The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-07-13
COMB FoUNDATToN.

Comb foundation is one of the things
that have come into use in the last
quarter of a century. AS its name i'm
plies, it serves as a foundation on
which the bees may build comb It
must be made of pure beeswax. Other
materials have been tried, but after
being submitted to the bees they have
always come to grief.
A thin board is well soaked with
water; then it is dipped in hot wax
and speedily withdrawn. when thin
coating of wax will be found adhering
10 it. If a thicker sheet is wanted, a
second dipping is made, and several
clippings may be made to get a heavy
sheet of wax.
The sheet Of wax is stripped from
the dipping-board and run through a
foundation mill. This is a machine
that looks the least bit like a clothes
wringer, consisting Of two metal rollers
with embossed surfaces and so nicely
adjusted 10 each other that when a
sheet of wax is run through in the
same way that a towel is run through
clothes wringer, it comes out the eX-
act counterpart of the base or middle
wall G plum it's usually called of a
honeycomb whose cells or side walls
are shaved away.
When this foundation is given to the
bees during the time of honey flow
that is al a time when the bees care
to build comb. they at once commence
TO draw out the shallow cell-walls. and
in twenty-four hours time the sheet
of wax is quite changed in appearance.
AT first the yellow color shows that
they simply draw out the wax that is
already there, but afterward the new
white wax is added as fast as manu-
featured by the bees, and when the
comb is finished you couldn't detect it
hnn1 IA
work OF the bees. Only it would be a
rare thing to find a comb so straight
and true as one made upon foundation.
For bees are naturally inclined to build
their combs in a corrugated or wavy
fashion. and sometimes they are built
very crooked.
BY means Of using comb foundation
we can make sure that nearly every
cell in the hive shall be a worker cell
Worker cells measure five to the inch,
and drone cells are so much larger
that they measure four to the inch
When bees are left to their own de-
vices a considerable part of the comb
in the hive will be drone-comb. Every
egg laid in drone-comb will produce a
drone, and it's a rather expensive bus
mess to raise lot Of big, lazy fellows
that not only bring in nothing to add
to the stores of the hive but do not
even scratch for their own living. For
drone never visits a. flower to secure
the nectar therefrom, but flies around
out doors to work up an appetite, then
comes into the hive and helps himself
to the honey that has been stored up
by his industrious sisters, the workers.
You see, not only do the drones use
up the stores of the hive. but it takes
no small amount to rear them from the
eggs, and every two drones raised take
the place Of about three workers that
would be raised f all the comb were
OF worker size.
Nearly all the foundation in this
country is made in the way 1 have
described, but sometimes it is made in
press, and in Germany several thou
sand such presses are in use. The wax
may be sheeted in the same way as for
the mill, and then pressed between
two embossed plates. but the Rietsche
press in Germany allows the melted
wax to be poured into the press with
out being sheeted.
Lately an Improvement called the
Weed process has been made in sheet