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green drone comb frames for medium boxes?

14K views 21 replies 17 participants last post by  KQ6AR 
#1 ·
hey all,

as some of you may know, pierco makes a green drone comb frame for deep boxes to help with varroa control. http://www.pierco.net/products_dronecomb.htm

my question: does anyone know if a similar product exists for medium boxes?

thanks,
beeme13
 
#5 · (Edited)
what would be the harm in letting bees draw deep drone foundation in 2 medium bodies. They will just draw out the plastic foundation and where it ends, they will go down on their own until they reach critical bee space. So basically you'll have 1.5 deep drone foundation spanning two medium bodies. No cutting required. Just thinking inside the black box.
 
#7 ·
If you use foundation you can also put a shallow frame in your medium box and they will (usually) build a layer of foundationless drone on the bottom of the frame - then you can just peel it off with your hive tool. Wastes a little bit of comb, but if you don't have drone frames...
 
#16 ·
That's a fair criticism, but I am sure people can come up with a work around. One of them might be to attach a solid piece of wood to the frame bottom with critical dimensions followed so that bees do not build. Another is to sacrifice the bottom portion on continued basis and only freeze the top part. Lastly, the frame can be trimmed to medium size and then the cut-off portion can be used as a starter strip on a new medium frame. The possibilities are limited only by the resources that you have or time you are willing to sacrifice.

I guess I do not like to do irreversible actions, therefore my bias would be to preserve the integrity of a deep frame, even if I cannot use it in the original state. I might be in the minority.
 
#22 ·
Randy's frames are deeps, I've made a few & use them. For mediums I just put a foundationless frame with Popsicle stick guide in the broodnest & the bee draw it out for drone brood every time.
I tried the green frames & didn't like them at all. They all went in the garbage because there wasn't a beekeeper I disliked enough to give them to.
 
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