Drone comb/foundation

[ccar2000]

I have my first two hives set up with two deep brood boxes that were started with plasticell foundation from Dadant.
Being a greenhorn I am still learning about comb and cell sizesand my question is, will the bees make the necessary ratio of pollen, honey, brood and drone sized cells. Or, have I limited their ability to do so by providing identical foundation throughout? I plan to start adding medium supers next spring and was wondering if I should get some different size foundation (drone comb)

[Beeslave]

The bees will take care of what they need with the foundation you have provided.

[Countryboy]

Bees often build drone comb in the space between boxes too, so you don't have to go out of your way to give the bees drone comb.

The only reason I would consider a frame of drone comb is for trapping varroa - either freezing the frame of capped drone brood, or scraping the caps cells open and letting the bees clean it out.

[RayMarler]

I have a little bit different opinion than some. I started with plastic foundation, and yes you like me have severely limited the bees in the size of cells and amount of drone brood that they normally would make on their own, if allowed to draw out comb without any foundation. I am of the opinion that restricting drone production in a hive is actually counter productive for the hive as a whole super-organism.

In spring to early summer the bees normally would prefer about 20% or so drones in the hive, and there is no way they can reach those numbers by just drawing out drone comb in the space between the boxes. And, many beekeepers continuously remove those combs during inspection. One thing I think about is Varroa. They prefer drone pupa for at least 2 reasons that I can think of. If drone brood is present, they will go to it. Seems to me, drones might be considered, to some degree, more sacrificial than worker brood, and perhaps the bees would be more willing to remove infected drone brood than they would for worker brood? I dunno for sure, as I don't speak bee talk and they don't speak people talk too well, so this is conjecture on my part. However, I myself would rather the mites infect drones instead of the worker brood, so it would not be such a factor of limiting speed and size of population growth in the hive (population growth is from worker brood, not drones).

If allowed to draw their own comb without any foundation being given to them by us, they will tend to draw a variety of cell sizes. The smallest cell sizes will be in the center of the brood nest and as you get further away from the center of the nest, the cells tend to get larger. The largest cells will be to the outside edges of the brood nest and drones will be raised in the area between the worker brood and the honey stores above and to the sides of the brood nest. The drone brood in that situation is raised at approximately 1 degree F less temperature (93F) than the worker brood (94F). Varroa prefer the cooler temperature of drone brood to reproduce in. Varroa also prefer the longer pupa development time for reproduction as well.

I have in the past kept one drone brood frame per box in my plastic cell foundation comb, but next year I am making changes (I wanted to this year but I just did not have the time to play with the bees much this year at all). I will be changing out all combs in all my hives and let the bees draw all the combs to the cell sizes they prefer, where they prefer it, by using starter strip frames for them to draw. I also am not going to be doing inspections into the brood nest area of the hives unless I suspect there may be problems of some sort by observations of the activities at the entrance and by the conditions I see when inspecting thru the honey supers, or what I see as I pop the top covers of brood nest only hives (no supers).

Recommended reading...
http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm

The Wisdom of the Hive - The Social Physiology of Honey Bee Colonies... by Thomas D. Seeley

The Buzz About Bees - Biology of a Superorganism... by Jurgen Tautz

The Biology of the Honey Bee... by Mark L. Winston

[Michael Bush]

If you put an empty frame in the brood nest now and then during the spring build up it will help with swarming and you'll get some frames of solid drones. If you leave them in they will draw nice workers after that. But you won't need to buy drone foundation.

[honeyman46408]

But you won't need to buy drone foundation.

Or you can put a med frame in with the deeps and most of the time they will draw drone comb on the bottom

[jdpro5010]

I like Ray and some others am using the foundationless frames and allowing them to draw out the cells they want. I do this for a number of different reasons. It is cheaper than buying foundation. Generally the bees don't draw out cells where you don't want them to (between the frames as mentioned above). They also know (in theory) how many of what sized cells they want in the hive. I do use the plasticell foundation in my honey supers above the brood nest.

[Dave W]

If I may be so bold :), for the record :) I disagree w/ ONE statement by RayMarler.

>Varroa also prefer the longer pupa development time for reproduction as well . . .
My problem is w/ "perfer longer dev time".

Varroa CHOOSE (prefer?) drone brood because of its stronger odor.
The results of this CHOICE provides (by chance, not choice) greater reproduction (more mites mature) DUE TO longer development time of drone vs worker brood.

Sorry :)

[RayMarler]

If I may be so bold :), for the record :) I disagree w/ ONE statement by RayMarler.

Sorry :)

I appreciate your boldness, do not be sorry at all. I myself am just starting to learn about bees. I've kept them for years and as each year goes by I learn more and more from others, and now I've learned something from you! Never bee sorry for contributing to the information pool we have available in this and other forums. I'm making very big changes to my beekeeping because of the information I've gotten from you and many many other people posting in here.

[Michael Bush]

I was thinking similar things the other day when listening to a lecture by a renowned bee scientist. He was, of course, trying to give this to beekeepers and put it in terms that make sense. He said that the thyme plant and some other plants make thymol in order to ward off insects that want to eat it's leaves. Of course, if we think about it, and I'm sure he would agree, the plants made no such decision. It is merely the end result of having thymol in it's leaves, that insects don't want to eat it. If you're an evolutionist then you believe this is because that contributed to their survival, if you are a creationist then you believe it's by design, but no one actually believes (except perhaps some latent Lamarckian) that the plant made that decision based on that goal.

But in a round about way, reproductive success would lead to mites that infest the cells where they will be most successful and in that round about way the Varroa do infest the drones because they have a longer post capping time, not because they as individuals are aware of it, but because reproductive success passes that trait on.

[Dave W]

I’m going to step far beyond "knowledge" and say that I don’t agree that
>reproductive success passes that trait on . . .

The fact that V-mites have greater reproduction in drone cells is not a "trait".

It happens because drone cells are capped for a longer period of time thus allowing more mite eggs to mature (this is not a trait). It may also happen because nurse bees feed drones more often than workers thus bring more mites to proximity of drone cells more often.

RayMarler: Your words are very kind, thanx!