From: Lucinda Sewell <lucindajohn@sewellhome.freeserve.co.uk>
Date: Mon Dec 18, 2000 6:10am
Subject: Re: Combsize for regression, TIME, sacrifice

Hi all, thanks for all instructive comments

Barry,

> Do you know what these measure out to be?

I made a clear plastic strip with 5.2mm spaces scratched on it. (+- ?) The centres
of 10 spaces are marked in red, giving me a ruff 'n reddy indicator of size
per ten cells. The combs I'll select will be the smallest I have, I'll
measure and record when I get there (Rebuilding Nucboxes to fit together on
standard floor, under standard roof presently, and restoring pile of other
gear, and moving to first real honeyhouse!!)

I have only made 5 sheets of foundation so far from embossing plates Dee
sent to me. I don't have a right size pot or enough wax to dip proper
boards, so have been floating wax on water. The sheets are very irregular,
wastefully thick but getting better. Ideally I'll box one corner of my honey
house to be temperature controlled for making foundation, grafting, and
holding supers for extraction...TIME. In the meantime I'm waiting for some
sample plain wax sheet, which I'll try rolling for a better result. I don't
mind spending the time if the result is passable. Or money if it saves
enough time.

Other beekeepers say my foundation will be used by the bees, perhaps I'm too fussy. I will perservere with other methods. I'm going to try pouring coolish, still molten wax on to plastic covered mouldplates and then mangle whilst very soft. Sounds messy!

Dave Cushman recently wrote that we need to puzzle it out with our bees,
which seems to be echoed by Erik Osterland. Last year I was trying to build
comb, any size, to increase colonies. There seemed to be a small window,
directly temperature related, for brood comb building. That is going to be
critical for non-swarm work here. It is another reason I'm using
Nucs... easier to warm, and if I put foundation in bottom broodnuc they'll
hopefully draw it for brood, and store incoming above. I wondered about
supering from below for brood last year too. The broodnest seemed to drop,
even with supers on, and swarming started as pollen space ran into the ground.
If the timing of the comb building must be related to early brood rearing then the
bees here are going to need loads of opportunity. If the temperature is right
everything else must be on their doorstep. Except watered down fermenting honey :-)
Thank you all...I think I'll make water feeders separately! (A la Cushman)

> A word of caution. Just remember that the remaining brood you'll have will
> be numbered with varroa so you could actually be dramatically increasing the
> mite load to whatever hive you gives these frames to.

Thanks Barry, I treated all my colonies in early Autumn, so as to minimise
varroa load. (last time for 49ers) I will sample some drone brood if there
is any, but I may want any early drones. I'm also determined to harvest some
honey next year, for which I need every bee. Remember Our colonies
are smaller than US seem to be. Good strains build up really fast, but you
need bees to feed bees, and the queen needs plenty food too to get laying
up. Taking the brood away so early is not good, that's why I hoped to
Snelgrove. I figure if I hatch them in another colony I may be able to swell
numbers if needed. I doubt the bees will carry significant amounts of
poison. I also don't wish to kill needlessly. If they can live then great.
If they gather honey then even better. I put the chemicals in their wax, so
I'll do my best to let them live, and get them off it. I will probably treat
my conventionals next Autumn, or shake them down just before winter onto
some of the badly drawn 4.9 comb I'll undoubtably be culling.
Perhaps with a sugar dusting to remove external mites on the way.

I'm off to put woodpecker screen on...looks like it may freeze at last!

Christmas Greetings to all.
John