What causes bees to form comb like this?

[DennisT]

This is on plastic pierco frames. I see this frequently, pain in the butt to extract, and often gets too big causing the adjoining frames to not be drawn out well.
Should they be scraped as soon as I notice it happening or will it happen again?

Often there is more intense folding than this.
Thanks.

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/organicfarmer/strangecomb.jpg

[WVbeekeeper]

Too much space between your frames will cause that. I've had foundation come lose from the top bar before and fall onto the foundation next to it. This usually creates about three frames with a mess of wax. Good wax production and comb building is a quality that your bees should posses. If you start out with ten frames of foundation your the bees shouldn't do that. Also, if they chew the wax from the plastic they will not build on the plastic but will build beside it or where they can.

[BjornBee]

Make sure your pierco frames are tightly pushed together with no propolis causing a larger gap than if they were new.

Its easy to scrap this comb down and then place between drawn and capped honey frames or brood frames that alread have brood. They will adjust the space and eventually get it right.

I can always count the queen to hide on these double layered combs. ;)

[Flyman]

Does this mean that Pierco frames are hard to use as 9 frame brood. I was planning on trying 9 frame spacing this spring:confused. Have lots of Pierco.

[WVbeekeeper]

I always start out with ten frames when drawing foundation to help ensure the
comb is drawn straight and evenly. After the comb is drawn you can pull out
one frame if you just want to use nine. I start out my supers like this too. After
they are uncapped and extracted I can then use nine frames per super without
having any funky comb. I also prefer to keep ten frames in the brood chamber.
The cluster can cover more cells and incubate more brood than they can with
just nine frames.

[CSbees]

Some bees are already predisposed to build comb like this. They actually prefer this construction. Take the skep hives for example. I have had some bees build comb like this along with "bridge" comb. I would just make sure when uncapping that I go alway to the edge of the frames regardless of how far they have drawn it out.

[riverrat]

Does this mean that Pierco frames are hard to use as 9 frame brood. I was planning on trying 9 frame spacing this spring:confused. Have lots of Pierco.


I personally would run a 10 frame brood chamber the reason for 9 in the honey supers is for easy of uncapping.

The photo looks just like the problem I had with durchit oops duragilt foundation. I tried that junk and got rid of it after the first season when I first started out.

[tecumseh]

flyman ask:
Does this mean that Pierco frames are hard to use as 9 frame brood. I was planning on trying 9 frame spacing this spring:confused. Have lots of Pierco.

tecumseh suggest:
read wvbeekeeper's response. I do almost the identical but I pretty much use 9 frame to the box.

[RAlex]

Dennis was this side of the frame facing away from the center of the hive ? I noticed that the Y in the cell was facing down on this side of the frame. Which if you suscribe to " Housel Positioning" , then this side of the frame should be facing the center of the hive. Not everyone believes that Housel Positioning is important. What it is , the study of wild hive and how they position the cells in order to protect the hive from the elements/predators. I think it makes a differance and so position my frames accordingly. Very seldom do I see any of this. If you are interested on reading about "Housel Positoning" it is explained at beesource.com point of view . Just my thoughts ....Rick

[Ross]

Looks pretty standard for drawing on a low flow in this area. We only get a few weeks a year with enough flow to get good plastic drawn. That's why I won't use it anymore.

[Dan Williamson]

I currently only use plastic Pierco foundation. My bees have drawn probably around 2000 frames of it in the past 3-4 years. Every once in a while I'll run across a frame like this but its rare. Usually its because of spacing issues, or lack of enough wax on the foundation to begin with. Typically if you scrape it off and put it back in a strong colony with a good flow going on... (either real or simulated) then they'll square it away and out will come a perfectly good comb.

If they do it again.... I would simply paint some beeswax on it and that should take care of it.

Running 10 frames in the boxes tightly pushed together usually avoids this issue.

[dcross]

You can start out with nine, just push them tightly together. That'll USUALLY work:)

[sierrabees]

Brood cells are normally shorter than honey cells. The purpose of using one less frame in the honey super is to encourage the bees to draw cells out past the edges of the frame which make uncapping easier for the beekeeper. One more frame in the brood chamber than above it gives the queen more room to lay without having to move up into the honey chamber and mess up your honey crop. The number of frames is as much about the beekeeper's needs as it is about the bees.

[Robert Hawkins]

In other words, why would you want to use nine frames in the brood chamber. It's counter productive. You want to give the queen as much surface area to lay in as possible. If you need to lessen the weight, you might use the eight frame boxes (they're smaller) but even with them a lot of folks force nine frames into the eight frame box. They shave the sides down to do this.

Other than weight, the only place to put less than ten frames is in the honey supers. And that's only after the frames are drawn out.

If you have a reason to place nine frames in the brood nest, please share it with us.

Hawk

[WVbeekeeper]

Brood cells are normally shorter than honey cells.
The depth of a brood cell directly relates to the width of the cell. A 4.9mm cell
will be shallower than a 5.4mm cell. The smaller the cell, the smaller the bee,
and so the amount of "bee space" required lessens. I would think that any one
using sc should always keep the frames in their brood chambers tight. I also agree
with MB about shaving 1/16" from the endbars to put in 11 frames, especially
when using sc.

[fireaxe_64]

I had the same thing happen to my 2 hives that i started last year!! this year i will keep them all tight together in the center and will spay them with HBH.I read that it helps them to draw out the pierco frames better. has anyone tried it on new frames?.

[knadai]

What happens when you have 10/11 frames below, with nine above? Does the top bar / bottom bar mismatch cause any problems? I am thinking of it impeding travel, ventilation, or debris (including mite) drop.

[Michael Bush]

>What happens when you have 10/11 frames below, with nine above?

In my observation, the bees don't care.

[sierrabees]

Most of the mites that are likely to fall will be on the bees in the brood chamber. I don't think the mismatch going to the honey supers would have much effect on overall mite fall.