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Can someone please explain the Foundationless hype to me?

86K views 344 replies 42 participants last post by  cerezha 
#1 · (Edited)
Hello,

I like to post thought provoking posts so I ask those pro and against, what is the surge in interest for foundationless that I have seen online in the last few years all about? From my own perspective I used either wired wax or plastic coated with wax foundation.

These are if I understand it correctly the benefits of foundationless and why I dont see the justification.

1. Less contaminants in the hive--yes it is true that even wax from the cleanest foundation maker will have some contaminants in it I remember a study where Jennifer Berry had alot of trouble sourcing pure clean wax for a foundation experiment. However, these contaminants are minute and even if you have the bees draw out their own wax, bee meds and and other contaminates usually find their way into any hive from the outside world from robbing and fruit spraying etc.

2. It is more natural---Listen I hate to tell everyone but beekeeping is by definition not natural. Sticking insects in a painted box when and where we want is not natural at all from the get--go. That combined with the parasites like mites that we introduced to the environment make the whole environment the bees have lived in for millions of years not natural.


3. Less work than putting in all that foundation. Perhaps if the bees draw out all the frames correctly, but more often than not alot of initial adjustments are needed which you do not need to do with foundation. Plus for newbees learning for the first time learning to open the hive and observe the bees can be overwhelming enough let alone messing with the combs. And in terms of work for the bees it will take around 8 pounds of wasted honey for one pound of wax (yes I know this number is subject to debate) just to get them to draw out the whole frame and so I would like to give them any boost I can. Plus with new beekeepers you need to idenifty if the bees are drawing alot of drone comb which bees accustomed to worker cell foundation seem to love to do--whole frames of it at first until they feel they have enough for the hive.

4. I want natural comb cell size--yes this is good but the first comb your package bees draw out will probably be large cell anyway as the bees are not regressed--so now you need to cut out that comb after a few rounds of brood and make them build it all out again-setting them back further--at least with small cell foundation the bees will get a head start on doing all of their work again!

That is what I thought of so far let me know what you all think for and against!
 
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#35 ·
I have PF -105's and my bees hate them. I really wanted them to like them, but no bueno. Even when I spent an enormous amount of time re-coating them with wax. I only really use them to correct curved comb. And at $2.20 a piece compared to $.99 a piece for the foundationless - it was a no brainer for me.

It might be that my particular wild breed of bee just hates them. Maybe a more domesticated variety would take right to them. I don't know, most of mine are wild caught.

Funny about the AHB thing. For them to be such a bogeyman, there is very little true research being done about them. Even stranger is the fact that DNA survey's has shown previous African genetics in some of our bees, mainly from out West, that were probably brought over by the Spanish in the old, old days. That is never mentioned either. I suspect most of the wild sort in my area have more to do with these bees than anything that came up from Brazil - but I am no scientist.
 
#36 ·
Paul, what is your method for getting the bees to draw the PF-105? I too had some problems with them when I was trying to stick them in peacemeal. But I find it works much better when I stick them in three or more together at a time or with newly started hives or if I just don't give them another option. They're almost always drawn very well and treated no differently from then on.
 
#37 ·
In reference to the cost of foundation I dont consider it to be a cost as much as a money saver. This is because of the cost assoicated with foundationless comb which requires more wax to make and thus more Honey. I am selling honey here for 10 dollars a pound so for me at least, it is alot cheaper in the long run to buy some foundation and get more honey than the other way around. Also, with plastic foundation you can scrape off old comb and reuse it after a light coating of new wax--so you only have to buy it once. With wax foundation you could save enough of it so that when you go to a supplier to get new foundation, they will discount your new foundation in exchange for your rendered wax.
 
#40 ·
There is another cost involved also and that is the cost of time. Here in Misery we have a limited time window for them to draw frames out. I have found that foundationless are built MUCH quicker than foundation. How do bees build comb? By festooning. Let me see is it easier for them to build a comb with nothing in the way and festoon down the middle or to festoon some bees on one side of the foundation and some bees on the other side of the foundation. Making wax is what bees do, along with honey and collecting propolis, I reject the notion that it costs too much honey to make comb, it costs them time to build on foundation and TIME is MONEY brother.
 
#38 ·
If I give them no other choice they usually draw a little of them and the goober up the rest. Lot's of one side only deals with big globs where they reform the wax and try to draw in between the frame. easier and faster for me to just slap some foundationless in and check them once a week when i do my rounds. May not be perfect, but they draw it out quick normally. However, I have noticed they don't like to move up into supers sometimes with foundationless frames, even with a few plastic ones to help move them up. My few standard langs have become nuc breeding factories, that I use mostly to stock my bigger long hives and raise queens for them. Too hard to deal with.

My system works for me, but would probably not be so good in a different region. You guys have to remember New York is a far cry from the nearly Third World conditions found in some parts of NM. Heck, I don't even have mail delivery.
 
#42 ·
'Let me see is it easier for them to build a comb with nothing in the way and festoon down the middle or to festoon some bees on one side of the foundation and some bees on the other side of the foundation.'

rweakley:

What a marvelous observer you are!

That's got to be a winning argument for foundationless if ever there was one.
 
#45 ·
I've already seen that bees prefer to build on foundationless frames while ignoring perfectly good small cell frames. I've also added an empty foundationless body to small cell comb containing body to see what happens.

I also have ritecell deep frames in my nucs that were drawn by placing a deep over a body with fully drawn foundationless frames.

So, I kinda understand some of the dynamics involved, and the frustrations as well.

However, I never really thought about the way bees festoon when building comb and how that might affect the speed (or preferences) when building new comb on different types of frames.

There's something there.

So, I'll see if popsicle sticks on the top AND bottom of a foundationless frame speeds things up or not.

It's just a hunch. Besides, it'll give me something to look for that I can see clearly.

I've heard of the anectdotal reports that foundationless frames are drawn more quickly than frames with foundation. I haven't really noticed that. I think that the deep frames with ritecell were drawn more quickly than foundationless frames or small cell frames.

So, I'll give it a second look.
 
#47 ·
WLC
Like I says - many thing in beekeeping is controversial! Measuring the speed of honeycomb formation is not a simple task. Many factors needs to be accounted. I never actually measure the speed of honeycomb creation, but I noticed that honey comb on foundationless frames is thicker than on the frames with foundation (I am doing 8 in 10-frame medium box) . In my hive, foundationless frame full of honey is approximately 30% heavier than completely filled frame with foundation. So, I have more honey from foundationless frame. In this sense, if you want accurate measurements, you need to normalize your data per pound of comb (honey+wax+drones), per day.

By the way, in my hands, the top plank of the standard frame works as great as a full frame. My local bee-store sells to me only top parts for something ridiculous - 0.24$ per piece? Also, I do not see a difference between using "popsicle sticks" type guide or just fill up the groove in the plank with melted wax. I prefer the latest because it is much quicker and attachment of the comb to "frame" seems to be more secure. So, right now, I am replacing all frames on just top planks with groove filled with melted pure wax. I found that it is much better to alternate empty frames and full frames - when box is full of honey, I took each other frame, sort of checker-boarding... girls work like crazy to "repair" the damage. It has additional benefit - it looks like they are so busy that keep forgetting to swarm... As for honey extraction - you just dump everything in the mesh bag installed in suitable container with holes and let it drip! It is scalable - one could use a barrel or even something bigger. Next day you have a really raw, grade A, non-heated beautiful honey. I mix the remaining wax/honey leftovers (still in the mesh-bag) with water, remove wax with mesh-bag and use the liquid to make a honey vine - just add yeasts and plug the water gate. Wax is used for candles.... As everything in beekeeping, my non-professional dilettante approach may not work for you. Sergey
 
#49 ·
I don't doubt that foundationless is drawn quickly and has has many other benefits.

My experience with rite cell just happened to be a positive one. It may simply be a great product.

I am interested in seeing how bees on drawn natural cell (foundationless) will build on PF 120s. I'm also interested in seeing how bees on drawn PF 120s will build on foundationless frames.

I hope to see a reduction in cell size when PF 120 'bees' draw on foundationless. I expect to see the bees 'balk' when they go from foundationless to PF 120s.

I also expect that the bees will confound any of my expectations. :)

As for the festooning observation, I'm interested in seeing if having a comb guide on both the top and bottom of the frame speeds things up.

What I really want to do is observe how the bees festoon on the top and bottom vs the top only comb guide frames.

Who knows? There might be a some differences that may suggest possible improvements.
 
#53 ·
Re: Biased!

That's Randy Oliver's site. I have found quite a bit of good information on there concerning bee nutrition, feeding protocols, and general bee health. I don't find him biased particularly, but he does have a focus on pesticides.

Remember that he keeps bees in California for almond pollination amongst other things, and there is probably more pesticide applied at more times in the Central Valley of California than at any other place in the world (including herbicides and fungicides). I suspect that bee kill-offs are a significant problem. Bayer just last year de-listed neo-nics for use on almonds due to concerns that the bees, without which there will be no almonds, were being killed off.

Naturally, he's quite concerned about pesticide effects on bees, and research on "CCD" has focused quite a bit on some pesticides that came into common use at about the same time as CCD showed up (notably neo-nics).

The recent scare about slamonella and e.coli on lettuce has resulted in a very serious "weed eradication" program that pretty much removed any non-crop plants, too, which is causing some stress problems.

In my opinion, the second worst problem beekeepers face (after loss of forage) in the near future is pesticide use that seems to keep increasing all the time. Mites can be managed by treatment, or better, by breeding resistant bees and non-lethal mites, but we are never going to breed pesticide resistant bees.

Peter
 
#54 ·
Re: Biased!

Here is something that nobody has mentioned yet.

Its more fun!

Even if all the claims about foundationless turn out to be false its still going to be a simpler and more enjoyable way to keep bees.

but we are never going to breed pesticide resistant bees.
This isn't true. We are experts at breeding pesticide resistant insects. Any time you use a pesticide that does't kill 100% of a population you are eventually going to end up with pesticide resistant insects. This applies to bees just as much as it does mosquitoes.

The problem is that bees have a longer life cycle than most the insects we are trying to kill and so will adapt slower than the pest species.

For the most part pest species also adapt faster than the chemical industry. I'm not actually all that worried about pesticides. Given enough time they'll all become useless. Heck, given evolutions track record we'll probably end up with insects that depend on pesticides as part of their biochemistry. We'll have healthy bugs filled with so much poison nothing else will eat them.
 
#56 ·
I am sorry I am interested in foundationless.. Only because it is cheaper. Secondly the benefits of contamination from another wax source is also a plus. cell size. my foundationless are huge cells. Maybe they are building giant bees :) maybe those were not drones I saw :scratch: maybe I am breeding giant bees :lpf:
 
#57 ·
Can someone quantifiably show that foundation less is cheaper? By my calculation it is not-- you are losing honey production. If I buy foundation from Dadant, seven sheets equals one pound so for 2 deep boxes that is 20 sheets or 2.85 pounds of wax, which translates at 8 pounds of honey per pound of wax 23 pounds of honey. I sell honey at 10 dollars a pound that is 230 dollars lost money. Even if you include the cost of the foundation, which if bought in a fifty sheet pack would be 19 dollars worth of foundation for the above example--there is still a loss of 211 dollars honey profit just to start to draw out the brood boxes let alone the supers-So how is it cheaper again?
 
#65 · (Edited)
Can someone quantifiably show that foundation less is cheaper?... that is 230 dollars lost money.
Xcugat, I do not understand how you count. I would do estimate as following:
- you save $1-1.5 on each new frame; you could re-use old frames with little effort.
- you probably do not save on labor since new technique will require some learning/optimization;
- you do not need an extractor - $100?? savings;
- you do not need the space to keep unused frames with comb - you save on space.
- if you fill up the box with foundationless frames you shall have approximately the same amount of honey (or more) at the end, no loses.
- major reason to go framless is the believe that bees are doing better with this approach, so your tremendous gain is healthier bees!
- in addition you have a wax, which you could sell.
- for those who Russians - additional benefit is honey-vine!

P.S. I do not think that it is easy to translate a new wax into how much honey has been lost. It is much more complex than that.
Sergey
 
#59 ·
I shouldn't do this,,,
But see, there we go again, putting production first, and bee health somewhere down the road. I'm not singling anyone out here but the attitude is,,,,,disheartening. It reminds me of the "curmudgeon" at the last, and I mean last, bee meeting I went to. Take all the honey from the bees sell it, and then feed them syrup, because honey is worth more than the cost of sugar. Maybe it is just me, but is it any wonder there are problems in a management system like that ? We are talking back yard beeks here.
I have my bullet proof vest on:)
 
#60 ·
Rick I hope its kevlar! :)

I understand what you are talking about, but you are comparing apples to oranges here. This discussion is about not using foundation not all beekeeping Modus operandi. I agree with you taking all the honey is clearly wrong but that is not at all the same as using foundation. Just because I am demonstrating cost effectiveness doesn't mean I am shortchanging the bees "way of life" wax foundation is just that beeswax from bees which helps them get a head start on comb drawing. Yes there could be contaminants in it but even with foundationless contaminants will get in in a season or two- unless you plan to constantly remove combs, which most people do not.

WLC I dont think they question should be why don't all commercial beeks use foundationless if its so great but why dont ANY use it if its so great (unless you know of someone?)
 
#61 ·
just because you add foundation the bees still have to make wax so your loss isnt that much, having fully drawn out comb is much better for production than either foundationless or foundation either one, the hives you give comb to will produce alot more honey than the hives that just have foundation.
so 50 sheets of wired deep foundation is about 1 dollar a sheet for plastic probably more.

http://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=23_38&products_id=69
 
#64 ·
Understood, we are good to go:) My point, I guess, and what I perceived, was the cost analysis, of honey needed to generate comb for foundation less vs. savings, in honey, by using a foundation, thus requiring less honey/resources, and therefore more for the bee keeper to harvest. It is they way some folks look at things. (as I have seen) Just an opinion:)
 
#67 ·
Sergey The math is based on the generally agreed figure that it takes approximately 8 pounds of wax for one pound of bee wax. In regards to your post I take issue with is

major reason to go framless is believe that bees are doing better with this approach, so your tremendous gain is healthier bees!

How are the bees demonstrably doing better with foundationless? People keep spouting this but I have yet to see some real evidence. That and I got an old extractor given to me for free :)
 
#68 · (Edited)
2.85 pounds of wax, which translates at 8 pounds of honey per pound of wax 23 pounds of honey.
I know this is generally accepted but so are an awful lot of things that aren't true. Has anyone ever proved this or is it something that someone said a hundred years ago that everyone has taken on faith ever since? I don't have any reason to think that its not true but I also don't accept things just because they are generally accepted. I'd like to see the write up for a reproducible experiment that shows how much honey wax production consumes.

Not to mention you can sell bee's wax for $8 a pound or more so wax isn't a completely lost product in any case.

Here is an interesting calculation. Honey is about 17% water so out of your 8 pounds of honey 6.64 lbs of it is the actual honey molecules. Now if it takes 6.64 lbs of honey "solids" to make 1 pound of wax then that means that the bees are throwing away or loosing thermodynamically 5.64 pounds of solid matter for each lb of wax produced. This seems extraordinarily inefficient considering that unlike most animal feeds honey is composed almost entirely of easily digestible high energy components.

And here is yet another interesting question that I have no answer for, is that bees need eight pounds of honey to produce a lb of wax or is it they consume eight lbs of honey in the time that it takes them to build a lb of wax? Do they have to eat extra honey to produce wax or is it a by product of the honey/nectar they normally consume?
 
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