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The Miracle of Going Foundationless!

36K views 178 replies 53 participants last post by  Acebird 
#1 ·
When I started beekeeping in August 2013, I was giving the bees frames with foundation, however they were reluctant in drawing new frames. Thus, in order to encourage them, I've used to place a foundation frame in the middle of the colony. That helped, however sometimes were reluctant to build new comb, and when that happened this foundation frame acted like a separator and consequently, I had a queen balling problems that had ultimately killed my queen.

After reading about foundationless - I wanted to try it. At first I have tried it by putting a layer of wax on the top of frame, I thought it would direct the bees, however, after reading further, I learned that that there is not need to put this layer of wax. I've tried it and indeed it worked just fine - actually the comb holds even better to the wooden frame.

Now when I add new frames i dont longer have the fear of separating the colony in case the bees are reluctant to build more comb. Foundationless frames do not act as a barrier. I am noticing that they start drawing comb much faster and the queen start laying in it immediately. Every 5 days, I put a new frame in the middle and in just few days it is full drawn.

This is also saving me money.

Is foundation just a marketing brain-washing idea?

Read more: http://beekeeping.freeforums.net/thread/42/miracle-foundationless#ixzz2x02v1Rtt
 
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#158 ·
Foundationless or not as long as there is a flow everybody is happy. With this unstable weather I need to feed second time this year. The brood from the second batch of queens just emerged and eat all the honey. :)
I've just talked to some more experienced guy near me and he said the honey production is a disaster this year, meaning nothing. The paradox is that vegetation is so green and lush, plenty of flowers everywhere, but probably not much nectar.
 
#160 ·
I would think the biggest advantage to foundation is that you can put it pretty much anywhere and they will draw out basically worker comb. If you rotate in frames and put it on the sides you will end up with drone comb. If you put it up top you will end up with something in between. When you want to do splits you want to have a lot of worker comb for the splits, and foundation makes that easier. Plus it generally won't break off as Greg just said.

At least that is what I think, but I haven't used much foundation, so I could be completely wrong. I like knowing that they are not drawing out contaminated comb. The comb they draw may get contaminated over time, but it will take a while. Management is harder, but for a backyard guy it isn't a problem.
 
#161 ·
>So with 200 hives, 30 combs each, you are making 20 combs x 5 lbs of honey per comb x 100 hives = 10,000 lbs of honey? Nice. (5,000 lbs extracted from foundationless combs.)

My focus is raising bees and queens.

>Must be special equipment Michael is using for extracting.

Just a regular uncapping knife and an 18 frame radial extractor.
 
#164 ·
My focus is raising bees and queens.
That explains your point of view on queen excluders and on hive management. And foundationless beekeeping. :)

So 200 hives cost at least 100 $ per hive per year. [I myself calculate with costs like 100-120 € per hive per year. (That is about 130-160 $)] So for 200 hives that makes 20.000 $ costs per year. You sell your queens for 50 $ each? (See: http://bushfarms.com/beesqueens.htm) So you are raising about 400 queens per year? All queens stem from emergency cells?
 
#163 ·
Prior to the invention of movable frames (and long after, actually, since the ancient Greeks used something similar to top bar hives, it appears), honey was collected by killing the hive, normally kept in a skep or some similar device and straining out the honey form the crushed comb and brood. \

The wax was at least as valuable as the honey, it's wonderful stuff in a world without synthetic hydrocarbons.

Once movable frames were common, means of extracting the honey from the comb while leaving the wax intact provided the real advantage to extraction -- the bees have ready made, empty comb to put honey in. My bees this spring filled an entire super of empty comb in far less time than it took to draw another box half way -- it would appear they can fill a super with nectar in a day or two and dry it down to honey in a few more, while it takes a week or more to draw comb. If they don't have anywhere to put nectar, they don't collect it.

Forcing your bees to draw new comb every year is going to cause them to be unable to take advantage of a good flow, since without storage space they won't go to collect it!

With some care, drawn comb should last some years -- that means you have to keep the wax moths out of it, along with small hive beetles, and it can be very attractive to mice as a nesting spot, but if you take care of it the bees will happily fill it with nectar time and time again, much faster than they can make fresh comb.

Just something to remember. I've always been curious as to why established beekeepers are always complaining about making frames and installing "expensive" foundation. What are they doing with all of them if they aren't expanding their operation? Even if you replace brood comb every 5 years or so, that's only 20% a year, shouldn't be thousands of frames, and the frames are still good anyway, just cut out the old comb and stuff them back in.

Peter
 
#165 ·
I think that's The Miracle of Marketing. $50.00 for a queen? $70.00 for a Golden one? Golden it better bee. I'm glad that Michael can get those prices and I hope he sells a lot of them, or as many as he wants to. If I ordered 100 could I get them at $40.00 each? Just asking, not serious.
 
#167 ·
If your focus was more on honey production rather than queen production foundationless has more negatives. That is how I read it.

For me I like combining the two methods. I like Lauri's idea of using some percentage of foundation in the frames and letting the bees fill in the rest although at this point I don't know how well it is working. I have put partially destroyed frames in a hive and had great results having the bees fix them so I have a lot of hopes for Laurie's mixed frames.
 
#168 ·
I think a good queen is worth $40, and probably much more. I wouldn't sell a queen for $25 that I raised. Too much stuff involved in raising them. My guess is that in the next few years we will see the price of queens from everyone go up, and I would bet that $40 will sound like a bargain.
 
#169 ·
>Frames, foundation, wires, and such help humans deal w/ problems found when extracting combs w/out those things.

Frames were not invented to extract, they were invented to do inspections. Foundation was not invented to extract, it was invented to get rid of drones. Wiring was not invented to extract, it was invented to keep foundation from sagging. All of this is obvious in all of the old ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture books over the years. So NONE of these things had anything to do with extracting.

>Prior to the invention of movable frames (and long after, actually, since the ancient Greeks used something similar to top bar hives, it appears), honey was collected by killing the hive, normally kept in a skep or some similar device and straining out the honey form the crushed comb and brood.

That is simply a lie perpetuated by the proponents of patent hives back in the late 1800s. Moses Quimby was one of the most successful commercial beekeepers in the world at one time and had nothing but box hives and NO movable frames. He make splits, raised queens and harvested a lot of honey and did not kill hives to collect honey. There are many people keeping skeps now and none of them are killing their hives either. I won't say no one EVER did, but it was never common practice. The story that it was was sales propaganda.

>So you are raising about 400 queens per year?

If I had time, perhaps....

>All queens stem from emergency cells?

Not at all...

>I think a good queen is worth $40, and probably much more

Probably, but people should raise their own from local stock and they won't have to worry about it. :)
 
#170 ·
Frames were not invented to extract, they were invented to do inspections.
The first movable frames were invented by the Russian Propokovitch and he used this frames in his honey chambers exclusively. Sure he didn't inspect the honey combs! So frames were invented in the first place to harvest honey without killing the hives. Propokovitch was a beekeeper living in 1800 and he owned a business of 10,000 hives.
 
#174 ·
From what I have seen it is actually some combination of both.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M788T26WIlY&index=5&list=PL56F49B06454AAD5B

Watch that video from about the 4 minute mark until it shows them killing the brood with sulfur. I suspect that many bees returned to that brood before ti was gassed. If you look carefully at the bees they actually get from the skeps it appears to me to be very few bees. requiring several colones be combined to make up a package at all. In all it appears to me that the majority of bees are in fact killed.

I wonder how sulfuring of hives ranks as a mite treatment.
 
#177 ·
Not sure how the bees would return to the skep from which they were shaken... they are sealed up prior to knowcking the bees out, and the shaken bees are added to another colony to boost the total numbers. Then the brood was killed using the sulphur smoke. I would imagine that only a very few bees remain in the empty skeps and would be killed.
 
#178 · (Edited)
Yes, Brian, they are working very well. Out of several hundred, I've only had a handfull of frames with a small part of crooked comb that needed to be removed so they could start over. Just be sure to alternate solid frames with the partial foundationless until they get drawn. Also, as with any foundattionless make sure your hive is fairly level. If you see them building comb at an angle because your hive's bench had settled, just reverse the frame and it will straighten out.



2/3 sheet of rite cell (I use the other third for my mating nuc frames)
This size gives you more worker cells and 2-8 1/2"x 2/1/4" foundationless areas.



1/2 sheet of rite cell. This gives you centered worker sized cells and 2-8 1/2" x 4 1/4" foundationless sides for cut comb:



I am running frames tight together since they are new so they are not super thick honeycomb. When I get some fatties, I'll show you.
 
#179 ·
Thanks Lauri, I am using strictly mediums so the level criteria should not be as critical. I think I used a full frame between most of them but I might have run out on a couple of frames.

You know me, I didn't keep a good watch on the progress so this fall could be a pain or a blessing. We will see. I think it is a good idea no matter what results I get.
 
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