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I have deep frames with drawn comb on them. clean comb with no pollen brood or other. What are they worth each?
Drawn Comb
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Nothing to most of us. Comb is valuable if it's been drawn in our own hives. Rarely do you find beekeepers that are willing to take on someone else's comb. Yes, I know an exception is when you buy a nuc but a living colony will exhibit signs of disease that would alert the beekeeper. Comb....not so much.
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I find that Odd..... I had people asking me for drawn frames for the past few years to put in swarm traps. it seemed all the rage in getting started beekeeping around here Free Bees! It is clean honeycomb guess I will Just keep it rather than have the girls draw more.
of course it is ridiculous to believe that all combs are disease ridden, but even more riduculous to believe that none are. please share your method for determining which are and which are not.
yes. that comes back in the day when american foul brood was the scourge and the law was passed to prevent the entry of afb spore infected equipment into the state. importing packages however is totally permissible and doesn't slow down the importing of mites, viruses and other pathogens such as efb.
bottom line - keep your comb for yourself because money can't buy it and if you can't use it your not beekeeping. don't buy used comb unless you can have it irradiated first, and good luck trying to get that done in most locations.
When I was starting out with nucs I would've paid extra for some empty drawn comb, mostly because swarm prevention is difficult when you're starting out without it. If the comb was coming from the same apiary as the nucs I wouldn't have worried too much about disease, as it would've mostly been pathogens I was inheriting anyway. I might've paid as much as $10/frame!
But now that I'm in my second year, I already feel like I have enough of my own drawn combs, and can make more. I'd no sooner introduce foreign ones than get an unnecessary blood transfusion. I don't think my combs are any cleaner than the next guy's, but if we swapped a few with each other, probably we'd both be worse off.
So anyway, I don't know if I'm typical of the market, but I'm thinking there might be demand for 5-frame nucs that come with an extra 5 empty drawn combs, from the same apiary. Loose comb seems like a harder sell, not because it's a worse vector of disease necessarily, but just a more avoidable one.
But now that I'm in my second year, I already feel like I have enough of my own drawn combs, and can make more. I'd no sooner introduce foreign ones than get an unnecessary blood transfusion. I don't think my combs are any cleaner than the next guy's, but if we swapped a few with each other, probably we'd both be worse off.
So anyway, I don't know if I'm typical of the market, but I'm thinking there might be demand for 5-frame nucs that come with an extra 5 empty drawn combs, from the same apiary. Loose comb seems like a harder sell, not because it's a worse vector of disease necessarily, but just a more avoidable one.
those are good points cfalls and perhaps i was a little harsh with my comment above, apologies to the forum. (i'm dealing with a disease communicable by used comb at the moment so a bit hypersensitive about it i guess)
i guess the question for i'llbeedan is what is the history of the comb? what happened to the bees that used to be on it? i suppose those who pull supers and store comb off the hives after harvesting might end up with a surplus of drawn comb without any bees on it, but other than that having a colony die is the only other way i am aware of...
i guess the question for i'llbeedan is what is the history of the comb? what happened to the bees that used to be on it? i suppose those who pull supers and store comb off the hives after harvesting might end up with a surplus of drawn comb without any bees on it, but other than that having a colony die is the only other way i am aware of...
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Well as stated above it is comb from extracted honey supers last fall. It has been cleaned by the bees removed again and spritzed with BT for winter storage. it is first crop clean yellow wax. I have people asking me for drawn comb so they can put it is swarm traps. Or second year keepers to facilitate the growth of splits. All I wanted to know is what I should charge. Just wanted to be fair to the buyer and myself. It is clean, quality comb and the hives it came from are all still alive. What I do not sell will go back on the hives within days.
I have sold about all I care to spare for $10.00 per frame. Swarm season and splitting is at prime in my area right now. I just wanted to know a fair price. Not the logistics and moralities of selling the stuff. Why is it when you ask a simple question here you get everything from the how to's to the chemical make up of materials? but rarely a simple answer.
I have sold about all I care to spare for $10.00 per frame. Swarm season and splitting is at prime in my area right now. I just wanted to know a fair price. Not the logistics and moralities of selling the stuff. Why is it when you ask a simple question here you get everything from the how to's to the chemical make up of materials? but rarely a simple answer.
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An answer to that is that if you had given this information first that context would have elicited different responses. Without context our reactions are highly influenced by our previous experiences. Nothing unique about Bee source posters.
yup i agree for you its a very valuable commodity however to other beeks ( me at least) its a potential source of disease and problems.
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I don't sell many empty drawn comb frames, but I sell a lot of frames of brood. Price for frames of brood is $30-$35 this year. Why sell them empty?
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I am always puzzled by the fear of drawn comb on this forum. What diseases are comb contagious besides AFB? Some say EFB and others say it isn't. Mites? I don't think so? Nosema? Chalkbrood?
I have acquired a lot of drawn comb over the years.
Often it is too crappy to use and I chuck it frame and all. But a lot comes from crashing beginners and has not even seen a whole season. What appears usable I smell and visually inspect each comb looking for AFB. Last week I was given eight almost brand new medium supers, two garden covers including 20 beautiful blonde extracting combs. I didn't even inspect those. I have never felt that my hives have gotten diseases from acquired combs using general precautions.
I have acquired a lot of drawn comb over the years.
Often it is too crappy to use and I chuck it frame and all. But a lot comes from crashing beginners and has not even seen a whole season. What appears usable I smell and visually inspect each comb looking for AFB. Last week I was given eight almost brand new medium supers, two garden covers including 20 beautiful blonde extracting combs. I didn't even inspect those. I have never felt that my hives have gotten diseases from acquired combs using general precautions.
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They were deeps I use all deeps.
My bad, you said that in the first post. Anyway, unlike some of the others, I would have no problem with using clean comb from healthy hives if I needed it. When I first started and had no drawn comb, a box worth of drawn deeps for $100 would have really helped out.
On a side note, if you are selling some for swarm traps, shouldn't it be the old dark brood comb?
On a side note, if you are selling some for swarm traps, shouldn't it be the old dark brood comb?
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Because people were asking me for empty drawn frames so they can put them in swarm traps.
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