drone foundation?

[Quisquis]

hi all, searching for foundation I notice some suppliers are offering 'drone foundation' - anyone know what this is? If it's what it sounds like it can't be a best seller

And some American sites have plastic brood frames, coated w wax, which they claim are longer lasting, more durable etc.Anyone have any experience of them?

cheers
Jon

 

[Davelin]

Some people use drone foundation in supers as the larger cells give you more storage per frame. It's fairly marginal though, maybe make a difference if you are doing it on a large scale, but not for most of us.

Never tried plastic, but as it is good practice to replace brood frames on a regular basis, longer lasting is maybe not a good selling point.

 

[sussexbaker]

Hiya Quisquis

Drone foundation features larger cells embossed on the wax, so the bees will draw out bigger cells suitable for drones to be raised in. As well as giving you a fixed area for drones to be laid (for keeping track of them, drone culling for IPM etc) people also claim that it takes less wax to draw the frames out and that if used in supers makes for easier extraction with more honey per frame.

No experience of plastic frames I'm afraid.

Norman

 

[sussexbaker]

Never tried plastic, but as it is good practice to replace brood frames on a regular basis, longer lasting is maybe not a good selling point.

I'd have thought it's a lot easier to clean plastic frames to an acceptable standard then wood. Surely boiling them up/letting wax moths feast to get rid of the wax then a bath in Virkon S would leave them pretty much sterile?

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Colonies are going to raise drones no matter what.

See above for using it in supers. In the brood box, I am basically foundationless after a year but if you give them drone foundation they draw nice regular worker comb in their own frames with fewer hiding places for QCs. There's probably an argument for play-cup foundation, come to think of it...

Also you get your drones in one place to keep an eye on in various ways and I admit a couple of mine did end up being sacrificed as a simple biotechnical measure

 

[victor meldrew]

I use 9 frames per national super , this equates with a yield of 90 pounds bottled from 3 full supers.
You maybe surprised at the increase in the honey to wax ratio when using drone foundation . I intend experimenting along these lines .
VM


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Davelin]

I'd have thought it's a lot easier to clean plastic frames to an acceptable standard then wood. Surely boiling them up/letting wax moths feast to get rid of the wax then a bath in Virkon S would leave them pretty much sterile?

My old brood frames get burnt!!

I buy seconds, it's not worth the hassle and mess of cleaning them up in my opinion

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

My old brood frames get burnt!!



I buy seconds, it's not worth the hassle and mess of cleaning them up in my opinion

I'm learning that, especially foundationless when putting foundation in is the worst part of making up frames.

 

[sussexbaker]

My old brood frames get burnt!!

I buy seconds, it's not worth the hassle and mess of cleaning them up in my opinion

I was chatting to two of my mentors last week and one of them was saying that he now favours burning his old brood frame, and there was a discussion about doing so every year.

 

[itma]

The other use of drone cell foundation is to put in one frame into the brood box of your best colony in late spring.
Maximising the quality drones, to the benefit of mating queens eventual offspring.

For supers, it may be more important to get drone drawn on a closer spacing than 10/box, as the bees can be more 'free-form' with it.
Using it is a marginal refinement which most find no need to bother with.


Plastic foundation (available in Langstroth sizes only, I believe) isn't generally liked by beekeepers, or, it might seem, bees. However, commercial operators in the US may claim that there is a bottom-line $ advantage to them …

I'd have thought it's a lot easier to clean plastic frames to an acceptable standard then wood. Surely boiling them up/letting wax moths feast to get rid of the wax then a bath in Virkon S would leave them pretty much sterile?

If you boil plastic frames (or foundation), the reports are that it warps.

On the other hand if you are contemplating boiling, boiling wooden frames, briefly, in washing soda (no real need for caustic soda) does the job remarkably well.

 

[wessexmario]

Another possible use for drone foundation is to act as a preferential place for varroa. Having one frame in the brood box with that size cell, it encourages the bees to draw drone cells there. The mite prefers the larger drone cells so the varroa population can be better targeted by culling the drone larvae before they emerge. The in-cell part of the varroa's life cycle is missed by many of the other methods of varroa control, so a good additional weapon for IPM.

 

[Erichalfbee]

But then you have to replace the frame you are removing for drone culling with a new one and rewax the one you have removed. Better to introduce a short frame so that you can slice the capped drone brood into a plastic bag and pop the same frame back.

 

[wessexmario]

was just adding to the possible uses for a sheet of drone foundation

 

[Erichalfbee]

was just adding to the possible uses for a sheet of drone foundation

Another.....unwired is great for rolled candles

 

[Bosleeu]

hi all, searching for foundation I notice some suppliers are offering 'drone foundation' - anyone know what this is? If it's what it sounds like it can't be a best seller

And some American sites have plastic brood frames, coated w wax, which they claim are longer lasting, more durable etc.Anyone have any experience of them?

cheers
Jon

I put a frame of drone foundation in the hives that I like working with and produce lots of honey. The result is normally hundreds of drones to mate with your virgins. Not isolation apiary by a long shot but at least it increases the odds a tiny bit. If you use starter strips you will be surprised at how much drone comb the bees will choose to make.

I have used plastic frames this year for the first time, had no trouble getting the bees on them and they are a dream to extract. They also appear to be propolised less. You can apparently scrape/melt off the comb and sterilise them, but that will be something for next season. All in I am happy with them so far as I never get time to make frames and to coat them with wax was easy and quick.

 

[alanf]

hi all, searching for foundation I notice some suppliers are offering 'drone foundation' - anyone know what this is? If it's what it sounds like it can't be a best seller

And some American sites have plastic brood frames, coated w wax, which they claim are longer lasting, more durable etc.Anyone have any experience of them?...

I know some beekeepers who use both drone foundation and plastic frames as part of their varroa IPM. In Spring they put an unwired drone wax foundation sheet in a plastic frame. First drone brood is forked for varroa and usually sacrificed. Insert more foundation and either fork again or leave to completion depending on previous varroa counts.

These are plastic National deep frames, clamp shut for quick wax change. I don't remember seeing any of these red frames for sale at shows, although a couple of suppliers list them. A couple of people have said they tried a few frames of plastic foundation as an experiment, with or without a wax coating. The bees ignored plastic foundation if wax was available so no longer in use.

 

[MuswellMetro]

plastic foundation,

I was talking to the head beekeeper at LASI, university of Sussex at last months workshop about i raised their use of the american plastic foundation and he pull out a box of plastic foundation brood frames that had been just taken off a hive

what a mess, the bees had done about everything but drawn out cells on the wax coated plastic foundation, he said it takes about three goes of drawing prsentable frames ,

first put they put it in to draw then taken out and trimmed back flat, trimming off bur comb and double wild comb then re intrdiing to the hive etc in order to get the bees to draw a presentable flat frame ( and some he said was acceptable as flat comb would have been thrown out on my apairy as it was still quite uneven

He suggested they may revert to normal foundation if they cannot solve the problems

 

[Bosleeu]

plastic foundation,

I was talking to the head beekeeper at LASI, university of Sussex at last months workshop about i raised their use of the american plastic foundation and he pull out a box of plastic foundation brood frames that had been just taken off a hive

what a mess, the bees had done about everything but drawn out cells on the wax coated plastic foundation, he said it takes about three goes of drawing prsentable frames ,

That is totally different than my experience. My bees have drawn out 60 plastic frames without any problem. They took to them without any hesitation. I think there was one side of one frame with a bit of brace comb. Maybe I was just lucky with the colony. Next year I will have more colonies on them so will be interesting to see how they do then.

 

[pargyle]

That is totally different than my experience. My bees have drawn out 60 plastic frames without any problem. They took to them without any hesitation. I think there was one side of one frame with a bit of brace comb. Maybe I was just lucky with the colony. Next year I will have more colonies on them so will be interesting to see how they do then.

Yes ... it's strange isn't it ? Was listening to two of my association beekeepers who both tried plastic frames and foundation this year (another member swears by them) ... one was saying how fantastically well they have worked .. the other described a total mess that mid season he started swapping out ... As always, with bees, you can never tell what the little beggars are going to do !

 

[itma]

plastic foundation,

I was talking to the head beekeeper at LASI, university of Sussex at last months workshop about i raised their use of the american plastic foundation and he pull out a box of plastic foundation brood frames that had been just taken off a hive
…
He suggested they may revert to normal foundation if they cannot solve the problems

At the previous year's Open Day, the beek/lab assistant was telling me how awful the stuff was and that the only reason they were using it was because Ratnieks himself insisted.
I wonder if he will eventually see sense?