COUB FOUNDATION. 



69 



CHAPTER X. 

 COMB FOUNDATION. 



110. Use of Foundation — No less important than the intro- 

 duction of the moveable frame, the invention of foundation 

 (Fig. 41) marked a distinct advance in the methods of practical 

 bee-keeping ; simplified the management of frame hives ; and 

 effected a substantial economy in the expenses of working. 

 It has already been pointed out that the great advantage of the 

 modern moveable-comb hive depends upon its frames, in use, 

 being really moveable. If bees are placed in hives fitted with 

 empty frames, they will build their combs in the frames, but 

 at such angles, and in such manner as frequently to fasten the 



frames together and to render 

 them immoveable in the hive, 

 thus defeating the object in view. 

 If strips of wax, as " starters," be 

 fixed below the top bars of the 

 frames, the bees will begin their 

 combs at the starters, but will 

 sometimes build them so irregu- 

 larly that, here and there, comb 

 will be joined to comb, and only 

 a few, if any of the combs will be 

 perfectly even and moveable. In 

 both cases there will be con- 

 structed so large a proportion of 

 drone cells that the drones reared 

 in such cells may be sufficiently numerous to consume the 

 surplus honey which it is the aim of the bee-keeper to secure 

 for himself (195). To obviate those difficulties; to enable the 

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

 liive ; 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 

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



Fig. 41. 

 COMB FOUNDATION. 



