Can someone please explain the Foundationless hype to me?

[WLC]

Actually, I do know the range. 1-10g.

That's more than enough to come up with a range for ng of pesticide per bee.

It's too high. Even for plastic coated frames.

Sorry.

[Cleo C. Hogan Jr]

Rick 1456... I'm with you. After 14 pages of hits and misses, it seemes foundation contains contaminates, who would have thought it. It also seemes foundationless is more difficult to move and extract, who would have thought it. You are not going to change someone's mind that is already made up, I don't care how many facts, charts, graphs, studies, you present. Do either of you think you are going to convert the other?? Dueling facts that go nowhere.

In the words of Rodney King..... "can't we just all get along??????"

cchoganjr

[deknow]

I don't really care what other people do. I do however, find it somewhat upsetting when someone claims a bunch of "scientist" credentials (especially when they are secret and unverifiable credentials) gets their panties in a twist every time they read about something they didn't know before...then tries to scare everyone else by making up numbers and repeating them over and over in order to make them sound true.

Yes, WLC, you know between 1-10g? Why? Because someone read "9g" on the internet, and I said my best guess was between .5-1g? Good thing you vet your data before plugging it into the old math machine....or are you citing real data that you found somewhere? I didn't think so.

deknow

[cerezha]

...Sergey did the math. The number came from BayHighlandBees, who "read it on the internet"....
You can do all the math you want, but 9g of wax on a prewaxed PF frame is not believable....and even if it is, it's still 7X less wax than in a sheet of foundation. deknow

I just did a calculation since BayHighlandBees made it wrong just 30 times... From HIS data, it is 9 gram per frame. I do not use foundation, so I have no idea if it reasonable or not. Similarly, I also did other calculations based on posted in THIS thread data (LD50 etc). Of coarse, it is not pretended to be absolute, it just gives a raw estimate what expect in worse scenario. LD50 is always very worse scenario - it was used to estimate effect of nuclear explosion on Japanese people (US wanted more casualties). All attempts to diminish this thread findings are just pure indication how some people biased and just ignorant... It is fine with me, because I already distill all useful stuff from this discussion.

By the way. If somebody wanted to use the brain, there is simple math problem to solve: you have a size of the frame (LxH in cm) and thickness of wax you want to apply (h in cm). It is very easy to calculate the volume of the wax necessary to cover one side V=LxHxh, times 2 = Volume of wax needed for one frame. Than one could google to get the wax density (D g/cm^3). Than multiply volume by density = VxD. Note - do not repeat BayHighlandBees mistake - all science is METRIC! do not use in or oz! If you use cm you will have grams at the end. Great thread. I personally have a lot of fun AND it is very informative.

Deknow - many thanks for acknowledging that BayHighlandBees provided numbers, which leads to 9g/foundation wax coat content. Now BayHighlandBees is trying to diminish his own findings and talking about miniscules amount of wax per foundation. It is inconsistency, not good. As for credentials - Solomon Parker I believe objected that somebody told at this thread that he has a credentials in environmental sciences. Somehow it was sounded that poor guy did something wrong by disclosing his (great) credentials... So, I felt, I do not want to make anybody uncomfortable with my identity. But, if you are insisting, I have nothing to hide: I have Masters in animal and human physiology (including bees),one PhD in Immunology, and one PhD in Molecular Biology. I am a research professor at UCLA Medical School. I have no specific education in environmental sciences, but, yes, it was a part of my Bachelor general education. Education helped me to understand (and solve) the problem, but I am presenting here as an amateur bee-enthusiast. I do not consider myself a beekeeper. So, hello everybody. Sergey

[WLC]

Dean:

I have melted beeswax before. I do know how a ml of melted wax flows. I've also examined PF 120s. There's easily 1 gram of beeswax per side of a PF 120.

What amazes me is that you won't even acknowledge 1 gram of beeswax per side of a PF 120.

I can understand why both you and the other treatment-free/small cell gurus might be annoyed at the thought that you're putting significant amounts of pesticides into your hives by using wax coated small cell frames.

That's why someone contemplating keeping treatment/chemical-free hives should consider the foundationless approach.

It's a litle tricky, but you can avoid a major pitfall (I've fallen in myself) and get off to a clean start that way.

When comparing foundationless/natural comb to small cell, I'd say that the wax contamination issue tips the balance in favor of foundationless.

[Solomon Parker]

Okay, I just weighed an actual sheet of small cell foundation. It weighs 64 grams. Let's see what y'all will do with that. Tell me how dead my bees should be.

[Solomon Parker]

Oh, don't forget that they spray the whole frame, not just the foundation faces.

[WLC]

Your foragers will live less an average of significantly less than 8 days (if only you had gone foundationless).

Simple, no?

[Solomon Parker]

A PF-120 weighs 252 grams. But that's with the end bars trimmed to 1.25" A PF-120 with fresh white comb built on it weighs 293 grams.

[Solomon Parker]

So less than significantly less than an average of 8 days is like what, two days? Could you be a little clearer?

[sqkcrk]

When comparing foundationless/natural comb to small cell, I'd say that the wax contamination issue tips the balance in favor of foundationless.

JUst jumping in here w/ a question. Does anyone think that foundationless comb is free of contamination or just less contaminated?

[deknow]

Dean:

I have melted beeswax before. I do know how a ml of melted wax flows.

I've also examined PF 120s. There's easily 1 gram of beeswax per side of a PF 120.

...except that you were happily citing 9g until you were called on it...then you tried to attribute the number to the wrong person...when it actually came out of thin cyberspace. You've hardly instilled a sense that you are looking at any of this with any care...and we are now supposed to agree with your estimate because you have seen how melted wax flows?

What amazes me is that you won't even acknowledge 1 gram of beeswax per side of a PF 120.

Yes, I will not acknowledge that your off the cuff (or out of your shorts) estimate is anything we should be even discussing. If you want to make a case, make it. If it's based on whatever made up numbers you feel like at the moment, it will be considered with the appropriate amount of skepticism....especially given the dishonest approach you have taken to "prove" how toxic this is (using LD50 data and pretending that bees eat wax like they would medicated syrup).

I can understand why both you and the other treatment-free/small cell gurus might be annoyed at the thought that you're putting significant amounts of pesticides into your hives by using wax coated small cell frames.

I honestly don't care what you think should annoy me or anyone else. I've always acknowledged (since 2008 when I saw the first data) that the whole wax supply is contaminated. I've always acknowledged that this is true for the wax on the PF series of frames. I'm not sure what you are accusing me of. I'd rather that clean wax was available.

That's why someone contemplating keeping treatment/chemical-free hives should consider the foundationless approach.

Gee, someone should write a book.....

When comparing foundationless/natural comb to small cell, I'd say that the wax contamination issue tips the balance in favor of foundationless.

That's a fine choice. My own experience has led me to other conclusions. But what are you comparing? Have you quantified "small cell" like you have quantified "wax contamination"?

deknow

[WLC]

That would be the trend predicted from the Wu study.

The Mullin study has other data on contaminants in foundation. If you did a meta analysis of the 2 studies, replotted the adjusted cumulative distributions, then you could generate an actual estimate of the average number of forager days lost.

No, kidding.

For now, we can say that you would lose forager productivity.

[Solomon Parker]

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hokum

[WLC]

'JUst jumping in here w/ a question. Does anyone think that foundationless comb is free of contamination or just less contaminated?'

Basically, yes.

Honeybees are known to be excellent surrogates for examining environmental pollutants of many different types. They just seem to end up back in the hive somewhere. Even radioisotopes.

[sqkcrk]

So, not free of contamination, just less, Right?

[WLC]

No Sol, not hokum.

If you looked at the types of data listed in the tables, you'll notice that it was in a probability table format.

They plotted the distributions first and then generated those tables.

As a student of environmental engineering, you're going to see alot of those kinds of tables.

Yes Sol, they can tell you what fraction of your hives are predicted to have whatever loss in forager days you want to examine, as well as other stuff.

[BayHighlandBees]

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hokum

great description!

[WLC]

Yes Mark.

But here's another one: why aren't commercials using fondationless?

Because commercial beekeepers can still find ways to make more money using standard practices.

Now if someone could find a viable way to decontaminate beeswax, then the debate would be over (and maybe small cell would have better chance).

This debate really only applies to a philosophy of beekeeping.

You can't put pesticides into your hive and say that you're treatment free although that is your original intent.

Foundationless avoids some major pitfalls, but is seen by many to be a throwback to another era.

[julysun]

This newbie is confused by this thread. Foundation-less frames are just another somewhat random shot in the mite reduction war. So why all the heat?

I do see many videos of bee removal and that wax is as tough as cardboard, so strength is passable.

I like the idea of foundation-less comb because I can cut the comb out easily or just mash and strain.

On LD50, I trust most chemist, but, their work must meet critical review.

Just saying...