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Does "Large Cell" Beekeeping work?

51K views 245 replies 40 participants last post by  rwurster 
#1 ·
Does "Large Cell" Beekeeping work?
I have only used sc foundation but if there is proof that LC is better I might be willing to experiment. ;)

If there's no clear advantage I'll just stick with what I've been doing... :)
 
#177 ·
Lauri, I thought maybe you were saying your operation was too big for foundationless.

I didn't have any comb collapse trouble among my few hives, and it got pretty hot here along the Gulf last summer. All deeps



I do run a couple strands of heavy monofilament through each frame, and my comb guides have a lot of attachment area..

This is newly built comb, very soft.
 
#179 ·
I didn't have any comb collapse trouble among my few hives, and it got pretty hot here along the Gulf last summer. All deeps

I actually didn't have trouble when it was hot, it was when it got cold the comb got incredibly brittle.. on the outside edges of the hive or in storage.

Your frame of comb looks great though:) Good enough to eat
 
#178 ·
I believe that Jim Paysen of JZsBZs is in his 80s or 90s... I'm just happy that he's still making cell cups.. *grins*

And I imaging that Roland just makes more bees each year to account for the ones that croak off.. I'd imaging that it's now a common practice of everyone in the bee world... plan on a x% loss, so you make a y% increase the year before..
 
#182 ·
I don’t remember the precise details but posted them several years ago…when they were fresher in my memory.
As part of the UGA small cell study they collected samples of brood comb from about 150 removals. Some were long established nests and some more recent. They measured the cell size of the worker cells in these ‘feral’ colonies. The result….one single sample had some 4.9mm cells. If it makes anyone feel any better they had about the same result for 5.4. The average cell size was 5.1.
 
#183 ·
>The average cell size was 5.1.

Quite a bit smaller than 5.4mm...

>it mean he has not had CCD yet, I may be crazy , but I predict that willo change after CCD.

So far I've not had CCD nor AFB nor EFB nor sacbrood. I've been looking for most of those for 40 years now... The only thing that really changed my beekeeping in that time was Varroa and gravity...
 
#187 ·
Why do either?
I'd buy into the foundationless idea if it weren't for the introduction of varroa. In the foundationless hives I ran a few years ago the bees produced a substantially greater number of drone cells and ultimately many more drones than I observed in my foundation hives. The fact that varroa are drawn to and reproduce much more efficiently in drone brood was proven out in my case as all ten that I started collapsed their first season with excessively high mite loads.
Now...if it were 1970, I'd say yes to foundationless.
 
#188 ·
Cell size is not necessarily a foundation/no foundation issue. Foundation is available in a variety of different cell widths:

Chart of Cell Sizes of Natural Comb and Common Foundation

Natural worker comb4.6 mm to 5.1 mm
Lusby4.8 to 4.9 mm average 4.83 mm
Dadant 4.9mm Small Cell4.9 mm
Honey Super Cell4.9 mm
Wax dipped PermaComb4.9 mm
Mann Lake PF100 & PF1204.94 mm
19th century foundation5.05 mm
PermaComb5.05 mm
Dadant 5.1mm Small Cell5.1 mm
Pierco foundation5.2 mm
Pierco deep frames5.25 mm
Pierco medium frames5.35 mm
RiteCell5.4 mm
Standard worker foundation5.4 to 5.5mm
7/115.6 mm
HSC Medium Frames6.0 mm
Drone6.4 to 6.6 mm
Note: fully drawn plastic is always .1mm larger at the mouth than the bottom and you have to allow for the thicker cell wall to come up with an equivalent. So the actual equivalent is pretty much the inside diameter of the mouth.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm

 
#191 ·
Mine are doing OK on foundationless. I have one currently in it's 4th season and kicking butt. I had a hive of cordovans succumb to mites in their second, but so far out of my 25 hives, that all I have had. Don't know if it's the bees, the comb, or what I am doing, but don't want to mess around with it since it seems to be working. I only really run the foundationless in the broodnest, the rest is Rite-Cell.

Hope you have the same results Ray.
 
#193 ·
i think we're talking about the comb collapsing on foundationless frames. mine didn't collapse, but tore loose from the top bar when i flipped the frame over during inspection. the horizontal wires stopped that.
 
#201 ·
Thanks Paul and Dan

I don't believe they will all survive, because I think conditions are a little tough here in FL, from the mite and SHB point of view. It never gets cold enough to give the colony a break. Plus, the bees are nothing special, though I did start with a local nuc, made a split with a BeeWeaver queen, and caught a swarm. I just hope enough make it to the spring flows that I can make some increase and avoid buying more bees. I attribute the fact that I haven't lost any colonies yet to pure unadulterated beginners luck.

squarepeg, I decided to treat the frames like top bars and never flip them up sideways. It was an easy habit for me to learn, since I've never had foundation, except in the nucs I bought.
 
#204 ·
I don't believe they will all survive, because I think conditions are a little tough here in FL, from the mite and SHB point of view.
It is so different wherever you go. I hear northern beekeepers lamenting about the challenges to their bees of a long cold winter. Then the southern beekeepers complain about a lack of a winter brood break.
No easy way out...no matter where they are....for the bees.
 
#207 ·
Cheaper - that is really why I do what I do. I cannot afford foundation, or constant treatments, or buying queens all the time, or special stuff. Not only that, but it gives other people less control over what I do. This should not be something that is only affordable by those with lot's of extra money. It is expensive enough as it is. The natural is also a good thing too.

Wait - looks like I posted this way too slow. oops. Wait - where's the post I replied to?

OK - now you guys know. I am cheap.
 
#216 ·
>Huber was a semi bright fellow....I'm sure he said what he intended.

I'm sure he did. However what he said was on the 20th day. How many days have elapsed on the 20th day.

I run into this all the time in programming, counting rafters for a house or counting days for queen rearing. You start at 0 and you call it the first day. How many days have elapsed on the 1st day? None. How many have elapsed on the 20th day? 19. If I put chicken eggs in an incubator when will they hatch? On the 22nd day when 21 days have elapsed. In other words if today is the 1st, they will hatch on the 22nd, 21 days later. Add up the amounts Huber details in hours and you get 18 1/2 days.
 
#217 ·
I agree. I keep running into this trying to explain when queen cells are expected to hatch. Perhaps your right, quit talking about days and start talking about hours.
 
#222 ·
emergence time small vs. large cell would be easy enough to measure. hives would need to be in the same location to control for temperature. even if there is a difference, any effect on mite population would remain an extrapolated inference. my belief is that having clean comb is just as if not more important. jmho.
 
#224 ·
>In small cell, do you get emergence earlier? Say, the 18th or 19th day?

Yes.

>If yes, what accounts for that?

I can only speculate. But the only difference is cell size. I assume when the larvae mature filling the cell with their body is a trigger somewhere along the line. But then they get capped a day sooner and that may play into it as well.

>Regardless of how days are counted today, to interpret the older writings such as Huber, we need to understand what he originally meant by his words.

It's not difficult. He specified each stage in hours. You can add up the hours and you get 18 1/2 days.
 
#226 ·
Give me a number between 18 and 22 days and I'll bet I can make some worker brood emerge in that many days. 18 will require small cell and slightly more than 93 F. 22 days will require slightly less than 93 F. Any experiment in an observation hive where the bees have more trouble regulating the temperature could change depending on the ambient temperature. I discovered the shorter cycle on 4.95mm (at the time I was just measuring from capping to emergence and it was a day shorter) when I got my observation hive and I was just doing the observation and documentation for fun with no expectation of a shorter cycle. I expected the typical 21 days, but instead they were capped a day early and emerged two days early. I was quite shocked and mentioned it (on the forums) to Dee Lusby, who seemed very matter of fact about it. She had never mentioned it before that I had seen.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?206195-Early-Emergence


After some more observations I posted this:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...st-Capping-times-for-small-cell-bees-(4-95mm)

Unfortunately I've still not found the time to do this again in exact hours side by side with large cell. Some people over the years have repeated it and reported similar results. Here is one of them.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...e-Natural-History-of-Bees&p=199204#post199204

No one has done the experiement and posted contrary results that I know of since that time.
 
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