APIARY EXPERIMENTS. 



FOUNDATION IN COMB BUILDING. 



By CLAEENCE P. GILLETTE. 



Honey bees collect liquid sweets from all available sources, 

 chiefly in the form pf nectar from flowers, and when the product 

 has been elaborated in the honey-stomach and afterwards stored in 

 comb, we call it honey. 



The material from which the comb is built, is not collected as 

 wax, but is formed within the body and secreted in the form of thin 

 scales between the abdominal segments on the under side. 



As the wax is elaborated within the body, the bee must be 

 supplied with food ont of which to form it and, according to ex- 

 periments reported on another page, it requires about one pound 

 of wax for every twenty-five pounds of honey stored in comb. 

 The food required for the secretion of wax is, for the most part, 

 honey ; and as it requires several pounds of com to produce one 

 pound of beef or butter, so it doubtless requires several pounds of 

 honey as food for worker bees to enable them to produce one pound 

 of wax. 



But the consumption of honey for wax production does not 

 represent the total cost of the wax to the colony. The bees that 

 secrete it are called off from the field force, so that the income of 

 the colony is lessened. In a state of nature this wax production 

 entails no heavy drain upon the the colony, as the comb, once built, 

 lasts for years ; but where comb honey is being produced for the mar- 

 ket, it becomes a matter of economic importance to know to what 

 extent and in what form wax can best be-furnished bees for their 

 use in comb building, 



So far as we know at present, there is but one general way to 

 furnish the wax for this use, and that is in some form of artificial 

 comb foundation. But their are many types of this foundation. Is 

 it belter to have the base or midrib only — the "no wall" foundation? 

 or is it better to have the cell walls outlined for the bees ? If the 

 latter, should we have these walls short or long? In either case, is 



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