160 AUSTRALASIAN 



ADVANTAGES DERIVED FROM ITS USE. 



It has already been stated (in Chapter III.) that bees require 

 to consume a large quantity of honey — taking the mean of 

 experiments, about fourteen pounds— in order to secrete one 

 pound of wax. Assuming the honey to be worth only fivepence 

 per pound, each pound of wax thus secreted represents a value 

 of nearly six shillings. By supplying wax foundation, which 

 costs less than half that price, we bave more than half the cost 

 of the material. A still greater advantage is the saving of 

 time to the bees, and the opportunities thus given them to 

 store a much greater quantity of honey. Not only can they 

 store, instead of making into wax, upwards of twenty pounds 

 of honey, represented by some pound and a half of foundation 

 supplied to the ten frames of a hive, but they can have the ten 

 combs fully built out in one-fourth of the time that should be 

 devoted to the building of entirely new comb ; and all the bees 

 that would be so employed are set free to store honey instead. 

 We may reckon that in an ordinary season a fair swarm will 

 work out the ten sheets of foundation in a Langstroth hive in 

 one week ; without the aid of the foundation it would take 

 them four or five weeks. I have had swarms that worked out 

 and filled with honey and brood all the sheets in a two-story 

 hive, and threw off a good new swarm, within three weeks from 

 the date of hiving. The time thus gained may make all the 

 difference between profit and loss in a short honey season. 

 Besides this saving of time and gain in honey, we secure 

 straight and even combs, such as are rarely, if ever, built 

 without the aid of foundation ; we can control the building of 

 drone-comb, and consequently the breeding of drones within 

 such limits as may be deemed advisable; and it will be found 

 that, even without the precaution of wiring, the combs so built 

 will be much stronger and will withstand the strain of extracting 

 much better than those built without foundation. It is also of 

 very great value in the case of swarms hived late in the season, 

 which are thereby enabled to build their comb in a short time, 

 and put themselves in a better condition for the winter. 



PRINCIPAL POINTS OF GOOD FOUNDATION. 



Good comb-foundation must, in the first place, be made of 

 nothing but pure beeswax; various substitutes have been 



