Super foundation?

[herefordshirehoney]

Hi,

Will be ordering some foundation soon (trying to leave it as late as possible when nuc's are nearly ready).

I've ordered some langstroth poly hives, and i'm using 3/4 supers. Im thinking of trying drone foundation in the supers as i know come next year i'll have a lot of OSR to deal with. Or shall i stick to normal foundation?

As im getting two hives i could try half on one and half on another but not sure if you can mix and match etc as everything is till new to me

Thanks,
Chris

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Personally I'd just stick with ordinary, though if you want to experiment with drone foundation no harm will befall you. You don't need drone foundation specifically for OSR though.

 

[BeeNice]

Why would you want to produce drones! You need to build up your workers and plenty of them to gather in the honey harvest, forget drone comb and stick to the norm.
regards
Steven

 

[herefordshirehoney]

Why would you want to produce drones! You need to build up your workers and plenty of them to gather in the honey harvest, forget drone comb and stick to the norm.
regards
Steven

I don't . QX will be between the brood and supers but as its a larger cell might make honey easy to extract from what i've ready like OSR. In the brood box i fully intend to get normal foundation

 

[MJBee]

Drone foundation in supers is great - better honey to wax ratio. Until the queen is accidentally allowed access and you finish up with a hive full of drones.

I would stick with wired worker foundation and when the set is fully drawn remove 1 or 2 and space out the rest, the bees will drawn them further out to take up the extra space.

 

[BeeNice]

If that is the case (more honey in drone comb) we would all be doing it. It's a thought and worth trying, let us know how you get on, but, walk before you run and trying the out of the normal on your first year when you will have a very steep learning curve in your first year away. Good luck.
steven

 

[justme]

dont see mixing the 2 being an issue. As long as your Q/E is sound it makes perfect sense to me. More honey in frame and less lost to making wax.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Drone foundation in supers.

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=16013

 

[MuswellMetro]

in the first year honey supply will depending on the size of your Nuc etc that you are putting into a larger type hive such as a langstoth

you do not always get enough surplus honey to get more than a few frames on honey and perhaps none at all

it will depend on

!) size of brood in Nuc
2)date you get the Nuc
3)whether they need to draw foundation (10lbls honey=1lb wax)
4)size of the brood box they need to fill first before the super
5) local forage
6)weather ( drought or Rain etc)
7) strain of bees
8)your Queen

 

[Tdf]

i would make sure to mark any drone foundation frames with a drawing pin last thing you want is to mix it up in 1-2 years time

 

[Poly Hive]

It's one of these ideas that on the surface looks great.

When your bonny slim queen slides through the excluder there may well be other thoughts....

PH

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Cant see the point in it, no extra honey (as mentioned by ITLD in the link Hivemaker posted), and if you extract OSR before it sets then its not that difficult.

 

[herefordshirehoney]

Thanks for the replies, think i'll use normal foundation now and maybe test it once i get a bit more experiance, as if the queen does find her way up there im gonna be in trouble.

I was more worried about not being able to borrow an extractor from the association when OSR is ready to be extracted, as i dont plan on getting the extractor till i've had at least a full years experiance incase i find its not for me (im hoping that this isnt the case but hard to tell with BKA LANs being so overcrowed and not getting to handle other peoples bees as easy).

My bee's will be the only ones that i know about locally in the area and im at the side of a 120 acre OSR + field beans (bear in mind i've not got them yet so this year i dont have to worry about it).

 

[Phayze]

Hedgerow pete has a video on here on how to make a small two frame extractor very easy to make have a look if you don't want to buy one just yet it is something to consider

 

[oliver90owner]

My bee's will be the only ones that i know about locally in the area and im at the side of a 120 acre OSR + field beans (bear in mind i've not got them yet so this year i dont have to worry about it).

You won't have to worry about that lot next year - as they won't be there again.