Patternless foundation, or negative patterned foundation

[Finman]

Why do you insist on decrying anyone or anything that does not conform to your restricted ways of keeping bees. .

Of course everyone here makes as he like. These are adult guys.

I just tell facts, even if they do not appeal you, and many more either.

Facts hurt, do they?

Like you warned me that everyone does not agree me when I said that "bees do not indentify human faces".

YOu mean, that in this froum it is not allowed to tell researched facts about beekeeping. Everything should like fairytale with one summer experience.

British beekeeping is far too deep to misslead any more. Douple prices, no honey yield...........but adult men!!!!

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[Finman]

With all your years experience I would suggest you need to train your bees better if they can only build on foundation ... .

Listen Pargyle. When I started 51 years ago, I had a insulating board box where I put my first swarm. In a week they build it full of combs.

Then I bought a straw hive / skep to my second hive. It has mere "narural cells" inside.

I have seen many kind of combs during my life. And you have balls to teach me what experiences I need in beekeeping.



I just wonder what magic is in "natural combs". I do not understand.

Get a life pargyle!

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"you need to train your bees better if they can only build on Foundation"

Oh dear. You know something about beekeeping, do you? Its main idea is to produce honey.
I learned those natural combs during my first beekeeping week 51 years ago.


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[Finman]

.
Wax-comb foundation, invented in 1857

It was the biggest invention with movable frame in beekeeping. With that it was able to change the queen and bee breeding was possible.

And the second best was surely an extractor, because you need not destroy ready combs after harvesting.

Second big thing was disease control.

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in Finland it was not rare to use straw hives/keps 50 years ago. or hollow tree trunk hive. But that is not beekeeping.

Why not top bars or natural combs

My goal is to produce honey and sell it.

To do that I move hives to outer pastures where I get very good yields, 60-150 kg/hive.

Natural combs or top bars do not stand migrative beekeeping, and as I have written, I loose £ 350 with every started hive if I do not use foundations.

I renew combs 2 boxes every year per hive and that would do 15 kg/hive honey every year. The cost would be £ 80

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[Madge]

... that wireless foundation question I do not understand. Pointing up?

If you look at the hollows in a sheet of embossed foundation you'll see three small lines forming a Y on the one side and upside-down Y on the other. That's the only difference on a sheet of foundation. There is no top or bottom.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

acaricide residues in wax was relevant question 10 years ago, but not any more.

Good to know, and in my VAST experience of over five months, I have survived without acaricide beyond OA and Thymol, with the help of people like you and Hivemaker. and intend to stay that way. Thank you.

So I care less personally about resistance, but I care as a general issue and I would like always to have a panic solution in a real crisis so that is reassuring, thanks.

And apologies to you and Mellifera Crofter, I was clowning around about the foundation, given how heated the discussion was getting. but it's not obvious, so it's good to have out there.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Pointing up?

right up!

And you have balls to teach me

Plenty of that being spoken here

 

[Finman]

If you look at the hollows in a sheet of embossed foundation you'll see three small lines forming a Y on the one side and upside-down Y on the other. That's the only difference on a sheet of foundation. There is no top or bottom.

Last summer I took those pieces of natural combs 3 different starts ups.

In those combs that little Y had all their own direction clearly. It seems that bees do not mind about that thing.


A friend hammered 3 foundation pieces together last summer, and there was then 3 directions. It does not affected to bees. They made a perfect combs.

Foundation is so old trick that nothing new in it. And less new in "natural combs".

 

[Finman]

right up!

Plenty of that being spoken here

A guys has 6 frame swarm hive half a summer and he knows everything.

That one kind of attitude to other people and to others' skills. It supports my theory that one hive owner knows all because he does not know anything else.

Those natural comb guys are tough guys. Nature is on their side. They have saved the earth with their top bars much more many times than Swarzenegger with his muscles..

 

[pargyle]

A guys has 6 frame swarm hive half a summer and he knows everything.

That one kind of attitude to other people and to others' skills. It supports my theory that one hive owner knows all because he does not know anything else.

Those natural comb guys are tough guys. Nature is on their side. They have saved the earth with their top bars much more many times than Swarzenegger with his muscles..

You contiunue to spout rude insufferable rubbish ... I may not have your years of experience but if I thought years of experience would turn me into you then I would quit now.

My original comment was that you do not NEED foundation if you don't want to use it ... I didn't and I have a successful, thriving hive with 13 filled frames of straight natural comb (free of the cost and risks of contaminated foundation) that is not as you describe it.

If I, as a one hive owner, can achieve this then it's not difficult ! The fact that you cannot accept that there IS an alternative to your restrictive style of beekeeping is your problem ... not mine.

 

[Finman]

.

My original comment was that you do not NEED foundation if you don't want to use it .

And I said that it is the most expencive way to get combs, and the comb quality is poor.

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[pargyle]

And I said that it is the most expencive way to get combs, and the comb quality is poor.

.

But this is just not right ... there is no evidence that bees left to make their own comb are any less productive than those provided with foundation and the foundationless comb produced by my bees has been admired by everyone who has seen it. Just more of your bigotted opinion I'm afraid ...

 

[victor meldrew]

Expensive in that it takes approx 8 lbs of honey to provide the energy for 1 lb of wax!
Gotta admit 1 lb of wax goes a long way !
VM


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[pargyle]

Expensive in that it takes approx 8 lbs of honey to provide the energy for 1 lb of wax!
Gotta admit 1 lb of wax goes a long way !
VM


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Well ... Michael Bush doesn't seem to think that there is a detrimental side to letting them build their own comb .. indeed, he seems to think that there are many advantages that far outweigh any downsides in terms of bee energy offset.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoundationless.htm

 

[Hivemaker.]

And I said that it is the most expencive way to get combs, and the comb quality is poor.

.

Absolutely agree with you on that.

 

[victor meldrew]

Yep the idea of foundation is to try to standardise comb in frames to ease bee management pure and simple!
There is no doubt that it has and does achieve this for the the majority of Beekeepers both hobbyist a commercial keeper!
The length of time foundation use is testimony to the fact M
VM


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[pargyle]

Yep the idea of foundation is to try to standardise comb in frames to ease bee management pure and simple!
There is no doubt that it has and does achieve this for the the majority of Beekeepers both hobbyist a commercial keeper!
The length of time foundation use is testimony to the fact M
VM


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I don't have an issue with people using foundation .... if it works for you then in my book it's fine. I am not and never have been an evangelist for my personal style of beekeeping. My comments have always been directed to those early OP's that were seeking alternatives to traditional foundation ... the fact that one beekeeper on here who lives in Finland cannot accept that there is a a successful alternative to HIS way is what I take exception to ....

 

[Itchy]

"the comb quality is poor"

In what way?

 

[Finman]

But this is just not right ... there is no evidence that bees left to make their own comb are any less productive than those provided with foundation and the foundationless comb produced by my bees has been admired by everyone who has seen it. Just more of your bigotted opinion I'm afraid ...

3 years test: http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/articles/fdnvsdrawn.htm

Canada 1988

 

[victor meldrew]

I don't have an issue with people using foundation .... if it works for you then in my book it's fine. I am not and never have been an evangelist for my personal style of beekeeping. My comments have always been directed to those early OP's that were seeking alternatives to traditional foundation ... the fact that one beekeeper on here who lives in Finland cannot accept that there is a a successful alternative to HIS way is what I take exception to ....

I have attempted to point out the practicalities of foundation as a tool .
The fact that bees happily produce comb to their own design isn't disputed by my post.
You and finman obviously have issues which I have no intention of getting involved with!
VM


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[Finman]

.
Natural combs have more drone cells than foundation frames.

Apidologie 33 (2002) 75-86
DOI: 10.1051/apido:2001008

The effect of drone comb on a honey bee colony's production of honey Thomas D. Seeley

Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
(Received 15 May 2001; revised 28 August 2001; accepted 16 November 2001)

Abstract
This study examined the impact on a colony's honey production of providing it with a natural amount (20%) of drone comb.

Over 3 summers, for the period mid May to late August, I measured the weight gains of 10 colonies, 5 with drone comb and 5 without it.

Colonies with drone comb gained only 25.2 +/-16.0 kg
whereas those without drone comb gained 48.8 +/- 14.8 kg.

Colonies with drone comb also had a higher mean rate of drone flights and a lower incidence of drone comb building. The lower honey yield of colonies with drone comb apparently arises, at least in part, because drone comb fosters drone rearing and the rearing and maintenance of drones is costly. I suggest that providing colonies with drone comb, as part of a program of controlling Varroa destructor without pesticides, may still be desirable since killing drone brood to kill mites may largely eliminate the negative effect of drone comb on honey yields.