16 
Bulletin 54. 
TO WHAT EXTENT DOES THE FOUNDATION LESSEN THE SECRETION OF 
WAX BY THE BEES? 
Let us begin with the comb built on the heavier foundations 
and compare with the naturally built worker comb, to determine 
the effect on wax secretion. 
Natural worker comb 1 inch thick weighed 10.00 grains to the 
square inch. The very heavy foundation alone weighed 11.00 
grains, or 1 grain more than is necessary to build the comb to that 
thickness. But when comb was built on this thick foundation, it 
weighed 18.50 grains, so that the bees added 7.50 grains to the 
square inch to the foundation that itself contained more wax than 
was necessary to build the comb. As natural comb weighs but 
10.00 grains to the square inch, the bees lacked but 2.50 grains of 
furnishing as much wax as they would have done if they had 
built the comb without the foundation. *It is seen that 11.00 
grains of wax were furnished the bees in order to save them the 
expense in food and labor of producing 2.50 grains. 
In case of the medium brood foundation weighing 8.40 grains 
to the square inch, the result was similar. The bees needed to add 
but 1.60 grains to this to build the comb one inch thick, but they 
did add 8.10 grains, making a comb weighing 16.50 grains to the 
square inch. As the amount added in this case is only 1.90 grains 
less than the weight of the natural comb of the same thickness, it 
cost the whole weight of the foundation, or 8.40 grains, to save the 
bees from secreting 1.90 grains of wax. 
As another illustration with this same foundation, take the 
samples drawn to .75 of an inch. The average weight would be 
12.50 grains. This is 5.90 grains more than the weight of samples 
of natural comb drawn to the same thickness, and 4.10 grains more 
than the weight of the foundation alone, notwithstanding the fact 
that the foundation as given the bees contained 1.80 grains to the 
square inch more wax than was necessary to build natural comb to 
that thickness. In other words, the bees were furnished more wax 
than was necessary to build the comb three-quarters of an inch 
thick, and ye< they added to this amount more than nine-tenths as 
much wax as they would have used to build the comb without 
foundation. 
Passing now to the Weed deep-cell foundation manufactured 
in 1898, we tind results fully as surprising. If we compare the sam¬ 
ple measuring 1.18 inches thick with natural comb of the same 
thickness, we find that the latter is lighter by 5.35 grains. As the 
foundation itself weighed only 5.46 grains to the square inch, the 
indication is that the bees used as much wax from their own secret- 
* Cheshire says “Bees very rarely work more than half their cell walls out of 
even the stoutest sheets given them .”—Bees and Bee Culture , V. II., p. 216. 
