To carry out the directions here given, it is necessary to warm the besmeared comb-bar at a fire; the wax plate has also to be warmed. Having tried this plan, and found inconvenience attending it, especially from the wax curling with the heat and the difficulty of making it stick firm,--to say nothing of the uncomfortableness of performing the operation before a fire on a hot day in July,--we began to consider if a little carpentering might not do the work better and more pleasantly, and adopted the following plan:--We split or cut the comb bars of the Woodbury super in half lengthways, and taking the unstamped edge between the two strips, join them together again by small screws at the side, confining the wax plate tightly in the centre, with no possibility of its falling down. Where frames are used, of course, the bar could not be cut in two (except with the "compound bar and frame," where the bar being loose, it might be as easily managed). The plan we adopt with an ordinary frame is to saw out an opening about an inch, or an inch and a half from either end where the sides are morticed in; this opening we make with a keyhole saw. Through it the wax plate is easily put, and with a heated iron passed over the upper side of the bar, is made sufficiently firm. If the wax plates are too large, a portion may easily be cut off; an opening of full 11 inches long can be made without materially weakening the bar and frame. The wax plates must not extend to the bottom of the frame; a space of at least one inch should be left for expansion, because the bees in working the plate stretch it down lower. We also use a few pins firmly pressed into the frames, and long enough to reach the edge of the plate, for by fixing three or four pins on either side, both at the sides and at the bottom, the plate may be held in an exactly central position within the frame. As before mentioned, when these directions are carried out, there is no fear of being troubled with crooked combs on bars. The secretion of wax, and the method of its adaptation by the bees, is thus admirably described by Evans:--