76 A Modern Bee- Farm 



in doing so comb is produced that has so thin a septum as to be 

 equal to any all-natural comb. I have been very favourably 

 impressed with the Pelham foundation, principally because there 

 is no pressure on the side walls ; but I suppose this might be so 

 with all machines if thinner sheets were used, so that the same 

 need not receive sufficient pressure to be driven tight into the 

 matrice, while the same thin base would be retained. There is no 

 advantage in having high side walls in super foundation, as I find 

 the same nearly always scraped off to the base before actual 

 building is commenced by the bees. 



Foundation in the brood chamber gives a great saving in time 

 under some conditions, as hereafter noted, but there are times when 

 it is an unnecessary expense, more especially when the bee- 

 keeper has all the stock he requires, when he will become a 

 producer of wax instead of a consumer of that article. 



How to insert Foundation in Frames and Sections. 



The original method, and the one still practised by Mr. Raitt, 

 myself and others, is by melted wax run along the sheet of 

 foundation on both sides where it meets the top bar. A 

 board, 7 inches wide and 13 inches long, has screwed on the back 

 two strips of f-inch stuff, which project about an inch over. The 

 two projections on one side I have arranged as shown with a wide- 

 headed screw to each, enabling the gauge to be regulated to a 

 nicety. When set upon the inverted frame it stands §-inch off 

 from the centre of the bar, thus providing for the thickness of the 

 foundation that it may hang exactly in the centre. For 



Melting the Wax, 



use a common glue pot, with a small brush to dip in, allowing tlie 

 drip to run down the angle, joining the foundation and frame 

 securely. Remove the gauge-board while reversing and then wax 

 the other side, with the frame always held at a slight incline, 

 starting the wax at one end, and allowing so much that it will just 

 run to the other end. Be careful that the wax is kept at an even 



