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My experiment with foundationless

17K views 91 replies 28 participants last post by  Oldtimer 
#1 ·
Last Saturday, I decided to test the claim that bees will draw out foundationless frames faster than foundation frames. I really didn't know what I was doing, so I just heated some wax and painted two coats on the top bar of two plain old medium frames.

Here are the four day results:

Bee Honeybee Beehive Insect Membrane-winged insect


Bee Honeybee Insect Beehive Membrane-winged insect


Both of these are of the same frame. The other frame is being drawn out very nicely as well...not quite like this, but still strong.

These bees were a swarm I got from a town over. They were hived 2 weeks ago and are beasts.

Even caught a glimpse of her majesty:

Bee Insect Honeybee Beehive Honeycomb


I added another medium above them. In that I placed 5 foundationless frames with triangular strips for guides. Also, staggered between these I put 5 frames with foundation.

They also have a deep box on the bottom. They don't like it as much as the medium. I might remove it soon. I'm switching to all mediums anyway.
 
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#33 ·
Foundationless and wireless are 2 different things.

Foundationless can work fine, provided a person is OK with a natural amount of drones. But life is made easier for the future, if wire is used. Fishing line can achieve similar, but is less strong and will typically weaken in around 3 years, although that may be enough for some.
 
#39 ·
... Foundationless can work fine, provided a person is OK with a natural amount of drones. ...
This is really interesting - I am 100% foundationless and technically "frameless"... I have no problem with drones. It seems to me, girls control it pretty well. We had drones 2 month ago probably in swarm preparation. Than I chekerboard and it changes their mind. Soon after chekerboarding, I noticed that girls are very busy evicting drones! For while, there were no drones at all. Now, I noticed some drones again, but it is very little (to my taste) - may be one drone landed in 2-3 minutes. Also, all girl's fresh comb is usually used for nectar first, than for brood and I saw 10-20 drone cells at the periphery of the comb sometime. I just did not see the bar full of drone cells.
 
#34 ·
I am not buying the concept of only uncapping one side at a time. This would create a very uneven force on the comb. I contend that uncapping both sides and bringing the extractor up to speed in increments would solve any comb breakage. This allows the majority of the honey to leave the cell on both sides of the comb before the extractor gets to top speed to take out the small amount of honey left in the cells.
 
#35 ·
Agreed. And with an extractor like yours Ace I'm sure you would have to be an authority on this. :)

Where I am we get some viscous honeys, and uncapping both sides and spinning up in increments is very important. Probably a bit why I'm prejudiced towards wire also, wireless just wouldn't work in these areas unless you wanted to crush & strain.
 
#36 ·
Newbie here, want to say great thread, and great input from all you guys. I intend on running foundationless with popsicle sticks for starters, between mannlakes small cell frames (every other one) to help keep things straight. Any thoughts on this? Should I add wax or sugar water to the plastic (believe they are lightly coated)? Will this work or just confuse the bees?
 
#38 ·
I'm no expert, but I don't think the foundation is necessary. I hived a package a couple weeks ago in a six frame space-- just empty frames with comb guides, and they've built out the comb beautifully. They haven't completely filled the frames yet, but I have capped brood on 3 or 4 frames.

Maybe I've just been lucky, but I get happy when I peek into the hive and see nice straight comb. I took this picture yesterday:

Bee Honeycomb Beehive Honeybee Insect



I think the comb guides with a triangular cross section are the best, and if you have a table saw, or a friend with a table saw, you can knock out a hundred of them in an hour.
 
#37 ·
Just to clarify, are you wanting to start the hive on small cell plastic foundation, with a foundationless frame between each one? Or is it an existing hive?

Dumping bees into a hive of small cell plastic foundation alternated between foundationless frames is asking for a mess.

Tell us just what you are wanting to do & we'll tell you how best to do it.
 
#42 ·
Nucs or new packages won't typically draw drone comb as they don't need it, they're trying to build up. I think most people have issues with established hives and then start putting foundationless frames in and then the girls are all too happy to make a frame of drone comb.
 
#46 ·
I have had good and bad with foundationless, the bad being comb drawn across the frames connecting up to three frames, easily ripped out though. I have enough drawn out frames now that I just stick a foundationless frame between drawn frames and they draw them out how they will, drone comb or brood comb.

I used to used mono to help with support, but have skipped that step since expermenting with a comb that was barely attached on a couple points on the sides and nothing on the bottom, still very strong.

I have also gone to a solid bottom board which should help them draw all the way out to the bottom of the frame!
 
#48 ·
@ oldtimer...Yes I am planning on putting "new" bees on both foundationless and small cell. I am setting 4 traps, and helping a gentleman remove some hives from barns, houses, etc. We will put some cutouts in those hives. Why would i get " a mess"? Should I run all foundationless or all small cell plastic in each individual hive?
 
#49 ·
Likely get a mess because the bees don't like building comb on plastic foundation, if there are gaps caused by foundationless frames between each plastic foundation, they will fill the gap with a mishmash of comb, to avoid building on the plastic.

My recommendation would be put the bees on pure plastic small cell foundation, ie, every frame sc plastic foundation. They then have little option but build the combs the way you want. Once combs are built, you can then start putting your foundationless frames between them which they should build properly because once the combs are built on the plastic, there is less room between and the bees will probably just put one straight comb in, long as you have good comb guides.
 
#50 ·
If you want to go foundationless then just start with a clean slate. Most of the hives I started with empty frames did everything right the first try. I did have to fix a few combs early on in a couple of them but overall it was fun and easy. Fixing combs is not hard, just make sure to inspect every three or four days and you will be fine and won't have to deal with a mix of methods in your hives.
 
#51 ·
I agree that bees in a single box will draw out new foundationless combs pretty well, iow not too many drones; however, when you pull them into a second and third box of brood, my experience is that there will often be several frames with all or a high percentage of drone brood, and that continues as you go up. I always try to move this up and away from the brood nest.
Now, I'm not complaining so much as stating how it is. Late in the season the bees do reduce their drone production as they fill the combs with honey. Furthermore, I've been absolutely amazed by the large size of cells that they build for in the supers when it is purely for honey storage.
In my many years of foundation beekeeping I had never seen such large cells before.
I do believe they raise many more drones on foundationless. Does it result in less honey production? My guess is that early in the year the answer is yes. Later in the year, probably no. I did get a good harvest last year on the natural cell in the end as I had a good late honey flow. I know that some argue that a lot of drone rearing does not reduce honey production. I don't claim to have enough experience of natural cell to be willing to state my opinion as fact.
 
#54 ·
I ran this experiment 2 years ago.... on 10 hives each... I found they do draw faster foundationless. They don't draw small cell. and when forced on small cell some hives do "okay" none thrived. and several hives died because the queen would not lay on small plastic.

I also found in my opinon that foundationless was a waste of time, broken comb, unfilled frames and comb I couldnt extract as well as random drone cells made it not worthwhile for me.
Its impossible to do effective drone trapping on foundationless, and dang near impossible to extract. Wires help but foundation is quicker and cleaner..... Were it not, then it wouldn't sell.... but probably 80% of the beeks are useing it.......
 
#58 ·
I ran this experiment 2 years ago.... on 10 hives each... I found they do draw faster foundationless. They don't draw small cell. and when forced on small cell some hives do "okay" none thrived. and several hives died because the queen would not lay on small plastic.
It might have been an unrealistic expectation to hope that large cell bees would draw small cell comb in foundationless frames. Some folks say that if allowed to draw their own comb, they will draw slightly smaller cells, but apparently you need to go through several sets of comb, each one a bit smaller than the last, in order to regress bees down to 4.9 mm. The small cell package from Wolf Creek that I installed seems to be drawing small cell comb on my foundationless frames, as you would expect.

I also found in my opinon that foundationless was a waste of time, broken comb, unfilled frames and comb I couldnt extract as well as random drone cells made it not worthwhile for me.
Its impossible to do effective drone trapping on foundationless, and dang near impossible to extract. Wires help but foundation is quicker and cleaner..... Were it not, then it wouldn't sell.... but probably 80% of the beeks are useing it.......
This may not be a helpful observation, but according to the Bee Informed winter mortality survey, removal of drone brood has no significant effect on colony survival.

http://beeinformed.org/2012/03/bee-informed-national-management-survey-2010-2011/#varroa

I wish I knew what you and Michael Bush are doing differently. He says he has no difficulty extracting foundationless comb. Right now it doesn't matter to me, because I don't have an extractor, but in the future, who knows? I've already become addicted to keeping the little bugs.
 
#55 ·
I also use fishing line to add a bit of strength to fresh comb.
I put a frame with a double strand of fishing line between two frames already drawn out and the bees then draw it out nice and evenly between the preexisting comb.
I do this in colonies I want to produce drones at mating apiary sites.
They invariably draw out drone comb although this depends upon the time of year and colony strength as well.

I drill 2 holes in each side bar with a 2mm bit and use 30lb monofilament fishing line.
The fishing line is held taut with 2 drawing pins pressed into the side bar.

A strong colony can draw out a frame and the queen can have it laid up within 48 hours.



 
#66 ·
AND you'll be selecting Varroa mites that prefer workers... not a good plan...
How can you select for Varroa mites that do this?

I dont know how but if the Varroa mites can and do find the drone comb in the hive, go inside the cell, get sealed in with the drone larva, I take it out and place it in the freazer--killing everthing on the frame, then place it back into the hive. On top of that I repeat this for some time.

If I follow this prosses, how will I select for worker larva preferring mites?

I dont mean to be rude but I would truly like to know.
 
#68 ·
How can you select for Varroa mites that do this?


Its a pretty simple concept. Think of freezing drone comb as a kind of filter. Every time you do it you filter out all the mites that like to go into drone combs and leave behind the ones that prefer worker brood. The next generation of mites are raised from those survivors. Whatever variations they had that made them not go into the drone comb will be passed on to their offspring who are now even less likely to go into drone comb than their parents.

Keep it up long enough and one day you will have bred a strain of mites that completely avoid drone cells.

Perhaps an easier way to think of it is to imagine you are a dog breeder. You have a bunch of mutts of all different colors. You want to breed a kind of dog that is all white so you pick out ten of your dogs who have the most white and kill all the rest. Those mostly white dogs have one hundred puppies, most of which are white, and some of which are all white. You again select the ten whitest dogs from that batch and kill the rest. This new batch of dogs again has a hundred puppies, and since their parents where either all white or mostly white almost all the puppies will be white and now many of them are pure white, you keep this up and every generation you keep only the ten whitest puppies.

Eventually you will create a breed of dog that is all white and which only has all white puppies. From time to time mutations will occur that cause a puppy or two to be born of a different color but as long as you only allow the all white dogs to live that is all you will get.

Now, if you think of the mites that don't go into drone comb as the white dogs in the above example you start to see the problem. Whatever population you allow to survive is the one that will become more common over time.

Of course, its much easier to breed for something like color in a dog than behavior in a mite but the exact same thing happens over time and given how much more quickly generations of mites arise than in something like a dog you can fairly rapidly change that type of species. Resistant organisms have become a huge problem all over the world because of these type of practices.
 
#69 ·
...Of course, its much easier to breed for something like color in a dog than behavior in a mite but the exact same thing happens over time and given how much more quickly generations of mites arise than in something like a dog you can fairly rapidly change that type of species. Resistant organisms have become a huge problem all over the world because of these type of practices.
yes, the reproduction cycle of mites is much-much shorter than for dogs, thus the "evolution" (selection) works really quick in insect's world. Unfortunately, our approaches in many cases are against "mother-nature" :( Mite's resistance is partially result of unwise use of chemicals and/or approaches. Main problem arises when we just partially kill the "enemy" (mites etc) - it is a way to breed the resistant strains... For instance, in hospitals, we currently breed the bacteria, which may not be killed by ANY antibiotics... yes, it is true! Ironically, bee products such as propolis are effective sometime against that super-bacteria...
 
#71 · (Edited)
I do not know how much true in it, but some believes that using large-cell (5.4 mm) foundation caused worker bees to be bigger and varroa mixed up and attacked worker-bee cells instead drones... there were believe that smaller cells for workers (4.9 mm) could address this issue, not true, I guess. This idea is partially supported by observation that for instance AHB (africanized) are small and somehow manage varroa... Thus, there is a movement towards using a natural cell size - foundationless.
 
#74 ·
Yes it has been shown in some studies that mites prefer drone cells to worker cells.

That's not what I or anyone else was talking about though.

For evolution to occur by selection, some mites have to prefer them more than other mites prefer them. So that selection could be made towards the mites that prefer them more. That is the part that has not been proven.

A little confusing I know, pretty sure you will not be the only one that took it that way Ace. There is little argument that mites prefer drone cells.
 
#79 · (Edited)
...For evolution to occur by selection, some mites have to prefer them more than other mites prefer them....
Not, it is not true. Evolution is driven by selection forces. It is not possible for specie to have preferences "in advance", before the selection force applied. In our case, selection force is intentional elimination of the drone-loving mites. Once the force has been applied, THAN, under this force, mites would be forced to find a solution ... one of solution may be to attack innocent workers instead drones. There is no preexisting bee-worker mite lovers if the initial condition is true (they prefer drones). Since drones (with mites) are eliminating constantly, mites has no chance but to be adjusted (positive selection) to worker-bees or they will lost the battle. Since mites did not lost the battle (we know this very well :(), it basically indicates that indeed, mites adapted to attack worker bees and therefore persist in the hive.
 
#76 ·
You should be able to go to a feral hive and see if there are any mites in a worker cell. If the mite did not prefer the worker bee over the drone there would not be any mites in the worker cell of a hive that was not managed.
 
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