4 
Bulletin 54. 
it better to put most of the wax in the midrib or the cell walls ? 
When it is determined how the wax is best proportioned between 
the midrib and cell walls, what weight of foundation is best? 
The experiments here reported were undertaken for the purpose 
of casting some light upon these and related problems and, it is 
believed, with some good results. It is not to be expected that all 
these questions are fully settled in this paper. 
DO BEES USE WAX FROM ARTIFICIAL FOUNDATIONS TO EXTEND THE 
CELL WALLS AND THE COMB MIDRIB ? 
The common belief that wax is soused was graphically proven 
by the following experiment: 
A few sheets of thin foundation that was made black by the 
addition of lamp black to the melted wax were prepared for me by 
Mr. C. B. Elliott, of Denver. This foundation was used in sections 
which were placed in supers for comb honey. In some sections 
starters one inch wide were used, while in others were placed full 
sheets. The bees accepted this black foundation as readily as any 
and built comb upon it. A photograph of comb built upon this 
foundation is shown in Plate 1. At a is a section containing a 
starter one inch wide that the bees had worked but little. At b are 
two cross sections of comb built upon such a starter. The white 
cross-lines show where the lower edges of the starters came, and the 
dark color shows to what extent the foundation was used in ex¬ 
tending the comb. At c is a section of drawn comb built upon a 
short starter as shown at a. The white line marks the lower margin 
of the foundation, and the dark color in the comb shows to what 
extent the foundation was used in building down the comb. At d is 
shown comb built on a large piece of the black foundation. The 
cell walls are deep black at the bottom and gradually fade until the 
top or outer end of the wall is reached, where the dark color hardly 
shows. This could only come about by the bees using other wax, 
probably directly from their bodies, which was mixed with the wax 
of the foundation. 
These experiments prove so conclusively that bees do use wax 
from foundations to extend both cell walls and midrib, that we are 
now ready to ask : 
IS THE WAX OF THE MIDRIB OF THE FOUNDATION USED IN COMB 
BUILDING, AND, IF SO, WILL IT BE CUT DOWN TO THE THINNESS 
OF THE MIDRIB IN NATURAL COMB ? 
To determine these points we shall have to compare the thick¬ 
ness of the artificial foundation with the thickness of the comb 
midrib built upon the foundation, and the latter with the midrib of 
comb built entirely by the bees. 
