I just got a hive from old neighbor friends. It's a double deep with aluminum foundation. They live in almond country so I'm sure that it came from a commercial guy. It has a migratory top and the bottom board is solid. Some of the frames are branded and I couldn't decypher the code that they used. Some of them have 3 numbers then another 3 numbers. Some have 1 or 2 numbers then 3 numbers.
My friends are garage sale and auction people so who knows exactly where it came from. He's retired Air Force and is/was a U-2 mechanic who spent most of his career at Beale Air Force Base near Marysville, Ca.
Next year I may try to wax the foundation then see if the bees will use it.
Can't tell from the photos, but when I've seen this alumium, it has been fully formed cells, not foundation (the cell walls were bent sheets of aluminum).
The Diamond Match Company manufactured and sold woodenware, and also sold other beekeeping supplies, including 'aluminum honeycomb'. Diamond's manufacturing plant was located in the Diamondville area of Chico CA, which isn't that far from Beale AFB Marysville CA. See the Diamond Match ad in this 1922 American Bee Journal: https://books.google.com/books?id=H...e&q=DIAMOND MATCH ALUMINUM BEEKEEPING&f=false
I've seen both imprinted aluminum that looks like foundation and the expanded aluminum that is mostly drawn (not quite "fully drawn"). Not sure who made it. I've never bought it, just found it in equipment that I've scrounged.
Thanks Graham for that link. That was pretty expensive for 1922, a box of 10 for deeps for $5.00. Seeing how honey was selling through through Dadant for $.14 a pound it would take some time to pay for itself.
Sorry for the poor closeup dsegrest. These are flat imprinted sheets.
Geeze... wish I had a time machine. Five pack of 10-frame hives complete with top/inner/bottom/frames for $13.25. That barely buys you a single 10-frame hive body now.
No, you don't. First of all time travel only works one way (forward) and second...the wages back then were LOW. Think 10 cents an hour and you have to work hard because there wasn't very many machines yet. No air conditioning, no internet, no hot n cold running water, no electricity are you sure?
To time travel you have to be going very fast, near light speed. Here's the rule I had to learn that got me thru relativity. "moving clocks tick more slowly than stationary ones". (fact)
You leave, go on a long trip, come back and your clock barely moved because it was going so fast yet everyone else's ran normally. That's just how it works. (time travel)
Now to go back in time...oh my. You have to go faster than the speed of light which is not possible. It takes infinite energy to accelerate anything to light speed. That's why we're stuck. Now if we could go faster than light speed, then you can go back in time and buy some aluminum foundations. All you need is MORE THAN INFINITE ENERGY.
Diamond International was my first supplier in the early '70s. The old grounds and buildings in Chico were fascinating.
The first number in the brand represents the county, the second is the order in which the brand numbers were assigned.
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