Just a thought..

[John C]

Has anyone ever tried attaching screen or some sort of mesh and rubbing it with bee's wax and placing it on a frame for them to build comb onto?

[Acebird]

http://www.textileworld.com/Articles...Nonwovens.html

I thought of using spun lace. This is a non-woven material that is use quite often in medical products. It would be easy to saturate this in molten wax and continue dipping to increase thickness to whatever weight you want. Then you can run it through embossing rolls to make your own foundation. Spun lace is unbelievably strong like Tyvec so there would be no need to wire frames. I am surprised this hasn’t been done before.
To be honest the frames could be made much simpler using the foundation for strength. The effect would be like canvas on a picture frame. It cuts pretty easy with a sharp knife so that would not be a hindrance for queen rearing like wired foundation is.

[AR Beekeeper]

When foundation was first being developed they tried cloth, wire cloth, paper, wood, tinfoil, cellophane and thin sheets of aluminum or plastic coated with wax. It was either too expensive or did not work because the bees chewed the wax off and would not repalce it. Most of our ideas for improving beekeeping has been tried before by others wanting to improve on methods or equipment.

[KQ6AR]

I think hot wax is just poured onto a wet sheet of wood, to make the sheets before embossing the cell shapes.

[MichaBees]

Reinventing the wheel?

[HONEYDEW]

Reinventing the wheel?

All the car manufactures do it everyday and we still buy the "new" cars...

[John C]

Reinventing the wheel?

I didn't realize that beekeeping has never changed in it's history.