# Bees on 5.1 foundation



## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

I went to Mann Lake 4.9 frames to regress and scraped off the ones they drew poorly. Go to Michael Bush's website, he has pretty well covered the subject.


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## monrovi (Jan 22, 2012)

Yes Michael Bush has a great book and website. It's full of great info.


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## Beregondo (Jun 21, 2011)

I'd get several frames of 4.9,
As the brood hatches out of your 5.1 I'd rotate them out and replace them with foundationless frames.
If you 'fish line' the foundationless frames by running 30-50 lb monofilament thru the wiring holes and tie them off after pulling them taut, you won't accidentally have new, soft comb fall out of the frame because of inattentive frame handling on a hot day. (And I don't mean a 'Texas hot' day, I mean a 'Chimacum or Quilcene hot' day.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Bees that are on 5.1 mm foundation, if they are given foundationless frames, will they draw 5.1? Or smaller? 

You can never tell with bees. I've had large cell packages, that I would assume were not on anything smaller than Pierco which would be about 5.2mm, draw 4.7mm. But in the end they will do what they do... My guess is most of the core of the brood nest will be below 5.0mm

>Trying to regress bees down to natural size and wasn't sure if I should give them on 4.9 foundation first before giving them foundationless. Thanks monrovi 

Either will probably work fine. 4.9mm might be a better bet, but foundationless will probably work fine.


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