THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



then managed as they should be, there will 

 be trouble in the rolling. Right here is 

 where the greatest number of failures occur, 

 and until the manufacturer understands 

 what the sheets require he cannot expect to 

 overcome the difficulty. When you break 

 open a cake of wax, you will usually find the 

 center of it has a mealy appearance, and is 

 very easy to crumble ; that is, it is brittle 

 like the banana spoken of by the editor in 

 his leader. This crumbling, brittle tenden- 

 cy, brought about by the conditions of cool- 

 ing, is what has to be avoided in making 

 your sheets ; to do this is what I term tem- 

 pering the wax. This tempering of the wax, 

 has no effect on it, jo far as making it either 

 hard or soft, for the sheets will be hard or 

 soft according to the condition of the wax in 

 the first place. When the sheets are ready 

 for the rolls, they are put in a shallow vat of 

 water, attached to the rolling table. The 

 water has a thermometer in it, so as to help 

 the operators keep it at the right tempera- 

 ture, a very necessary piecaution. 



Passing the sheets through the rolls, is a 

 simple process, still it requires some experi- 

 ence to do it and keep the rolls so adjusted 

 as to do the best work. 



When making foundation by either rolling 

 or pressing, the sheets should be kept as 

 warm as is possible t work them, so that 

 the wax will find its way into the side walls, 

 or be crowded back, as with the rolls, with 

 less pressure. Mills making the bottom of 

 the cells most natural, find the least resis- 

 tance, as the points of the rolls enter the wax 

 first and gradually crowd it back, while the 

 flat bottom mills present the whole surface 

 to the wax, and need more pressure to ac- 

 complish the same result. 



Rolling or pressing the wax makes it more 

 firm by better uniting the little grains, and 

 perhaps it is well that it does, if it did not 

 we might not be able to use foundation 

 twelve or thirteen feet to the pound, in full 

 sheets in the sections, it would not be strong 

 enough to hold the weight of the bees, when 

 warm eno»gh to be worled by them. 



The so-called fish bone, under certain con- 

 ditions, will always be found in comb honey 

 if foundation with heavy side walls is used. 

 The only way to avoid it, to a certainty, is by 

 using f undation so thin that no extra wax 

 is there to leave, and this is the kind of 

 foundation I recommend. The wax we give 

 them and the kind they use to build on with 

 are of a different nature. If wax is left in 



the side walls, and they use it even to the 

 best advantage, it will not be so tender and 

 crisp as that they produce themselves, and 

 will help to make the honey so produced, 

 tougher, and leave in the mouth, after the 

 honey is dissolved, a large amount of wax. 

 The wax of their own production, or rather 

 the comb, does not stick together in the 

 mouth, but is mixed more with the honey 

 and swallowed without noticing it so much. 

 Bell Bkanoh, Mich. Feb. 25, 1894. 



Why Rollers are Preferable to the Press for 

 Making Foundation. 



C. p. DADANT. 



IRIEND HUTCHINSON :— In reply to 

 your request to give our opinion upon 

 the best foundation, we must say that 

 we agree in substance with Oliver Foster. 

 At the time when the Given press was put 

 before the public, we enquired into its merits, 

 with the intention of procuring one. At dif- 

 ferent dates we asked Mr. Given for samples 

 of the work of his machines, but in every 

 instance the work produced was so irregular 

 that we concluded it was best to leave it 

 alone. And yet the Ijee-keepers were not 

 wanting who praised his machine above all 

 others. But what is the result ? Were it 

 not for the experiment of R. L. Taylor the 

 Given press would be left in the dark. Is 

 that experiment conclusive ? I think not, 

 for if it is evident that an amateur may be 

 able to make very good foundation on the 

 Given press, it is none the less evident from 

 the experience of the past fifteen years that 

 the Given press is not practical, in the hands 

 of the average bee-keeper. Nor is it at all 

 proven to me that even the amateur can 

 make, with the greatest care, as good an 

 average on the press as on the rolls. 



We Americans were not alone in trying 

 the press. It was on a press that the first 

 European foundation was made. Mehring, 

 the original inventor, used a press. But in 

 Europe, as in America, the press has given 

 way to the mill, for with the latter all per- 

 fections can be laminated out and it is there- 

 fore more regularly satisfactory. As to the 

 greater or less hardness of the wax in the 

 different cases, I would not give a straw for 

 the difference. It is all wax and there is 

 much more to consider in the melting and 



