00MB FOUNDATION. 



69 



bee-keeper to exercise complete control over the work in the 

 hive ; and to constitute apiculture as a remunerative occupa- 

 tion, it was necessary that some means should be devised to 

 compel the bees (i) to build straight, separate combs, hanging 

 evenly and parallel, each within its own frame; (2) to construct 

 such cells, worker or drone, and in such proportion, as the 

 owner may desire; and (3) to apply to the manufacture of 

 new combs, wax which had been used for the same purpose 

 asrain and again, with " cappings " (72) and odd scraps which, 

 otherwise, might be wasted or sold below their real value, 

 thus preventing an extravagant consumption of honey for the 

 secretion of wax, and an extravagant waste of time on the part 

 of the bees during the processes of wax secretion and comb 

 building. (73). 



Ill, Invention of Foundation The application by Lang- 



stroth, in 1851, of the moveable frame principle (80) made the 

 construction of suitable combs more than ever necessary ; and, 

 six years later (1857), Mehring, a German, of Frankenthal, 

 produced a sheet of wax on which the shape of cells was 

 stamped, and which was to serve as a " foundation " for the bees 

 to build upon. Improvements upon Mehring's invention were 

 designed to form upon the foundation the beginnings of the 

 cell walls; and, in 1876, A. I. Root, of Medina, Ohio, U.S.A., 

 had constructed a roller mill with embossed cylinders capable 

 of turning out foundation in continuous sheets, and with the 

 formation of the cells, as it is now produced. E. B. Weed 

 subsequentljr devised the rolls which impress the foundation 



that is called by his name. 

 These rolls are faced with 

 type heads, and give abso- 

 lute similarity throughout 

 the sheets. 



112. Varieties Of Founda- 

 tion. — Foundation is now 

 supplied of various sizes, 

 both of sheets and cells, 

 and of various thicknesses. 

 " Medium brood," and 

 "Thin brood" ("Weed"), 

 in sheets to fit the standard 

 frame, have eight sheets 

 and eleven sheets respect- 

 ively to the pound weight, and are made both with worker 

 cells and drone cells. "Thin super" (Fig. 42). and "Extra 

 thin super " (" Weed "), in sheets to fill three sections each, have 

 twenty-eight to thirty-two and thirty to thirty-six sheets 

 respectively to the pound weight. Brood foundation is used 



Fig. 42 

 8UPEE FOUNDATION. 



