"standard" bees on 4.9 foundation

[bdc]

I have been using 4.9 small cell foundation for a few years now, with accompanying small cell bees. This year, I was planning on picking up a couple of nucs (not small cell) and was wondering how they would do on 4.9 foundation or drawn-out comb ? Also, if I were to catch a swarm, how would it perform on 4.9 ? Thanks, bc

[rkereid]

I have some draw out PF120s fine and some distort it into larger irregular cells, but mostly good, especially if drawn on a flow. Drawn comb is usually accepted and used very well by packages and swarms. Every hive is a little different though.

[Acebird]

I think the results are going to be mixed until you regress the bees. Are you giving up on small cell or trying to expand and can't find small cell bees?

[FlowerPlanter]

The large bees 5.4 won't follow the foundation; they will most likely make 5.1 cells at first. If you use Mann Lake PF120, PF100 plastic frames they will draw them to 4.9 and those bees will be small cell. Place the PF100s in the brood nest one or two at a time during a flow as they build these work the old large cell frame to the outside bees will use them for honey storage.

If you catch a swarm that is wild it will be small cell, if it's some ones swarmed bees there is a good chance they will be 5.4, you will notice the difference as soon as you see the bees.

[cg3]

I've always put package bees directly on PF 125s, they do fine.

[Michael Bush]

Large bees on small cell drawn comb will just use it and be regressed in a matter of weeks. Large bees on PF100 series (PF120s, PF100s, etc.) seem to draw it fine and will be regressed in a few weeks (a week or two later than the ones on drawn comb). Large bees on small cell wax foundation will probably draw it 5.1mm or so but this varies. Large bees on foundationless will build somewhere between 5.1mm and 4.7mm. My guess is some of that is genetics and some of it is that they may have come from Pierco (5.2mm) comb.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnatural...atisregression

[bdc]

I think the results are going to be mixed until you regress the bees. Are you giving up on small cell or trying to expand and can't find small cell bees?

Acebird, I'm still doing small cell, in fact have three packages coming. Our club just got to buy into a really good deal on nucs I couldn't pass up

[Solomon Parker]

If you plan on staying small cell, use your existing small cell comb to seed into your nucs. Don't let the nucs draw comb, let the small cell hives do it until the nucs are converted over. Gradually remove the larger cell comb as you can work it out away from the broodnest. This should be as painless as can be. Forcing larger bees to draw from wax small cell foundation will almost invariably lead to inconsistent comb. Having small cell comb gives you a massive boost. It did for me.

As the gentlemen above said, it usually works much better with PF-1xx frames.

[Oldtimer]

Probably a first, but I'm with Solomon on that.

Also, if you want small cell bees, you'll need to get rid of the combs that came with the nuc, or at least keep them out of the brood nest. Otherwise they will be an on going source of large bees, that will always be trying to build bigger cells.

Here's how I would do it (and have done it). Put the nucs in your hives. Fill the rest of the hive with sc comb taken from your sc hives, preferably that has had brood in it at some stage, so there are cocoons in the cells to stop the bees enlarging the cells. If you take them from the sc hives, replace them with frames of foundation that the sc hives can draw.

In the new hives, remove any large cell combs that do not have brood, and work the combs that do have brood to the outside of the broodnest with a view to eventually removing them. You want to get rid of them as soon as possible, so once there is brood in some of the sc combs, provided there are enough bees, put the lc brood combs in a second box over an excluder, with the queen below. Once brood is hatched remove the lc combs.

Do not let the new hives draw comb till all the old lc cell bees have died, or they will mess it up. Instead, give them drawn combs taken from the sc hives and feed foundation into the sc hives instead of the new hives with lc bees.

[Acebird]

Do not let the new hives draw comb till all the old lc cell bees have died,

That is going to be a couple of months, right?

[Solomon Parker]

A month and a half at most.

[Vance G]

Oldtimer that is exactly how I regressed mine except I am sure the large old bees kept on building places. At any rate, by the end of a season of drawing SC foundation, most were regressed wonderfully. Some colonies are like me and always slower to change.