my dear friend, that all this is 

 not so very difficult, and that, in fact, in or- 

 der to find the least difficulty in it one must 

 be very exacting himself. 



I will say nothing to you here concerning 

 the use of comb foundation in common 

 hives. Theoretically the thing is possible, 

 but not practically. 1 will show you this 

 later. 



2. The heat bends them. This is certainly 

 the greatest objection— the one which is 

 true in a certain measure, at least with the 

 previously described methods of using it. 



The lower two-thirds being free from the 

 side-bars expand, and rarely in the same 

 plane. Sometimes the foundation makes a 

 curve about a horizontal axis and the bot- 

 tom of the sheet goes outside of the frame; 

 sometimes this deviation is made in a lateral 

 direction, about a vertical axis, and the 

 edges of the loose sheet are left more or 

 less outside of the center of the top-bars; at 

 other times the curvature, simple or com- 

 pound, takes place in the middle of the 

 foundation, giving the surface the appear- 

 ance of hillocks and valleys, and the cross- 

 section a resemblance to a series of S's 

 placed end to end. In all such cases, as the 

 bees build their cells of nearly uniform 

 depth, the combs adhere one to another, and 

 contrary to our desire, we find instead of 

 movable combs such as are quite immov- 

 able. 



How is one to avoid these inconveniences? 

 Some with a thin piece of metal, previously 

 heated, make an opening from the top 

 downward, about 10 centimetres (about 4 

 inches) in length ; others endeavor to hold 

 the sheets of foundation in place by means 

 of short pins put here and there into the 

 side-bars of the frame ; still others make 

 awl-holes— two near together— in the side- 

 bars and insert prohpudor— hair-pins,— the 

 two points of which reaching within the 

 frame hold in place the edges of the comb 

 foundation. 



Let me say to the first of these that the 

 opening they make will cause the great ine- 

 qualities to disappear, but will not avoid 

 the small ones ; moreover, sheets that have 

 been cut in this manner break easily, or if 

 they hold together each twists each its own 

 way. Into the ears of the second class we 

 slip these words; You do not avoid the 

 valleys and hillocks in the middle of the 

 comb, and hence for a half-success you lose 

 a vast amount of time, for when the extrac- 

 tor is used the pins get out into the honey. 

 One might also add that these pins interfere 

 very greatly with the regularity of thecells. 



Regarding the third class we might say. — 

 but pshaw ! What is the use of ones put- 

 ting himself to all the trouble they do, and 

 yet not succeed any better than do those of 

 the second class, and only by the consump- 

 tion of a vast number of hair-pains ! Very 

 likely the discoverer of this method is a 

 very good and worthy apiculturist in theory, 

 or perhaps he is a gallant — romantic, who, 

 some fine day had said to himself : "The 

 combs bulge but because the bees do not fix 

 them quickly enough ; but bees love sweet 

 odors, then if I should place there— where I 

 wish to attract them most quickly— these 



