SOUTHERN BEE CULTURE 



89 



By this time the water is warm in the cans, and the comb can be put 

 in; and, during this time, the slumgum can be removed from the sack and 

 it is placed back in the gum and preparations made for another pressing. 



I have made several hundred pounds of wax in one season with this 

 device; but if only a small amount of comb is to be rendered, a much 

 smaller device of the same kind can be constructed. Care should be exer- 

 cised in melting comb around stoves; for when hot it will burn like oil. It 

 should be melted in pots and cans over a slow fire. 



COMB FOUNDATION. 



Comb which the bees have built to store honey and rear their young 

 in is saved by bee-keepers all over the United States, and rendered into 

 beeswax by them; and then it is gathered up by agents and shipped to 

 the manufacturer of bee-supplies, and there it is refined and all the impuri- 

 ties removed from it ; and it is also bleached by the heat of the sun, and then 



Extra thin Super 



Thin Super. 



Light Brood. 



Medium Brood. 



run through a roller process which forms the bottom and starts the walls 

 of the cells just as the bees would do it, and therefore is no artificial comb, as 

 it is often called, but a pure article of comb made by bees, and purified and 

 formed by man. 



Perhaps next to the invention of movable frames or modern hives 

 comes the invention of comb foundation. By the use of it the bee-keeper 

 can have the comb built where he wants it and as he wants it in the hives. 

 Otherwise, if it is left to the bees to start their comb they will bufild it 

 angling or crosswise of the frames, and thus spoil the greatest feature of 

 the modern hive, because the frames can not be handled, and the needs of 

 the bees investigated and supplied. But if only a small strip or starter 

 is used in the frames and sections, the bees will, from this, build their 

 comb straight, the foundation guiding them. 



Another important feature in the use of foundation is that you can 

 have all your comb built with cells worker size by using full sheets of it. 



