Experience making own frames

[JustAddBees]

Well that was interesting reading...

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

[Finman]

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Seeley's research is interesting to calculate, how much actually free natural combs cost.

First foundations to a langstroth box. 8 kg honey as wax. 3 boxes ...25 kg
Loss in yield ny drones -20 kg..

Oh boy 45 kg loss in honey that is the yield of the year.

Breaking combs in extraction... Not seen researches. But it must be much, because new wired combs will ne broken quite much.

So natural combs are really expencive. 40 kg honey for it a' £ 6/kg is £ 240.
That is a price of a hive in spring.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Lots of food for thought here. As I have Demareed natural frames out of the BBs I have culled a lot of drone BIAS and comb and put down worker frames. The idea is to build up drawn worker frames. But the colony I ASed has a LOT of drones despite that and has filled only one deep compared to 2 and 3 for the other two, which have fewer (same methods basically) so I may need to get more aggressive. Easier when I have a better stock of drawn comb.

 

[BeeJayBee]

Results give the same if you calculate that one wax kilo needs 8 kiloa honey.

1 wax kilo equals how many frames?

 

[pargyle]

.
Seeley's research is interesting to calculate, how much actually free natural combs cost.

First foundations to a langstroth box. 8 kg honey as wax. 3 boxes ...25 kg
Loss in yield ny drones -20 kg..

Oh boy 45 kg loss in honey that is the yield of the year.

Breaking combs in extraction... Not seen researches. But it must be much, because new wired combs will ne broken quite much.

So natural combs are really expencive. 40 kg honey for it a' £ 6/kg is £ 240.
That is a price of a hive in spring.

Well ... if all the above were true then I would be having to feed my bees about 5Kg of sugar per hive per week just so that they could build the comb and feed the drones in my hives and as for honey ... well they wouldn't have enough energy left to fly, let alone forage for nectar.

Another load of your twisted statistics cobbled together from a dozen other misguided sources on the internet ....

 

[Finman]

Well ... if all the above were true then I would be having to feed my bees about 5Kg of sugar per hive per week just so that they could build the comb and feed the drones in my hives and as for honey ... well they wouldn't have enough energy left to fly, let alone forage for nectar.

Another load of your twisted statistics cobbled together from a dozen other misguided sources on the internet ....

Yep. Statistic should be banned in hobby forums. Not nice to read.
Natural beekeepers have their standard statements,

Seeley is a beekeeping professor in Cornell University. It has done much work in beekeeping.
.

 

[Finman]

1 wax kilo equals how many frames?

10 foundations is 1kg and needed to one Langstroth box.

 

[Tom Bick]

10 foundations is 1kg and needed to one Langstroth box.

My observations are that the bees only use about half of the wax given to them as foundation and then add some of their own wax to the combs. You can see this by looking at the midrib of combs made with foundation as it's still very thick.

 

[Finman]

My observations are that the bees only use about half of the wax given to them as foundation and then add some of their own wax to the combs. You can see this by looking at the midrib of combs made with foundation as it's still very thick.

My mentor used extra thick foundations over 50 years ago, that bees get building material to walls.

"But add some of their own wax" It I not true because a swarm can make to some degree the foundation combs and then they stop comb building.

If you melt ready normal size comb, you can see how much it has wax, when walls are ready.

But these honey consumption things have bee known before I started to nurse bees. I read them from book " Modern Beekeeping, 1961".

Thin wax bottom is not advantage in extracting.

Honey yield/natural comb calculations have bern made in 3 years researching and with measuring tens of hives.

For example Micheal Bush do not mind about these research results, but he has his own observations, but no any measurings.

 

[Finman]

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Britain uses very dense wiring? Why?

In Finland beekeepers started to use 2 wire in Langstroth 10 years ago, but now 2 wire frame selling is stopped and beeks are returning to 4 wire.

For example when full honey frame leans against hive Wall, the comb makes quite bad bow.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Honey yield/natural comb calculations have bern made in 3 years researching and with measuring tens of hives.

Any chance of a link to that Canadian piece, Finski? I looked (how I found the Seeley piece) but could not find it.

 

[Finman]

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Often old links are difficult to find because they will change in couple if years.
Seeley drone combs you find with google.

I can tell that to find real knowledge from internet is behind hard work. But in this forum lots of guys take their main Job to mock me, but they cannot offer better information than their own gut feelings. And they call themselves scientist. ... Selective science, what supports their former attitudes. Some kind of scientology.

 

[pargyle]

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Often old links are difficult to find because they will change in couple if years.
Seeley drone combs you find with google.

I can tell that to find real knowledge from internet is behind hard work. But in this forum lots of guys take their main Job to mock me, but they cannot offer better information than their own gut feelings. And they call themselves scientist. ... Selective science, what supports their former attitudes. Some kind of scientology.

You see Finman, I do accept that there is some 'scientific' evidence - or at least some timed observations for the premises of wax usage that you put forward. However, the observations I have of my hives (and a number of other beekeepers who are foundationless) is that the ACTUAL cost of honey production is not as great as those who, in the past, created the statistics, would have you believe. I have no desire to criticise Seeley, who is one of the stalwarts of beekeeping in the last century, but ... times and bees have changed - highly insulated hives, hybrid and evolved bees - even the urban environments in which many of us keep bees all have an influence on what happens inside the hive. It may be that the statistics, at the time they were produced , were an accurate representation of what Seeley found, at the time they were produced - but the study is old, was completed using timber Langstroth hives and I suspect little or no insulation. We know that bees prefer a higher hive temperature for wax and comb production so, perhaps, my observations are a reflection of different hive conditions ?

As a hobby beekeeper I recognise that I may not be maximising my honey crop but do I really want to engage in all those tweeks that in traditional animal farming would be considered as 'more intensive' ? This is not said, in any way, as a disparaging comment about those who keep their bees as a source of revenue and need to maintain honey surpluses .. I drink milk from cows that are often (I suspect) intensively farmed and highly managed for productivity - I accept this as part and parcel of modern life - but, if I had my own cows, they would eat fresh grass and live as milking cows did in my grandfathers day. Mixed principles ? Yes ... but I never said I was perfect and I do what I can, where I can, to meet the best of my ideals.

As a result I want to try and keep my bees without the assistance of treatments and I am also conscious of the fact that some commercially purchased foundation is not so much bees wax as 'whatever' wax with potential residues of whatever has been used by beekeepers in their hives prior to recycling it (as you do !). So avoiding this - at least until I have sufficient 'home produced wax' to make my own foundation is important to me.

So .. I respect your derisory opinions of me as a beekeeper but I intend to continue, if at all possible, with the way that I currently keep my bees. As I keep saying (and you continue to ignore) they are healthy, disease free, managing whatever mite loads are in the colonies and are as productive in honey surplus as meets my needs. Do I want more ? - Well not at the expense of compromising my ideals and at a cost to my bees that I find unacceptable. This may not meet your definition of what you term a 'good beekeeper' but it's about time you started to respect the fact that not everyone in beekeeping wishes to be your sort of beekeeper.

 

[Finman]

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Pargyle. I do not need to prove anything to you.

Scientific evidence to you? You get it yourself. So do I. Your writings are pure poking. Nothing more.
. You speak about some fat frames and that is good. Beekeepers speak about capped boxes. That is the difference.

I give to you valuable scientific information, but you do not understand it. Clearly you need some basic knowledge about biology. Don't waste your only life in poking.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

You see etc.

Sensibly put, although this is an expensive hobby and if I can double my yield with some non-brutal manipulations, I am going to do it. Agree the ideal is home-produced foundation but I am not aware of an economic way to do that. Open to ideas.

 

[pargyle]

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Pargyle. I do not need to prove anything to you.

I give to you valuable scientific information, but you do not understand it. Clearly you need some basic knowledge about biology. Don't waste your only life in poking.

Who asked you to ???

I'm fed up of trying to get you to understand that I am not the one poking ...

You seem to follow my posts with the simple desire to disprove anything that I say or disparage anything I do .

As for your constant suggestion that I don't understand what you are saying ... If you re-read my posts I think you will find that I do understand ... I just don't accept everything which you hold as gospel.

Best just put me on ignore as you can clearly live without me .... and leave me in peace.

 

[Finman]

Who asked you to ???

I'm fed up of trying to get you to understand that I am not the one poking ...

You seem to follow my posts with the simple desire to disprove anything that I say or disparage anything I do .

As for your constant suggestion that I don't understand what you are saying ... If you re-read my posts I think you will find that I do understand ... I just don't accept everything which you hold as gospel.

Best just put me on ignore as you can clearly live without me .... and leave me in peace.

I get a life

.

 

[Finman]

Sensibly put, although this is an expensive hobby and if I can double my yield with some non-brutal manipulations, I am going to do it. Agree the ideal is home-produced foundation but I am not aware of an economic way to do that. Open to ideas.

To me foundations are £ 3/ kg, when I give my own wax to foundation maker. It takes 5 minutes to handle 50 kg foundations.

And again Pargyle got a idea to mock me. For what? Slended pal.

 

[BeeJayBee]

10 foundations is 1kg and needed to one Langstroth box.

Jumbo Lang/Dadant is the biggest foundation we can buy in this country, and, according to Thornes, it measures (L x W x H): 425.45mm x 273.05mm x 2.00mm.

My scales are accurate -10 sheets of Jumbo Lang/Dadant foundation weigh 900g. 10 sheets of your Langstroth foundation would weigh less, so your figures are wrong.

To me foundations are £ 3/ kg, when I give my own wax to foundation maker. It takes 5 minutes to handle 50 kg foundations.

10 sheets (900g) of Dadant/Jumbo Langstroth premier wired foundation costs £18.29 from Thornes. 10 sheets of standard foundation costs £15.34 (price for drone base, because they don't have cheaper worker foundation on the website)*.

You haven't factored in the costs of taking the old wax to the dealer, maybe your postage is cheaper than here, or your fuel costs less?

I am also conscious of the fact that some commercially purchased foundation is not so much bees wax as 'whatever' wax with potential residues of whatever has been used by beekeepers in their hives prior to recycling it

*Thornes foundation, by the way, carries these descriptions
Premier is "British, Irish, Australian and New Zealand beeswax." (tends to be light coloured and smells nice)
Standard is "beeswax blended from a variety of sources" (in my experience this ranges in colour from fairly light to very dark with a variable aroma)

 

[Finman]

My scales are accurate -10 sheets of Jumbo Lang/Dadant foundation weigh 900g. 10 sheets of your Langstroth foundation would weigh less, so your figures are

You haven't factored in the costs of taking the old wax to the dealer, maybe your postage is cheaper than here, or your fuel costs less)

I weighed my langstroth foundation just now, and it was 110 g.

We make on purpose thick foundations. Such is life here.

About costs...

When I go the stuff dealer, I buy all what I need in that summer. My Corolla is usually full of jars and packing materials.

If I do not have own wax, foundation kg price is £ 12/kg.

. Thanks for helping in cost counting, but it does not help.