Frame wiring with fishing line

[pargyle]

Hello, I'm new to beekeeping and have read about this method in Ted Hooper's iconic book; what are the advantages of this over buying ready wired foundation?

I set up my first hive, a National - last summer (using pre-wired foundation) and ordered my first nucleus of bees the other day, for delivery in the New Year.

Thanks

Personally (and apologies to those that have heard it before !) I am using foundationless 14 x 12 with three horizontal wires. The bees build perfectly good comb (and many would say better as there is only new beeswax made by your own bees in comb they build themselves - you really don't know what is in commercial foundation). There's nothing to hate about becoming foundation free ... it's a fallacy that the bees take longer to draw out their own comb and it reduces honey production. It saves you money with the price of good quality foundation where it is at present. The stainless steel wire and tool to stretch it costs a few pounds from China on ebay (and is identical to that sold by Th..ns it appears).

So ... try it, you might like it !! This is what you get ...


http://www.flickr.com/photos/99514363@N06/sets/

 

[Ely]

Interesting. Something to try when I return to beekeeping. I love building frames with the radio on but hate messing around with foundation. I take it this is possible for all frame sizes? Do you find any increase in drone come and if so, is that a problem for you?

 

[cjhart2]

Personally (and apologies to those that have heard it before !) I am using foundationless 14 x 12 with three horizontal wires. The bees build perfectly good comb (and many would say better as there is only new beeswax made by your own bees in comb they build themselves - you really don't know what is in commercial foundation). There's nothing to hate about becoming foundation free ... it's a fallacy that the bees take longer to draw out their own comb and it reduces honey production. It saves you money with the price of good quality foundation where it is at present. The stainless steel wire and tool to stretch it costs a few pounds from China on ebay (and is identical to that sold by Th..ns it appears).

So ... try it, you might like it !! This is what you get ...


http://www.flickr.com/photos/99514363@N06/sets/

Next year i am also heading this way for the brood , the supers i will probably stay with wired foundation for the time being but might try one super as a test .
Nice set of photos .

 

[pargyle]

Interesting. Something to try when I return to beekeeping. I love building frames with the radio on but hate messing around with foundation. I take it this is possible for all frame sizes? Do you find any increase in drone come and if so, is that a problem for you?

Bees will, if left to their own devices, build around 20% of drone comb early in the season (particularly) and I found that mine did this ... if you look at some of the early inspection photos you will see it mainly at the bottom of the frames ... later on they remodelled these cells. So, no it wasn't a problem and to be honest, if you are into drone culling for your IPM then it is an easy job to chop it out and let them rebuild.

I can't see any reason why you couldn't go foundationless on any size frames ... 14 x 12's are pretty big but I've found them quite stable without foundation to work from ... they just fill the frames as 'normal' and attach it to the sides and bottom and the wires get embedded in it.

And let's face it ... it's what bees do naturally !!

 

[seaknight]

Thanks for the info and nice photos too!
I can't help but think "what is my time worth" though - to be fiddling around with wiring my own frames....
Going foundationless seems a great idea in principle, although I need bees (my first nuc is on order for next summer!)

I can't decide between using brood and a half, or adding a 14" x 12" eke and getting some 14" x 12" frames...
Any advice would be gratefully received, thanks!

 

[REDWOOD]

Thanks for the info and nice photos too!
I can't help but think "what is my time worth" though - to be fiddling around with wiring my own frames....
Going foundationless seems a great idea in principle, although I need bees (my first nuc is on order for next summer!)

I can't decide between using brood and a half, or adding a 14" x 12" eke and getting some 14" x 12" frames...
Any advice would be gratefully received, thanks!

There is a lot of discussions on the forum about frame sizes and hive capacity and it comes down to two factors really one prolific queens and two winter.
If you have a prolific queen then she will fill a BB in no time and for a beginner it can catch them out with not giving the queen enough space to lay and will/can trigger swarm mode but for a beekeeper with more experience they will know when the queen needs more space and will give them foundation or another BB but then you are on double brood which isn't a problem for most.
A 14x12 BB can hold more feed for winter without the faffing of a extra super to obtain the extra feed required for winter but also has a down side of honey yield been less.
The decision is really yours, talk to some beekeepers who use them before you decide.

 

[pargyle]

Thanks for the info and nice photos too!
I can't help but think "what is my time worth" though - to be fiddling around with wiring my own frames....
Going foundationless seems a great idea in principle, although I need bees (my first nuc is on order for next summer!)

I can't decide between using brood and a half, or adding a 14" x 12" eke and getting some 14" x 12" frames...
Any advice would be gratefully received, thanks!

Well ... if you are going to buy your frames already made up and with foundation already in them you are looking at nearly £65 for 10 frames ... whereas you can buy 14 x 12 frames unassembled in the sales for about £45 for 50 ... So the difference is roughly £5.50 a frame if you go foundationless and wire them yourself !

The time taken to assemble the frames and put the wires in (and there's a couple of wiring jigs in a thread on here somewhere that make life a lot easier) is about 10 minutes absolute max (a lot less when you get the hang of it). So your time is worth a saving of about £50 an hour by my reckoning.

The debate between standard national and 14 x 12 will roll on and on ... it's very much a matter of personal preference. I made the decision to go with 14 x 12 because it made sense to me as I was not going to be lifting brood boxes about ... the real downside of large frames means large(ish) brood boxes and it can be a two man job to lift a full 14 x 12 brood box. But ... if you can cope with that and manage the potential lifting there is a lot to be said for working with 14 x 12. So ... yer pays yer money and makes yer choice ... it might be an idea to get hands on with a few different frame sizes and boxes before you commit yourself.