Foundation

[GRIMBEE]

What is the best foundation to use for a beeginner, there are many to choose from and some input would be helpful. thanks

[peggjam]

Anything but Duraguilt:). SC would be good.

[Budster]

As a new beekeeper last year, I struggled with this too. On a budget, I tried the plastic wax coated frames. Some of my hives like it, some wont touch it. I also have whats called Pierco (plastic foundation) in wood frames. The same thing. Some hives work it, some avoid it like the plague. I have been using "thin surplus" alot here lately. It is relativly cheap (and thin). But, some of the talk here on the forum is about using starter strips of wax foundation. I've also heard of removing the wedge from a frame, installing it sideways, and using it for a starter strip. I also do not have an extractor, and have elected to crush and strain my combs of honey, so, starter strips and thin surplus seem to be what I'll be using for awhile. Theres so many choices out there, wired, unwired, with hooks, without hooks, Duragilt, Pierco, Thin surplus, small cell and dont forget to mention frame sizes... I'm sure more will post some suggestions.

[dickm]

I expect that you will get champions for every type of foundation there is. I'm no different. It's all the same once it gets drawn. That process is up to the bees and they will work most of it under the right circumstances. That is, when they have nothing else and there is a honey flow on. Often then they mess up the plastic. I use wooden frames and wired wax foundation. Most will agree that bees work this the easiest and with least mistakes. It comes with wires but I add my own horizontal wires. It's a pain but as a beginner you won't have too many to do and you will learn a lot. Once you get started try the other stuff.

dickm

[BerkeyDavid]

Agree you should start with wood frames and wired wax foundation. Make sure you get both frames and foundation from the same supply house. THere is a very slight difference between them. For example, the foundation from Kelly is just slightly too big for the Dadant frames.

If you don't want to learn to wire just get the pins. But if you stick with the wood frames and wax foundation you will want to learn to wire eventually.

[Michael Bush]

If you care about cell size, and I think you should, you can either buy the small cell (4.9mm) wax with wire from Dadant, or if you want one piece plastic frames and foundation, you can get the PF100s or PF120s (depending on what size your brood boxes are). I'm liking the PF120s. The bees are accepting it beautifully and they are quite easy to do. The top bar is slightly short, so if your box is slightly long the frames fall in. If your box is to specs (19 7/8" with a 3/8" rabbet) then they work great.

[Beaches' Bee-Haven Apiary]

As a beginner I'd start with crimped wire foundation in wooden frames. Or Cut your own starter strips and secure them to the frames w/a hobby glue gun. The wired frames are the best for extracting in a honey extractor and you also can move the frame around with ease and not worry about breaking the comb. With the starter strips you are limited on how you move and inspect the frame because of the way it's not secure. This year in my new packages I'm doing starter strips in the brood chamber and wired foundation in the honey supers.

-Nathanael:cool:

[GRIMBEE]

If you care about cell size, and I think you should, you can either buy the small cell (4.9mm) wax with wire from Dadant, or if you want one piece plastic frames and foundation, you can get the PF100s or PF120s (depending on what size your brood boxes are). I'm liking the PF120s. The bees are accepting it beautifully and they are quite easy to do. The top bar is slightly short, so if your box is slightly long the frames fall in. If your box is to specs (19 7/8" with a 3/8" rabbet) then they work great.
YES cell size is important, I want to naturally fight varroa.

[BjornBee]

budster,
So what exactly did your bees do? If you started last year and had nothing but pierco in wooden frames, then how did your bees avoid it like the plaque? I guess I could ask about "wax coated frmes" but I don't like those things.

Please don't tell me this is another story of mixing wax and plastic and then somehow bashing the plastic when it is not preferred by the bees. This has been the story of so many. It seems we should be beyond this as pierco and plastic have been around a long time, and they include instructions that suggest this not be done (mixing wax and plastic and expecting them to be drawn equally).

Anyhow, I like the plastic foundation in wood frames. It fits my IPM management in dealing with future potential problems with shb, wax moth or anything else that destroys comb. You can scrape it, recoated it, reuse it, etc. This fits my comb rotation IPM strategy also.

cells across a sheet,
regular wax....79
pierco...........81
smallcell........86

Another small advantage of pierco is the smaller cell size. Not smallcell 4.9, but smaller then traditional wax.

Not really sure what the deal is about thinking some new beek should start with wax and wire. To suggest that this is a "starting" point, suggests that perhaps its not the best place to be. Its not like its being suggested that wax and wire is best, its just good for a beek to start there. Why? Do I suugest that all beeks start with a starter kit boardman feeder, when something else on the market may be better? Do I suggest that one start with a really thick cowhide, stiff and uncomfortable to work in, full gloves, when there are other better gloves out there? I see no rpractical reason for suggesting that a new beek start with wax and wire, as if somehow this allows a beek passage into some mystical level of higher experience.

Don't get me wrong. Wax and wire done right and drawn by the bees is a beautiful thing. And if thats your preference, fine. But it sounds like there is some other intiation phase or alternate thought process in suggest this. I don't see the reasoning.

[BjornBee]

Edited.....Wrong comment at the wrong time....

[Michael Bush]

Some people think that beginners should start with plastic as they won't have to learn to wire. Some think they should start with wired wax as they won't have to deal with the bees not accepting it and building wild comb when they don't like the plastic. Some people think beginners should start with foundationless, or large cell or small cell.

I don't know why you would want to start with large cell since converting TO large cell is cake. If you want small cell and don't wan to learn to wire, I'm not having any acceptance problems with Mann Lake's PF120s (and PF100s). The unregressed package bees are building beautiful 4.95mm comb on it.

But if you don't want plastic, the wired wax will save you having to learn to wire.

If you want to go foundationless, you can just do starter strips or comb guides and no foundation, or one frame of foundation in the center to get them on the right track, if you like.

What do YOU want to do?

[Ravenseye]

I find it interesting how right BjornBee is. Earlier this year, I attended a full day beekeeping field day. One of the hosts is a well known local beek who also sells equipment. ALL of his woodenware is filled with plastic frames. Last year, I bought a medium from him and it's on one of my hives now. It got drawn slow and the end frames are still almost factory new. The mediums above and below...which are wood and wax (I know...I know...it's sorta like mixing wax and plastic, but at least the frames are in different supers) are fully drawn.

That being said, there were a half dozen people there who started beekeeping with equipment from this beekeeper. None of them...none...complained. All of them had varying success that was attributable mostly to circumstance and less to equipment.

Arguably, wood and wax is better than plastic, but for specific reasons. Likewise, arguably, plastic is better than natural materials for other very specific reasons.

I personally do not like plastic. But, I don't like it in my hives...my car....my barn....etc. I like wood and other natural things. My Dad was a woodworker and I love old buildings, etc.

I believe that bees will use what they have to their maximum ability. You, the beekeeper, determine the right mix of what works for you AND the bees. The wrong combination will be less than optimal for any number of reasons. In the end, you're the best judge. So, like me, try what's out there. I know, in my case, I'm surprised by what I learn.

[berkshire bee]

Bjornbee, good points, but this may throw a wrench into the works. My first year I did all wood and wax in one hive and all plastic in the other. They were side by side and even though the wood/wax got the jump out of the starting gate, things equalized by the end of the season. I prefer wood and wax myself, and a study presented at the SABA seminar this spring gave hard data indicating that bees work wood and wax much more readily.

The experiment was done using 24 10-frame nuc colonies, installed on may 17th 2006.
Each colony was started with 2 frames of brood and food with a queen, and the remaining eight frames with foundation.
The colonies were divided into three categories; 8 with wood frames and wax foundation, 8 with wood frames and plastic foundation, and 8 with all plastic frames and foundation. Hives were left on their own for the most part for 12 weeks and then checked to see how well the combs were drawn out and how much weight each hive gained.

Results:

FRAME TYPE
WOOD/WAX WOOD/PLASTIC ALL PLASTIC

average number of frames drawn
7.4 5.8 4.5

Average Weight Gain per Hive

21-24 lbs 15 lbs 6 lbs

Conclusion: The general conclusion was that under less than ideal circumstances, wood frames with wax foundation would out-perform wood frames with plastic foundation or all- plastic frames. The difference in weight gain was directly related to the speed and amount in which the combs were drawn out. With fewer drawn combs, there was less space to store food and raise brood.

[Joseph Clemens]

Living here in the Desert Southwestern USA, I have had too many melt-downs with beeswax foundation in wooden frames. Currently our temps are consistently over 100F and beeswax foundation in wooden frames, with or without wires, vertical, horizontal, or both just aren't durable enough to use during late Spring through early Fall around here. Once they are brought out of my air conditioned home, where I assemble them, they soon sag, even in medium frames, but often collapse and buckle once the bees are on them. These troubles have never yet happened with plastic foundation, or plastic frame-foundation combinations.

[GRIMBEE]

Some people think that beginners should start with plastic as they won't have to learn to wire. Some think they should start with wired wax as they won't have to deal with the bees not accepting it and building wild comb when they don't like the plastic. Some people think beginners should start with foundationless, or large cell or small cell.

I don't know why you would want to start with large cell since converting TO large cell is cake. If you want small cell and don't wan to learn to wire, I'm not having any acceptance problems with Mann Lake's PF120s (and PF100s). The unregressed package bees are building beautiful 4.95mm comb on it.

But if you don't want plastic, the wired wax will save you having to learn to wire.

If you want to go foundationless, you can just do starter strips or comb guides and no foundation, or one frame of foundation in the center to get them on the right track, if you like.

What do YOU want to do?
What do I want to do? In my observation hive I have Wooden wedge frames with wired foundation. I ordered a five frame nuc with wooden frames with wire foundation (like in ob hive) because the bees are outgrowing the ob hive.

Then I'm gonna order another 5 frame 2nd box for brood and an excluder, and supers as I need them. And put them all on when needed of course.

[Budster]

** "So what exactly did your bees do? If you started last year and had nothing but pierco in wooden frames, then how did your bees avoid it like the plaque? I guess I could ask about "wax coated frmes" but I don't like those things.

Please don't tell me this is another story of mixing wax and plastic and then somehow bashing the plastic"

I have been keeping bees 2 years and now have 6 hives. No, the plastic and wax is never mixed (in a hive). As far as "bashing" plastic, I simply stated that some bees (hives) like it, others dont.

[BjornBee]

Berkshire,
No monkey wrench for me. Did I expect each to be perfectly even in such a test. One normally wins and one normally loses in such tests. Laws of probability dictate it. And I could of told you as much without such a test. I agree, bees do draw wax foundation faster than plastic. I say "so what"! They only need to draw it once. And after that, its all even inside between such hives of wax and plastic. Here's some counterpoint items.....

1) It also takes me three times longer to wire wax then it is to install plastic. This adds cost to the factor. If you had to "pay" for your time...would you be willing to pay three times the price for wax?

2) I never have a warped, sagged, or "chewed" foundation with plastic. If bees start to draw it wrong, I can scrape it. Something much harder to do with wax.

3)Full sheets of plastic means full sheets of comb. The bottom and sides are not missing as sometimes happens with wax.

4)Once fully drawn, plastic does not allow the bees to add drone comb in "bad" areas or on the sides or bottoms. Controlling this drone comb area means much more effective drone trapping with drone comb.

5) I get much straighter comb across the board with plastic, even with the best wiring with wax.

6)With wiring, bees will skip the cells that has wiring going through. You can see this sometimes even with the best wiring jobs. So what are you losing in brood production when a number of cells within the brood area are left unfilled?

7) Using the foundation of a dead out with wax moth (or shb) infestation is possible. You can't do that with wax! You start over with wax, I save tons of money with plastic.

So do I care about some "test" that is so focused on one item in someway promoting one over the other? To me it would be foolish. If you like wax go with wax. If you like plastic, go with plastic. But some test looking at one item does not tell the whole story and to me is narrowminded.

[Michael Bush]

>21-24 lbs 15 lbs 6 lbs

That's a pretty dramatic difference.

[BjornBee]

First, who did the study. Where is it published?

Second, I would like to know the basis or what the two frames of brood and bees were? Were the frames made of wax foundation that were added to the wax test hives? And were the comb given to the plastic hives on plastic?

I can take two frames of wax and surround them with plastic and it will take longer for the bees to jump onto the plastic, versus the wax. This is common knowledge. The bees will stay on the wax and will fill every cell and work it as long as they can prior to moving to the plastic.

Did the test take this into account. How? How about splittiing the brood frames and checker boarding an empty frame between the two given starter frames.

I would also question the model of the test altogether. Why not start with packages on empty foundation. Thus forcing the bees to work without any outside influences of starter frame strength differences, the bees lack of willingness to go to plastic, and other variables.

I also would of like some points of data plotted along the way that could of shown "why" there was such a difference. Were the bees reluctant at first to work the plastic and started slower resulting in lower end results. Did the bees once on the plastic, progress at a somewhat more even pace? These questions could be useful in formulating management strategies in understanding what was going on.

But they dumped them in and did nothing for 12 weeks?

Sorry, but I would like to see the testing model, where its published, and a little more information. On the general information given, too many questions remain.

[BjornBee]

Does anyone else find it odd that not only is there a difference between wax and plastic foundation, but look at the difference between plastic foundation in wood frames and plastic foundation in plastic frames.

Why would the makeup of the frames be such a huge contributor in production when both foundations are plastic? Pecentage based, the frame makeup made a bigger difference then the foundation makeup! Huh???

SOMETHINGS ROTTEN IN DENMARK!

[Beaches' Bee-Haven Apiary]

Wait a minute you guys, we're suppose to be giving GRIMBEE advise on what a beginner should use, NOT fight over what kind of foundation is best. This is why I suggest starting out with wired foundation, it's proven to be accepted by the bees and it's a good starting point. From there a beginner can start formulating his own preferences as he plays around with other kinds of methods.

-Nathanael:cool:

[BjornBee]

Beaches....

I never siad in any way that "plastic is best". So back up there.

Second, these posts are more than just "giving GRIMBEE" advice. They are to discuss, debate, educate, and even question.

Of course, when you label someone elses comments as "spouting out", perhaps its time for you to take a break and stop adding words to other people comments. You did more in your last post to make this a "tailgator" thread, then everyone else put together. Of course you are the only one whining about it.... ;)

[Beaches' Bee-Haven Apiary]

----------

[BjornBee]

Beaches, will you take your own advice and quit spouting off. Just answer the question that GRIMBEE asked. Geesh......Like at this point I'd give you any more consideration other than a sharp jab in the eye....

[shughes]

this is my first year and i started with crimp wire foundation and wood frames and have not regretted it. next year i am going to experiment with small cell for any swarms i catch.

i can also strongly recommend buying a 1/4 inch crown stapler for building the frames if you think you will have more then two hives. i use 5/8 inch for the wedge and 1 inch for the actual frame. my plan was to start out with two hives and i now have eight (caught 4 swarms), starting my ninth next week with a split. i am so glad i had that crown stapler.

[Ravenseye]

shughes,

Not to go more off-topic, but what brand of 1/4" stapler are you using. I was just thinking of buying one this week and I don't want to go wrong!

[BjornBee]

What a beautiful Day!

[Beaches' Bee-Haven Apiary]

This looks interesting:
http://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/pdf/2005/04/M4095.pdf

[shughes]

Ravenseye, i purchased the porter cable model that allows a crown staple up to 1 1/2 inches. never has jammed on me and i have built over 250 frames with it this year.

[berkshire bee]

I wish I had air conditioning. This IS a hot one, but in the end we will all remain friends and fellow beekeepers here to help each other out :) The study was done by Tom Seeley of Cornell University. I was just passing on the information we were given. As I mentioned before, in my own little test with 2 hives, plastic got a slower start but in the end all things were equal and the hive with plastic produced as much honey as any of the ones I have with wax. As I said, wax is my personal preference. It may have more to do with enjoying building the frames and the smell of the wax and wood and using renewable resources. I currently only have 11 hives so I can find the time to do it, especially since we don't have tv to plop down in front of. All of Bjorn's points are absolutely valid. If you need frames in a hurry it's great to be able to pull them out of a box and drop them in the hive, no worry about drone cells, mouse damage etc. If I had too many hives, too little spare time, and didn't enjoy the assembly, I would be an all plastic frame beekeeper.

[BjornBee]

Interesting indeed! Thank you. I found the "discussion" on page 518 of interest.
I burned a copy for the next time this is discussed. ;)

[Beaches' Bee-Haven Apiary]

BjornBee, forgive me for taking my ideas of your implications to an extreme.

-Nathanael:cool:

[BjornBee]

Beaches,
Heck I do it all the time... ;)

Its nice to have a little jab fest now and then. More times than not, some good education comes out of it.

What I find amazing is how serious some of the bystanders are in reading the comments. If they could see how wide I smile sometimes while typing my next post, they would see how happy I am. Or How crazy.... ;)

[Ravenseye]

Thank you shughes!!!

[Budster]

""Wait a minute you guys, we're suppose to be giving GRIMBEE advise on what a beginner should use""

Amen!!!

I really dont come here to debate or make problems... To be honest, this is my second year beekeeping, I have 6 hives. I am not a pro at all or claim to be. I am learning by my mistakes and asking questions here at Beesource. I can still remember last year, when I got my 1st bees! I had no mentor, and only had books and Beesource. This forum is still Beekeeping 101 isn't it? A new guy, just like me asked a question about foundation, that was all. I felt a "jab" from BjornBee that I was "bashing" plastic. I was not. I still have some hives with plastic, and once I get an extractor, I may further entertain the idea of plastic. Simple fact, some of my bees like it, some dont. End of story. I just feel this has went way off track and we shown a new Beesource member a big fiasco! Grimbee, be assured this is not the norm here at Beesource, and I have learned alot here.

[GRIMBEE]

Theres nothing better than others opinions and personal knowledge. I like to get as much advice as I can and all of you here at beesource are very helpful.
Thankyou and keep it comming, everyone is entitled to their own ideas,Thats where you all come in. To help us new beeks out.:):D:p

[GRIMBEE]

OH YEAH
IF your passing thru New York stop at John McCoys honey store. 307 State highway 28, Oneonta, NY 13820.
Very good honey, both spring and fall harvest(I prefer fall) and good prices.