Bee-lieeping in Victoria. 107 



impressed, or it may be both. For brood or oxtructiiig combs, founda- 

 tion, eight sheets to a pound, if well made (Fig. 1, A.B.) is quite heavy 

 enough. Many beekeepers, being unable to obtain good combs from 

 medium weight foundation, owing to the sheets being too faintly 

 impressed (Fig. 1, CD.) make them as heavy as five and a half to six- 

 sheets to a ])Ouiid. This, to some extent, does away with sagging and 

 buckling, but it raises the cost by about Id. per sheet by unnecessarily 

 using an extra amount of wax. If the roHers of the foundation mill are 

 set close enough to completely fill the interstices between the cell cones of 

 the rollers, Avliile the cell bottoms of the foundation are quite thin and 

 transparent, one pound weight will contain s^yen and a half to eight 

 sheets Langstrotli size. The extra wax in heavier sheets is in the cell 

 bottoms, and adds but little to the freedom from stretching or buckling. 

 To make good foundation, it is necessary to have the proper appliances 

 and to keep the correct temperatures in the process of making the plain 

 sheets as well as in passing them through the rollers. 



TexturEj Expansion and Contraction of Bees-wax. 



If the wax used for foundation is absolutely pure and clean the 

 shade of colour is immaterial if the foundation is intended for brood 

 or extracting combs. For sections, if possible, only the palest white wax 

 sliould be used. How to obtain bees-wax of the greatest purity and best 

 colour from old combs is described in chapter XXL, page 99. To 

 guard against infection of the colonies wax of unknown origin or from 

 apiaries in which foul-brood exists, particularly when the solar wax 

 extractor was u.sed to obtain it, should always be first boiled with 

 water, allowed to set and the blocks scraped clean before being re- 

 melted for foundation. 



To produce the best grade of foundation with a minimum of labour 

 it is necessary to know the properties of wax at different temperatures. 

 Wax is crystalline in texture, and comparatively brittle at ordinary 

 temperatures. When kneaded its structure is altered, and it becomes 

 and remains for a considerable time more or less pliable. Thus a thin 

 sheet of wax, at a temperature of 60 degrees Fahr. is exceedingly brittle, 

 but after being passed through the foundation mill at a temperature 

 of 100 degrees it will be tough and pliable at 60 degrees, more or less, 

 according to the degree of kneading it received from the rollers. The 

 greater the pressure exercised the tougher will be the foundation. In 

 the case of what is known as the weed process of manufacture the wax 

 is subjected to a pressure of several hundred potmds to the square inch, 

 the wax becomes semi-transparent, and the founda,tion tough, a circum- 

 stance which has given rise to the erroneous suspicion that adulterants 

 have been added. 



At a temperature from 120 degrees upwards wax becomes friable, and 

 the sheets stretch and tear in handling. At about 150 degrees wax 

 becomes a liquid, and expands more and more as the temperature rises. 

 The greatest expansion of volume takes place between 180 degrees and 

 212 degrees, which, latter, is the highest temperature wax heated on 

 water can reach. In cooling wax does not contract in the way it 

 expanded, the expansion reached at the high temperatures is retained 

 nearly down to the point of solidifying; thus wax heated to 200 degrees 



