HSC and foundationless?

[Sasha]

Hi ,

I had terrible losses this winter ( all but one hive died). So I am very desperate and need to take some radical measure. One is to revert to good old pesticides (that would be a big disappointment for me ( a friend used all kinds of poisons in his hives and he lost no hive))
Second is to try with HSC, but they didn't answer me (HSC website), I have cash only for a box of combs ( 20 pieces ). I used natural, foundationless combs but as far as I was able to measure , I didn't notice any significant change in cellsize ( I think this is my 3 year with foundationless).
My point is, If I succeed and get a box of HSC (honey super cell) after few cycles will those bees build smaler cells in their foundationless frames? I plan to have HSC broodnest ,queen excluder on top of it, then foundationless. If they build smaller cell then I could reuse the HSC for another hive...

What do you think?

[riverrat]

Sorry to here about your loses. The first thing you need to do is analize why they died. Was it starvation, mites, condesation, or one of the other things that happen. Then come up with a plan and act accordingly

[Sasha]

I would say mites because I don't see any other reason.

[MichaelW]

If you've been using foundationless, you should have some spare drone comb. You can use the drone comb to trap varroa mites and remove them from the hive. Place a frame of drone comb in the brood area and observe closely, when the drone comb is capped, remove it from the hive and kill everything by either freezing (to save comb) or simply cut out the comb and let bees build more, or replace with more previously drawn drone comb. The varroa that are attracted to the drone (which is most of the varroa in the hive) will be killed. This is a PROVEN technique to reduce varroa infestation without pesticides. HSC or foundationless has not had the opportunity for rigorous, or much, testing with comparison to control colonies and may not work.

[wfarler]

If you are trying to regress then you are stressing your hives. My experience with regression was poor comb building made worse by my culling of comb. Brood levels were reduced and stores were poor going into winter. My first winter of regressing I had 90% losses.

I put 5 packages on hsc last year. One hive lost their queen and dwindled but the other 4 did well. After 7 weeks I guessed that enough time had passed for a generation turnover so I added a deep of 4.9 wax foundation on each hive. I had excellent results in the drawing out of this comb very straight and neat. A flow was on at the time. I did notice the bees immediately moved up into the wax - they will take wax over plastic every time if you give them the choice. But the hsc was my best path to regression ( I have tried the SMR 4.9 plastic, straight 4.9 wax and hsc).

With only a few last gasps of winter left here and brood raising well underway all 4 hives are strong and doing well.

[drobbins]

wfarler,

what is "SMR 4.9 plastic"?
where did you get it?

Dave

[JaiPea]

> If I succeed and get a box of HSC (honey super cell)
> after few cycles will those bees build smaler cells in
> their foundationless frames?

It is not proven that queens from an HSC hive will produce bees that build small cell natural comb brood nests.

The shipping fees alone on HSC has to be brutal because the frames are so heavy. An alternative would be Mann Lake PF100 or PF120s which are significantly lighter, and for the same outlay you could obtain many more frames.

To make what you do buy go further use a core of four PF frames in the brood nest, let the bees draw what they want in the other frames.

[Sasha]

> If I succeed and get a box of HSC (honey super cell)
> after few cycles will those bees build smaler cells in
> their foundationless frames?

It is not proven that queens from an HSC hive will produce bees that build small cell natural comb brood nests.

The shipping fees alone on HSC has to be brutal because the frames are so heavy. An alternative would be Mann Lake PF100 or PF120s which are significantly lighter, and for the same outlay you could obtain many more frames.

To make what you do buy go further use a core of four PF frames in the brood nest, let the bees draw what they want in the other frames.

Yes, but I see man lake PF 100 is foundation instead of built comb, which again does not guarantee it will be small cell comb when the bees build it, and I will need to regress them for a few years :(

[MichaelW]

I know a beekeeper that is going through about a pallet of HSC. From what I understand, the bees look like crap. The brood pattern is spotty and the bees do not build up well on it. Save your money. Perhaps this beekeeper's bees will get used to the plastic comb perhaps not. Let American beekeepers test it out before you pay overseas shipping on it. In a couple of years there may be some consensus on it.

[kirk-o]

I think you should relax a minute.Push the reset Button.I used to lose most of my bees every year for 3 or 4 years it was frustrateing.I would purchase packages die in the fall purchase queens Dud's get superceded.I had to figure it out I would ask people everyone had a little bit differnt Idea.I stoped purchaseing bees.I started useing starter strips I stoped treatment I stopped purchaseing queens.The first swarms I captured were small bees they took to the starter strips and small cell well.The weak ones I let die.I have six hives now the oldest is 5 years re-queened it self 3 times doing good.So I would say that wild swarms were more hardy and small sell natural cell works for me.

So just take a minute go over what has worked what hasn't I suggest you go to michael Bush's web page and read it that helped me alot.I have also read the Articles by Charles Martin Simon on this site very helpful.

I started getting some success when I started following a more nature orientated view.
But do what works for you.
catch some swarms they will do you good
kirkobeeo

[blkcloud]

wfarler,

what is "SMR 4.9 plastic"?
where did you get it?

Dave

SMR = Supressed Mite Reproduction (usually referring to a queen)

[JaiPea]

> Yes, but I see man lake PF 100 is foundation instead of
> built comb, which again does not guarantee it will be
> small cell comb when the bees build it, and I will need
> to regress them for a few years

Not so.

Bees out of large cell splits given PF100 had no trouble drawing small cell comb. My experience echoed that of Michael Bush (a search should uncover his experience last year).

I also tested PF120 in a deep to see what kind of natural comb would be drawn in the lower third. The medium frames were between drawn deeps and the comb below the bottom of the PF120 became slightly larger.

Two interesting observations:

a) there were no drone cells
b) the natural comb stayed in line with the end of the frame (there were no connections to the side of the deep).

The PF frames were only in the center of the deeps except in two cases where they were wall-wall. The bees deviated from small cell on the outside combs, they started from the top edges and drew drone and/or honey cells except in the middle of the frame. These were quirky looking combs but they scraped easily and will be reused in the center of boxes this year.

Still too early to rush to judgment on HSC but the jury is out for me because frames that were well accepted wound up with a high proportion of pollen stored in them. They are too expensive to toss and cleaning pollen out is neither quick nor easy (based on a frame that was wall-wall pollen last fall).

Bottom Line: PFs in the center of the box gave me instant regression with none of the issues of rejection/dislike that were encountered with HSC.

[Michael Bush]

>Second is to try with HSC, but they didn't answer me (HSC website)

Max Hamby (the HSC guy) was in Tucson at the Organics convention. He may catch up soon.

>> Yes, but I see man lake PF 100 is foundation instead of
>> built comb, which again does not guarantee it will be
>> small cell comb when the bees build it, and I will need
>> to regress them for a few years

>Not so.
>Bees out of large cell splits given PF100 had no trouble drawing small cell comb. My experience echoed that of Michael Bush (a search should uncover his experience last year).

That has been my experience as well. But then again I've seen a lot of regression fairly quickly on foundationless and Sasha is not getting that. There is the issue of latitude. Bees tend to build larger cell size as you move further north, but it also may be partly genetics.

[JaiPea]

> Bees tend to build larger cell size as you move
> further north, but it also may be partly genetics.

Serbia is about the same latitude as southern France (Bordeaux)/Northern Italy or anywhere between Oregon and Maine. Bees from swarms captured in my area never went below 5.2mm in natural comb either. That's why I gave PF and HSC a try.

Sasha mentioned in January http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215607 there were "strange climate patterns-last summer heavy drought, season before that, rainy spring and summer". Lots of us have lost colonies due to bad years.

Some recent writings which originated in Australia about fat bees could be a hint: a poor foraging year affects brood rearing in the fall and colonies go into winter without the stamina to survive a rough period. See 'fat bees' (http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=213241 - a thread with no discussion), http://tinyurl.com/2go72k and http://tinyurl.com/2htgsb. The key phrase that resonates about fat bees is that "queens and winter bees live longer".

Empirical experience has given small cell the allure of a silver bullet but bees from swarms captured in my area never went below 5.2mm in natural comb either. That's why I gave PF and HSC a try.

There is a multitude of variables that kill colonies and at times winter losses are inexplicable.

[Sasha]

Thanks for the comments and answers.

I have to think more about reasons for my apiary destruction. But I can say that people who had treated varroa (with pesticides) intensively didn't have almost any losses and reported heavy infestations in the autumn during treatments. So that is the reason I belive my losses are because of varroa. It seems that I was too relaxed. I think IPM is the key for my next phase in beekeeping. I cant expect that varroa problem will be solved so easily. And I am not ready to have such a loss again. So I will try to help my bees as much as possible and also will allow them to have natural combs. But I will never again experiment with my whole apiary. Perhaps one or two hive will be left to work on their own.