foundationless frames

[robmort]

150 skewers for £1 from poundland is even better.

 

[blackcloud]

100 lolly sticks £1 from the Works or £shop

Or follow the grandchildren round like a shark.
I've got an old frame with two vertical
skewers. and three horizontal lollysticks to try.

Ive read that dividing up frames with bamboo will result in whole sections of drone comb and once sealed it can be cut out to cull the varroa young too
Worth a go for hobbyists but perhaps too much faff for the heroes?

 

[citrus]

actually i grab a handful of stirrers from some of the non tax paying coffee shops

 

[citrus]

do you glue the bamboo frames in ?

so going to try this ... so do you drill out a small hole in the frame and glue in the bamboo skewers ?

(any glue that I shouldn't use ?)

 

[Swarm]

I believe the frame wedge will hold the one end and the gap between bottom bars is enough to hold them secure. I could be wrong.

 

[citrus]

ahh just checked this page

https://www.theapiarist.org/bamboo/

so drill and glue then

"When preparing the frames I remove the ‘wedge’ and drill two equally-spaced holes through the middle of the top bar. Use a drill bit thinner than the bamboo skewer; I used one of 2.5mm. Assemble the entire frame including both bottom bars. If you’ve not experienced the epiphany of using a nail gun before I recommend borrowing one and discovering how easy it makes putting frames together. Put a small dab of woodworking adhesive (on the inside with regard to the frame) in each of the two holes in the top bar, slip the pointed end of the skewer through the gap in the bottom bars and push it firmly into the glued hole."

 

[Adam Bee]

<snip>

I cut the strips off the bottom of standard frame top bars and replace them with a triangular strip of timber (point down) coated with a splash of my own beeswax. Works for me.

What is the little abacus with numbers for? (Seen in the attached image you original reply...) I can imagine they’d be useful if photographing the frame, but I’m just guessing.

 

[pargyle]

I have, in the past, frequently taken photos of frames in my hives during inspections - I have a camera on a tripod and the frames sit on a hanger - the numbered discs just are an easy way of identifiying which frames I'm looking at when I download the photos on to my computer.

The nice thing about good quality digital photos is that you can really get a good close look at them when you have downloaded them ...

 

[Adam Bee]

Thanks!

 

[citrus]

sorry to keep droning on about this ...

so I did set up a few hives with foundationless frames for both brood and supers (some with starters and some with bamboo)

what i notice is ....clearly the bees love to build drone brood comb and on one hive this is really pronounced ...

Once they have emerged tho ... will these frames be left ONLY for drones and later in the season these frames will just get left and only used next year ?

Can their drone comb be re-used by the hive ..or should i be taking action here ?

 

[BMH]

so I did set up a few hives with foundationless frames for both brood and supers (some with starters and some with bamboo)

what i notice is ....clearly the bees love to build drone brood comb and on one hive this is really pronounced ...

Once they have emerged tho ... will these frames be left ONLY for drones and later in the season these frames will just get left and only used next year ?

Can their drone comb be re-used by the hive ..or should i be taking action here ?

They backfill with honey once they have dont want to rear anymore drones

 

[eltalia]

so I did set up a few hives with foundationless frames for both brood and supers (some with starters and some with bamboo)
what i notice is ....clearly the bees love to build drone brood comb and on one hive this is really pronounced ...

... another use for a QX, load your blanks above one.

Once they have emerged tho ... will these frames be left ONLY for drones and later in the season these frames will just get left and only used next year ?

What they choose to do with them depends a lot on position.
Like buried in the broodnest you could end up with a restructured frame, in that
they chew the comb and rebuild worker cells. Whereas out at the extents of the BC
it'll be more drones or backfilled with honey, rarely capped off I'd offer.

Can their drone comb be re-used by the hive ..or should i be taking action here ?

As above... largely depends on your management (desired) outcomes.

Bill

 

[Beefriendly]

In my experience they are very reluctant to put honey in drone sized cells, until there is no where else to store it.
I think the pictures below tell the story quite well. They were just starting to fill the drone sized cells in the top picture but the ones in the bottom where bone dry. The bottom frame was destroyed as practically useless for honey collection.

 

[BMH]

I have no experience in drone cells in the supers, but they certainly backfill the drone cells in brood boxes once they are finished rearing drones for the season

 

[Beefriendly]

I'm trying to figure out if the super phenomena is a spring/early summer coinciding with the natural drone rearing event or whether they still respect (leave until last) the drone sized cells later in the season....
I have a few marked frames that I'll be watching when we go to the heather later this month.

 

[citrus]

I just wonder whether the time to introduce foundationless frames is AFTER the swarming season and all the main drone creation phase ?

 

[BMH]

They still create in, but not in such great numbers.

I tried it and would never go back to foundationless

 

[eltalia]

@citrus
As put earlier it is all about #position IF only building a BC out.
Attached is an example of a startup - Frame left is week 1, frame
right is three generations (brood) later... n0t a drone cell in sight.

Also as put earlier... where you want to play it safe use a QX and
mount the blank bars/frames above. More work sure buuut if you
are starting out it will sure cut out any indecision on what to put
where in the BC.

Bill

 

[Erichalfbee]

Once they have emerged tho ... will these frames be left ONLY for drones and later in the season these frames will just get left and only used next year ?

Can their drone comb be re-used by the hive ..or should i be taking action here ?

If you are setting your frames up for the bees to manage as they see fit it seems, to me, a bit pointless to interfere. As for culling drones for varroa..... ouch!!!!! There are better ways of dealing with mites. I never kill drones. The bees like them

 

[pargyle]

I've been foundationless since I started. The bees do produce more drone comb but they generally make it around the frame perimeter and it gets filled with stores once it's no longer needed for drone rearing. They tend to remodel any drone comb not around the edges when they need it for worker brood. Bees like making and rebuilding comb it seems it seems to me and they generally like to have about 20% of drones during the mating season ... my view - if that's what they have done for eons and survived who am I try and make them do something else. I don't use queen excluders but I rarely get brood in the supers and if they do - they clean it out and fill it with honey... this probably makes me a bad beekeeper in the eyes of some on here but I manage my colonies for swarming - I won't tolerate 'hot' colonies and I monitor for diseases (not that I've had any) and the effects of varroa and I feed if necessary ...other than that what the bees do the bees do.