The question
Any good ideas for embedding the wax foundations into the wire?
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A very fine answer from Victor M.Kroenke
I use a homemade battery charger of about 5 amp output. It is about
right for brood frames
----Many good ideas---then ---
Lay the foundation over the cross wires but not flat on the cross wires.
Let the hooks ride up slightly on the top bar to take the weight of the
foundation off the cross wires. -----etc.----
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My method
Many years ago I found a method in a book that I am sure is long out of
print. At the time I knew nothing and since have found nothing better. Use
a flat board larger than the size of frame you are working on. Cut a piece
of masonite (a thin piece of plywood would do) that will fit inside the
frame you are working on and mount it on the base board. The mounting
method is important. Insert a small piece of wood under each end (about
3/4 of an inch thick and in the middle of the masonite (about 1 in thick).
When you nail down the ends this will give a curve to the mounting surface.
Place the foundation in the wired frame and lay it on the mounting board
with the wires above the foundation. Heat the wires (I use a resistance
coil) then rock the frame from side to side which embeds the wires in the
foundation. We use unwired foundation with four cross wires in deep frames
and two or three cross wires in smaller sizes. We also use both top and
bottom bars with grooves or slots.
I have also wired thousands of frames using this method and it worked for
many years. I must admit that today we are putting plastic foundation into
a thousand new deep frames but we did do about 500 by the method above
during the last three months. We also used plastic foundation for all of
our new extracting frames the last four years.
The Library or your local bee supply should have books with directions and
sketches that will give you some ideas to modify to your liking.
Chuck
Mathematics is the tool that opens the oyster.
