The shape of Foundation

[Finman]

Do you cast it or mill it Hivemaker?

When I had the mould I used to cast and of course it was considerably thicker than bought in milled foundation.

After the bees had drawn it into comb I can't say the midrib was that much thicker than from commercial stuff.

PH

Bees chew the comb bottom thinner, and they can draw 5 mm cell walls when foundation weigh is 100 g. You can weigh the half made comb and see it.

Sometimes I hammer two medium foundations to langstroth. The joint has then double thick layer wax.
Bees handle the wax so, that mostly I cannot see where the joint was
.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Do you cast it or mill it Hivemaker?

Mill it, Pete...comes out very flexible and at whatever thickness is required.

Have a couple of tons or so of wax to process into foundation, but there has been a lot less since I bought that needling machine from you..lol.

 

[Madge]

... IIRC CC Miller (50 Years with bees) used plain unstamped sheets of beeswax for his foundation.

Was not aware of that - interesting.

I tried using unstamped sheets a few years ago, but I won't repeat that. I thought the bees preferred strips - and preferably narrower than the photo of the strip foundation below.

 

[Finman]

.
It is a huge work to do new frames and combs, and when the result is such like in the picture, it is worthless.

 

[Madge]

.
It is a huge work to do new frames and combs, and when the result is such like in the picture, it is worthless.

Yes, I won't repeat that. It's easier to use strips if you want your bees to draw out their own foundation.

But, back to round or hexagonal. Looking at the top photo, it seems that the bees do build round cells that become more and more hexagonal as the cells increase in depth.

 

[Repwoc]

Looking at the top photo, it seems that the bees do build round cells that become more and more hexagonal as the cells increase in depth.

I would say the opposite. If you look closely at some of the partly-formed cells at the edge, they appear to be hexagonal but with missing sides.