8 
Bulletin 54. 
this foundation. The midrib averages about .17 millimeters in 
thickness, or fully as heavy as the midrib in drone comb. The 
upper half of i in this plate is also on this foundation, and the mid¬ 
rib is rather heavier than the midrib of the drone comb which the 
bees built, shown in the lower half of the figure. 
Aty of Plate 2 is shown a section of thin, and at l of the extra 
thin super foundations. The two differ chiefly in that the former 
has rather heavy cell walls, while the extra thin has almost no 
walls. At k is a section showing partially drawn comb on the thin 
super foundation, and at g, Plate 5, is a sample of fully drawn comb 
on the extra thin foundation. It will be noticed that the midribs 
of the comb samples built on these foundations are in most cases 
nearly, if not quite, as thick as in the foundations themselves. At a 
of Plate 3 is a section through comb, the upper two-fifths of which 
was built upon the thin super foundation and the lower three-fifths 
is natural. The midrib of the foundation seems not to have been 
thinned at all, and contrasts plainly with the midrib of the portion 
that was built entirely by the bees, and also with the midribs of 
figures b and c of the same plate, both of which represent natural 
comb. 
At g of Plate 4 is shown a section of the beautiful “1899 r deep¬ 
cell foundation, as I have termed it, that is manufactured by Mr. 
E. B. Weed. At h of the same plate is shown comb slightly worked 
on this foundation, and at a of Plate 5 is shown fully drawn comb 
on the same. Here again it will be noticed that the midrib is 
scarcely if at all thinned, and is as heavy as that of drone comb. 
The evidence thus obtained by measuring the thickness of the 
midribs of foundations and of the comb built upon them bears out 
the results obtained by weighing, namely, that heavy foundations 
have their midribs thinned some, usually much, by the bees when 
they build comb upon them ; but these are not thinned, in any case, 
to the lightness of natural worker comb. If the midrib is not 
thicker than .17 millimeters—.068 of an inch—the bees thin it little 
if any; if the midrib is much thinner than the normal, the bees are 
likely to thicken it by the addition of wax, making it much heavier 
than in natural comb. 
DOES THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL FOUNDATIONS RESULT IN THICKER 
CELL WALLS IN THE COMB ? 
It is evident that a slight thickening of the cell walls increases 
the weight of the comb more than the same thickening of the mid¬ 
rib. *Cheshire estimated that the area of the cell walls of worker 
comb one inch thick is fully ten times that of the midrib upon 
which they are built. If this be true (and the difference in area is 
* “Bees and Bee-keeping,” Vol. II., page 213. 
