216 MONEY IN BEES IN AUSTRALASIA 



rollers. Wax at the "tongli" stage will stand a fairly 

 strong pull, but exercise discretion when drawing the 

 embossed sheet from the mill. After dipping some little 

 time, should the wax show a tendency to stick to the 

 boards— which should be free from knotty or resinous 

 spots — .rub a little soapsuds on the offending place. To 

 make sure of the edge of the sheet showing clear of the 

 rollers it is sometimes dipped into soapy water before 

 feeding. It is much easier to mill narrow (up to six 

 inches wide) sheets; wider ones (12 inches or so) are 

 more difficult to get through. 



After milling, place the cutting board — of the inside 

 dimensions of the frame in use — on top of four or five 

 sheets at a time and trim to the requisite size. The 

 embossed sheets are much larger than before milling, 

 and when trimmed, a number of narrow strips accumu- 

 late. These trimmings should be melted up as the work 

 progresses, but a word of warning is here necessary. 

 Before re-melting it is essential that these scraps should 

 be washed free from soap as the alkaline properties 

 would have a detrimental effect on the wax. If this is 

 neglected the resulting wax becomes so "rotten" that 

 its tenacity is- destroyed and the operator will be unable 

 to pull the sheets from the rollers. 



Should this clogging of the rolls be once encountered 

 it will teach the inexperienced better than pages of print. 

 Should this unfortunately happen it is well to refrain 

 from picking at the rollers with any sharp implement; 

 the metal used is very soft (type metal) and easily 

 damaged. Eemember that benzine dissolves beeswax 

 readily, and the machine should be cleansed by washing, 

 not scraping. 



THE FACTORY-MADE ARTICLE. 



There are factories that make a business of manufac- 

 turing foundation by what is known as the "Weed" 

 process. Fig. 75 is a view of the three machines that 

 turn out "Weed" foundation, at Pender's factory in New 

 South Wales. These expensive machines are linked up 



