8 o 
FOLLOWING THE BEE LINE 
carry away the stores from a depleted colony below 
par in numbers. 
When all storage room in their combs has been 
used and honey is still “coming in,” honey bees will 
build a few stray cells here and there in any available 
space in the hive to serve as extra repositories for 
the raw nectar which must be gathered to the last 
drop and converted by evaporation and other bee 
methods into honey. When a beekeeper sees these 
plain indications of lack of room, he will give them 
another super, or storage chamber, above the com¬ 
pleted one. He will insert in this super a set of 
frames filled with wax foundation (sheets of pure 
beeswax which have been pressed between metal 
mills to look like the base or midrib of a comb with 
the cell walls on either side cut down). All the bees 
need do is add more wax to build out the cells and 
attach the comb securely to the frame. Sheets of 
foundation are cut just the size to fit in one of 
the wooden frames first invented by “Father Lang- 
stroth.” They insure the comb being built where 
the beekeeper wants it, where it can be moved. They 
are not artificial combs but merely what their name 
implies, “foundations” of combs. 
Odd bits of comb are saved in most apiaries. 
Melted in boiling water, the beeswax rises to the top 
