i8o 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
pine, from Jin. to -|in. thick, and made very smooth. 
These should be, when dry, the width required for 
the sheet. Soak the boards thoroughly, when they 
will swell as much as the sheets will shrink in 
cooling. Dip one of these soaked boards into cold 
water, shake off all excess, and then plunge more 
than half-way into the wax. Raise it again, when 
it brings up a layer of wax, covering both its sides. 
Hold perpendicularly till the wax ceases dripping. 
Plunge now into cold water, reverse the end, and 
proceed as before. Twice dipping at each end will 
give a sheet thick enough for brood-combs ; one dip 
suffices for sheets to be used in sections. As the 
ends of the boards are submerged longest, and 
also as the wax has a disposition to run from the 
middle when the board is uplifted, the layer at the 
end of the board is thicker than the rest. This 
defect is remedied by dipping more than half-way, 
so that the central parts get four layers to the two 
of the ends. In cooling and contracting, the sheet 
partly strips itself from the wet wood, from which 
it can be separated with great facility. Adhesion, 
caused by imperfect soaking, will spoil the boards : if 
the result of roughness through wear, the remedy is 
drying and careful rubbing with fine glass-paper. 
Should the wax used be too hot, the excessive con- 
traction will sometimes cause the sheets to actually 
split ; and incipient cracks, passing unnoticed, will be 
likely to wreck the sheets when given as foundation 
to the bees. 
Foundation is now sold so cheaply that none 
would care, perhaps, to make wax sheet ; but the 
