190 A Modern Bee-Farm 
No foundation should be purchased without an assur- 
ance from the manufacturer that wax from which it is 
made up has not been procured from any apiary 
affected with disease. 
CHAPTER XIII. 
COMB-FOUNDATION. 
HE several frames illustrated, showing the foundation 
OC in the centre, will convey to the novice some idea 
as to its use. This artificially made basis of new 
combs is really pure beeswax, and the sheet is first obtained 
by dipping nicely planed pine boards into the hot wax *; 
the plain sheet thus made is afterwards passed between 
rollers, which are so engraved as to give the wax the exact 
form and appearance of the natural mid-rib of all comb as 
the bees make it when left to their own devices, except 
that the comb foundation made by man gives'‘the base of 
a more perfect, because more regular, comb than the 
insects themselves produce. The foundation is gauged to 
the size of worker cells (five to the inch); therefore, drone 
cells, and consequently drones, are excluded, while the 
combs produced are as flat as boards. 
Drone foundations may be prepared from dies of that 
gauge, and these are often used in extracting supers. 
According to the thickness of the sheet required, whether 
for thin super foundation or for use in the stock frames, so 
many dips have to be made before the wax is peeled from 
the boards. Of these, two or three sets are required on 
* Rollers may also be used throughout the process, but this 
explains the original method. 
