# What is the true cost of foundationless?



## rob6118

Hi all,

Just would like to gauge my experience which is hard to do locally ... Started 3 packages July 24 last year on foundationLESS and fed syrup constantly til winter arriving with 6 drawn frames each with 2 frames of honey / stores and small clusters of 2-3 frames of bees. Was happy that all three survived and this year I tried to expand out to double 10 frame deeps for unlimited brood nests before supering. The single deeps were full at the end of april.

Now at the end of the season I essentially have 60 drawn deep frames, only 2 super frames drawn and stored in my strongest hive, and maybe enough honey to overwinter. Here the avg yield is 30kg a hive which is around 8 deeps of honey. I'd figure that is what most hives have except my strongest which I stole one frame and made two splits ( 1 simulated swarm to guard queen, 1 split with half of resulting queen cells). So that brings me to my question : Should I bee happy? Happy that I don't HAVE to feed as I'm letting my bees keep stores + they've drawn 40+ frames. Does it really take them that many resources to draw frames as its really my limiting factor in expanding? I plan on following the palmer method for brood / frame factory nucs next year instead of using my production hives to do everything.

I guess I should be happy all survived, and I got some personal honey. Just was hoping to get 30kg of honey combined from the three hives this year + double deeps + make three splits.

Many thanks for your input, especially those in a similar climate


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## RayMarler

So that brings me to my question : Should I bee happy? Happy that I don't HAVE to feed as I'm letting my bees keep stores + they've drawn 40+ frames. 

Yes, I would be very happy...

Does it really take them that many resources to draw frames as its really my limiting factor in expanding?

Because yes, it does take that much resources to draw frames. You have built up a good start of drawn frames for next year. I would be very happy to have the results you have given, with the resources you had to start out with. I have found over the years, one of the best resources I can have as a beekeeper is a good store of good looking drawn combs, they are worth every ounce of work needed to preserve them for the next season.


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## frustrateddrone

A box of finishing nails cost under $3.00. I make my own foundation-less frames. You can pretty much go to any construction site and get non treated wood that is scrap waist. I have a shop I make all my frames from. I put a starter strip about 1" at the top and brush on beeswax. I use wire from a neighbor that works in electrical. The large wire spools are held on by thin wire he gives me for free. 
Sure they're not as beautiful, but all it cost was the electricity to operate my machinery, glue and nails. Not really hard to mass produce frame pieces. I still laugh at those stating they're woodworkers, but don't make frames. What an oxymoron that is! 
You can rotate foundation frames and foundationless frames, so you never have to buy frames if you don't have many hives.


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## rob6118

The question isn't about explicit costs, its more about the implicit cost of crooked, collapsed comb, of the bees having to draw it themselves, of not having enough comb available perhaps to take advantage of the flows completely. I went foundationless because it was cheap and because frankly no foundation was available when I ordered. Just questioning if the result is a success or indicative of indirect costs of the strategy.

@ray, thanks for the reply. I hope 60 frames is enough next year to make at least 10 splits during swarm season and then have 5 production colonies overwintered from this year. 150kg of honey and income from splits + the insurance they provide against queen loss / maladies is closer to where I'm looking to be. The more I learn the more I realize this hobby can't be rushed.


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## JRG13

Seems like a good start. For not feeding it's not bad at all, if they all survive. I tend to be like MP, but never really thought of it as a strategy, just more of how the season progressed and making late splits I tend to overwinter a lot of nucs or 5 over 5 colonies. While they can expand quickly, nothing beats overwintered colonies in 2-3 deeps plus supers in terms of being brood factories or making early splits. I'm a firm believer in foundation though, I tend to use small cell wax the most, not that I believe in it for mite control or anything since my mite levels just keep on increasing if unchecked with chemistry. Brood breaks, even extended ones are laughable at best, but I digress. Just remember, it takes bees to make bees, so use that advice as you will.


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## Oldtimer

rob6118 said:


> I went foundationless because it was cheap and because frankly no foundation was available when I ordered. Just questioning if the result is a success or indicative of indirect costs of the strategy.


If you are in bees to make money, use comb foundation. I'm going to say this is MY OPINION ONLY because there are some strong feelings about this, along with all sorts of theories on the matter.


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## lemmje

rob6118 said:


> The more I learn the more I realize this hobby can't be rushed.


This is wisdom!


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney

Priceless, if you don't drop all of the FL frames into a box, and expect everything to come out straight


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## asd

I've made 40 nucs this year most of them being 4 frame nucs, two in a box. They were all made starting from a frame of brood and a full frame of honey - M. Palmer ideas.
It's really no big deal for a nuc to build up another 2 frames until winter and also fill them with stores. I haven't artificially fed them either.
The nucs that were made in June have almost filled the half deep and I will steal brood frames from them soon.

If you make two 4 frame nucs in a box you can add all undrawn frames at once, putting one against the divider and another against the wall.

My biggest problem(maybe in my mind only) comes in Spring when I need to expand them: they draw lots of drone cells.

I want to make money with bees and I'm still in the process of defining my strategies.


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## Michael Bush

There is a huge TIME advantage to drawn comb which translated to a honey advantage. The bees don't have to spend the time to draw them comb and can collect nectar instead. There is no other real advantage. As far as foundation and foundationless, since they have always drawn the foundationless faster, I see a time advantage to foundationless over foundation.

"Again, at all times of a heavy yield of honey, the bees secrete wax whether any combs are built or not; and if the sections are all supplied with foundation, and the hive filled with comb, this wax is wasted or else the foundation given is wasted; have it which way you please...To show that I am not alone in this matter regarding the waste of wax, I wish to quote from two or three of our best apiarists; the first is Prof. Cook, and no one will say that he is not good authority. he says on page 166 of the latest edition of his Manual 'But I find upon examination that the bees, even the most aged, while gathering, in the honey season, yield up the wax scales the same as those within the hive. During the active storing of the past season, especially when comb-building was in rapid progress, I found that nearly every bee taken from the flowers contained wax scales of varying size, in the wax pockets.'

"This is my experience during "active storing," and the wax scales are to be found on the bees just the same whether they are furnished with foundation or not; and I can arrive at no other conclusion than that arrived at by Mr. S.J. Youngman, when he says on page 108: 'The bees secrete wax during a honey flow, whether they are building comb or not; and if they are not employed in building comb, this wax is most certainly lost.'

"Once more on page 93, of the American Apiculturist, Mr. G.W. Demaree says: 'Observation has convinced me that swarms leave the parent colony better prepared to build comb than they ever are under other circumstances; and that if they are not allowed to utilize this accumulated force, by reason of having full sheets of foundation at hand to work out, there will necessarily be some loss; and I think that when the matter is computed, to find the loss and gain the result will show that the foundation really costs the apiarist double what he actually pays for it in cash'...Now, I have often noticed, and especially in looking back over the last year, after reading Mr. Mitchell's "Mistaken Economy," that swarms hived in June would fill their hives full of nice straight worker combs, and the combs would be filled with brood during the first two weeks after hiving; while a colony not casting a swarm would not make a gain of a single pound of honey; nor would a swarm having a full set of combs given them, or the frames filled with foundation, be a whit better off at the end of two weeks. Mr. P.H. Elwood has noted the same thing; thus proving that the theory that it takes 20 pounds of honey to produce one pound of comb, will not hold good in cases where bees desire comb and have free access to pollen. As most of my comb is built at this time, the reader will readily see that the combs cost me but little, save the looking after the colony once or twice while building comb, which is far cheaper than buying foundation, or fussing with a foundation mill."--G.M. Doolittle ABJ Vol 20 No 18 pg 276


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## rob6118

Michael Bush said:


> There is a huge TIME advantage to drawn comb which translated to a honey advantage. The bees don't have to spend the time to draw them comb and can collect nectar instead. There is no other real advantage. As far as foundation and foundationless, since they have always drawn the foundationless faster, I see a time advantage to foundationless over foundation.


Thank you for taking the time to post Mr. Bush. I've read this on your site, and it seems logical to me. Might I ask what your strategy would be in my situation? Would you use nucs made to control swarms next spring as foundation factories for the production colonies? Would you feed the next 4 months, even though honey has benefits healthwise, just to stimulate the building of additional comb? Other ideas?

Many thanks,

Rob


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## Michael Bush

Splits, nucs, etc. are all a crap shoot. You make your choice, you take your chances and you do the best you can. A lot of it is a judgment call. How strong they are, how much more they might build up based on previous observations and how bad your winters are. I've been in Belgium in the winter and it was like our spring in Nebraska... I would try to overwinter the nucs. I never feed if there is nectar coming in. I've never been there in the summer but in the winter I saw the sun once for about 20 minutes in the space of six weeks... so I would imagine it doesn't really dry up and there are things blooming in all seasons but the dead of winter.


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## rwurster

One thing that is no joke is that they will draw foundationless much faster than foundation. Keeping it straight can sometimes be tedious but out of 300 new deep frames that I got drawn this year maybe 20 of them started going wonky.


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## asd

Foundation spares the bees to work the bottom of the cells. If you look through a magnifying glass at the structure of the cells of a natural comb you will notice how thin the walls are including the bottom. There is not so much wax spared on the bottom structure.

The wax used on foundation is probably, alone, heavier then a natural built comb.

The only advantage I see using foundation is that you can put an entire box of foundation over a single in Spring and don't worry about bees messing up but this can be also managed.


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## BernhardHeuvel

Michael Bush said:


> ...always drawn the foundationless faster,


Side by side comparison:

I put two foundations in an otherwise empty hive box, just topbars.


















Initial setup.









Bees start working the comb.









While the foundation comb is drawn and already filled with honey, the other foundationless combs still get drawn out.


















Winner: foundation.









I ran more than hundred hives that way and always the foundation beated the foundationless topbar. That is no chance or luck, that is a fact, that foundation can be drawn much faster than foundationless combs. The reason is, that bees can draw foundation out without the need to cluster. Especially in very early spring, March or so, bees draw foundation with only a few bees. Not only they don't need to cluster, they use the wax of the foundation by thinning the foundation and they use that wax to draw the comb. 

As Oldtimer said, if you put money into the business, use foundation. If you are a "lazy" beekeeper go foundationless and live with the results. I have a lot of experience with fixed comb beekeeping and it is fun. But really, if you use frames you can use foundation, too. Because frames are the difference to true natural beekeeping, not the foundation. 

With kind regards

Bernhard


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## Little-John

There's something about the mindset of many beekeepers which invariably develops into 'absolutism' (I blame Aristotle ...). Either you feed OR you don't; either you have OMFs OR solid floors; either you run with foundation OR go foundation-less. You know, life doesn't have to be like this - there can be grey areas in-between such polar opposites.

With feeding, one can feed a little, and/or on alternate days; OMFs can be partial (my hives are 100% OMF, nucs have about 25% OMF, and mating nucs have solid floors); and - keeping on topic - there is also an intermediate solution to the issue of foundation.

If you make very thin sheets of wax (there's a FatBeeMan video on YouTube showing how best to do this) these can be inserted or attached to frames which ensures that straight comb is always drawn. As it provides a basis for the midrib only, the bees will then proceed to re-work and happily draw whatever cells they need upon it. If frames containing this 'unembossed foundation' are given to nucs or queenless colonies - only brood cells will be drawn out, as such colonies are in the 'survival' part of the colony's life cycle, where reproduction by swarming (and hence the need for virgin fertilisation) does not feature within the colony's immediate agenda.

What more do you need ? Straight comb with 100% brood cells, and at zero cost.

And as for that 20lbs of honey to make a pound of wax nonsense - if you feed sugar syrup to those colonies which are employed in the drawing-out of new comb, then - if that figure can be relied upon (others say 8) - it then becomes 20lbs of sugar to make 1lb of wax, which I reckon is a pretty good deal.

LJ


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## Little-John

BernhardHeuvel said:


> ... that is a fact, that foundation can be drawn much faster than foundationless combs.


That is NOT a fact - it may have been your observation - but that doesn't make it a fact - there is a difference. Why post pictures ? - we've seen comb before.

LJ


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## Little-John

Results
The study indicated few statistical differences between comb built from the experimental frames. Cell diameter, cell size and angle at which cells are held to the horizontal were similar for combs developed from the plain non-embossed wax sheets, embossed foundation and the starter strips. The thickness of midribs of combs developed from all experimental frames were not significantly different, ranging from 0.23 mm to 0.27 mm. Therefore no matter how thick the original wax sheet, the resultant comb had a consistently thin midrib. A comparison of the amount of wax added to a unit area of foundation indicated highest fresh wax production using the thin non-embossed wax sheets. The starter strip, the thick non-embossed wax sheets and the embossed foundations followed in descending order, in terms of amount of wax added to the resultant combs.
*Observations made during the study indicated a preference by the bees to use thin non-embossed wax sheets to make new combs rather than thick non-embossed wax sheets or embossed foundation.*

LOW~COST FOUNDATION, K S Aidoo and R J Paxton


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## asd

Another question is raised about using foundation:

What about the chemicals stored in the wax? (closed circuit btw. foundation producers and beekeepers leads to high levels of contamination over the years)

Is this a problem or it's just bla bla? I've read a lot of articles regarding this.

I'm very aware of the fact that we are imagining a lot of things which in fact are not real or makes no difference.


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## BernhardHeuvel

Little-John said:


> ...


This is the "study". Four hives were used. Whew, I am impressed. 

http://www.planbee.org.uk/uploads/Low cost Foundation _21_.pdf

That is the full quote:

_Results 
The study indicated few statistical differences between comb built from the experimental frames. Cell diameter, cell size and angle at which cells are held to the horizontal were similar for combs developed from the plain non-embossed wax sheets, embossed foundation and the starter strips. The thickness of midribs of combs developed from all experimental frames were not significantly different, ranging from 0.23 mm to 0.27 mm. Therefore no matter how thick the original wax sheet, the resultant comb had a consistently thin midrib. A comparison of the amount of wax added to a unit area of foundation indicated highest fresh wax production using the thin non-embossed wax sheets. The starter strip, the thick non-embossed wax sheets and the embossed foundations followed in descending order, in terms of amount of wax added to the resultant combs. Observations made during the study indicated a preference by the bees to use thin non-embossed wax sheets to make new combs rather than thick non-embossed wax sheets or embossed foundation. Cells built on combs from non-embossed wax sheets were, however, irregularly arranged as compared to the regular, orderly arrangement of cells on combs developed from the embossed foundation. Beekeepers can therefore reduce costs and make good gains in colony development and production through the use of plain non-embossed wax sheets. European bees readily use them and construct good combs within frames; a repetition of this experiment with African and other bees will show whether or not they do the same. _


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## Andrew Dewey

The studies related to beeswax contamination are a bit dated now in terms of the specific chemicals found - but not so much in the big picture the the heaviest contamination came from chemicals the beekeeper placed in the hive. What chemicals do you put in your hive and do they (or are they known to) accumulate in wax? That's the question. With purchased wax foundation, you really have no idea of the practices of the beekeepers from whose hives the wax came. With foundationless you know the practices. I use a mix at present of plastic foundation painted with "my" cappings wax, and some foundationless mixed in, not so much from worrying about foundation contamination (or what goes into making the plastic), but more wanting the bees to have a say in cell size.


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## deknow

I have to say that given the data we have (studies out of Penn state, usda surveys of what chemicals are found in the kinds of hives that produce wax for the foundation market) that anyone would sell cut comb honey (or sections...or chunk) produced with foundation from the mainstream wax/foundation market.


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## Oldtimer

Little-John said:


> Why post pictures ? - we've seen comb before.


The old saying - a picture is worth a thousand words.

I think Bernhard knows folks here have seen comb before but the topic at the time was whether bees build comb faster on foundation, or without it. The object of the pictures was to illustrate the speed difference he discovered.

Much has been said on the matter and various opinions argued, but actually seeing is believing, a picture of the real thing is worth more.

My own opinion is bees build comb faster on foundation, but I would hesitate to say that here other than as an opinion, because there are such strong opinions on the matter and even strong emotion. However posting a pic is kind of neutral because it circumvents arguing with words. Long as a pic, of anything, is not faked or manipulated, it is simply an unemotional graphical illustration of something.

However I think the OP has put this thread in the wrong area. He is asking about the true cost of foundationless comb, which is a different subject to foundationless as it relates to being treatment free.


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## rwurster

In a side by side comparison, mine drew foundationless "faster" however that may be that mine prefer to draw foundationless rather than foundation. I have seen them do this in both the brood boxes and honey supers. I opened broodnests and put in a foundationless frame, 2 days later fully drawn. With some SC foundation, they start it at the top for honey and draw for days and days. Foundationless and foundation in the brood boxes, the foundation stops them cold, they move on and start drawing foundationless on the other side. Maybe it just boils down to what bees prefer to work. I prefer foundationless but I always have foundation on hand to straighten out a hive that wants to build side ways.

I would guess the true cost is in honey lost due to comb building but either way they are building comb. My guess would be foundation would use a hair less honey per frame than foundationless would. I do think that if you know how to get straight foundationless drawn you are ahead of someone who has only ever used foundation. In a commercial setting though, I would use all foundation.


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## asd

Well it's nice that we have both methods tested.

I'm foundationless for two seasons, making queens and lots of nucs. Last year I treated once using oxalic dribble in October. I have one strong hive that at the time of the treatment still had brood, so this was the main selected for varroa testing this year. Two weeks ago I had a drop of 7 mites and decide that I should dribble the 
entire yard. Yesterday I tested again and there were 10 mites fallen(~300 bess).

However I tested another 2 strong hives and... 0 mites.

I have hives for 3 years and never used synthetic treatments. Oxalic acid was my only treatment so far but it seems that is not made for summer. 

I don't know whether foundationless helped but the mites aren't a big problem for me. I can live with one treatment quite well. I hope time wont prove me the opposite.


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## Michael Palmer

Oldtimer said:


> My own opinion is bees build comb faster on foundation....


I agree OT. Once I was adding foundation to strong 4 frame nucs. The time was 10am. Pull two combs from the nuc and add a frame of foundation at position 1 and 4. At 4pm, I took the Maine bee inspector out to the apiary to show him what I was doing. The sheets of foundation were drawn out from corner to corner...enough for the queen to lay in the cells. I'd like to see a foundationless setup do that.


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## my2cents

I believe that the cost of foundation offsets the cost of foundation less frames. Because I use foundation and when I harvest, I use a heat gun to uncapped and after running it through the extractor, most all my comb survives. And then I can put it back in to the hive and reduce work on the colony to produce more combat the frames are basically ready to accept honey stores .


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## deknow

The differences between using and not using foundation are much more nuanced (and interesting) than "better" "faster" "more natural" or "efficient" could begin to describe.

Hutcherson's "advanced bee culture" had the best analysis I've read on the subject.

There seems to be a lot of "A is faster than B, I know because I've tried A and it's really fast."

No, bees will never draw a full frame of foundationless into cells just deep enough for the queen to lay in...the cluster tends to build fully formed comb.

I think much of the efficiency/beauty/function of the bees drawing their own comb is short circuited by the common advice to put foundationless frames between drawn comb (or foundation).

The way the cluster builds parallel combs out of the cluster is a thing of beauty, and is certainly a different process than building one comb between dividers of comb or foundation.

For me, the most memorable passage from Gunther hauck's book is when he relates the building of comb within the cluster to how bones precipitate out of the tissue of a developing fetus.


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## deknow

my2cents said:


> I believe that the cost of foundation offsets the cost of foundation less frames. Because I use foundation and when I harvest, I use a heat gun to uncapped and after running it through the extractor, most all my comb survives. And then I can put it back in to the hive and reduce work on the colony to produce more combat the frames are basically ready to accept honey stores .


You do know that the extractor and commercial extracting predates the invention of foundation?


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## AR Beekeeper

Early beekeepers, those of the time period when foundation was first being offered, were profit oriented. They would not have used foundation unless they could see a benefit from it's use. Foundation did not become popular because it was just a fad. The times I have tries hiving swarms on foundation and foundationless, three fourths of the time the foundations were drawn and the queen had them 70% laid out before the foundationless frames were one quarter drawn.


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## deknow

Hutcinson's book is in the public domain, and we host a pdf on our server.

http://beeuntoothers.com/Advanced_bee_culture.pdf


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## AR Beekeeper

Mehring is credited with the first foundation in 1857, Hruschka with the first extractor in 1865. Langstroth built a "honey empting machine" in 1858 but the first extractor offered for sale in the U.S. was in 1869. A foundation roll was first manufactured in the U.S. in 1866 by the King brothers, but foundation did not really get started until 1875 when Root started selling foundation made on a mill designed by A. Washburn.

Early on, the major names in beekeeping did not use foundation, as the product left much to be desired. By the 1880-90s the product had become refined to the point it was efficient and they began using the product. By the 1900s all of the big names in American beekeeping recommended foundation.


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## deknow

Ar...thanks for the correction and clarifications. 

Interestingly, I have a an 1888 copy of abc of Bee Culture open in front of me. On page 100, root claims that they extracted over 3 tons of hone from less than 50 colonies....in 1870...5 years before their apiary likely had widespread foundation.

I do think that your final claim is a little oversimplistic. I believe (and books like Hutcherson's support this belief) that what was recommended WRT foundation or foundationless was more nuanced than "recommended" or "not recommended". Different circumstances bring different pros and cons the forefront.


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## JWChesnut

Oldtimer said:


> My own opinion is bees build comb faster on foundation,
> However I think the OP ...... is asking about the true cost of foundationless comb, which is a different subject to foundationless as it relates to being treatment free.


I market nucs to hobby beeks. One product very much in demand by a substantial sub-set of well-heeled hobby farmers are "eight-frame, foundationless, mediums". These require an enormous number of foundationless frames. It is a major undertaking to get this material drawn acceptably. 

A medium box (or two!) of new foundation can be stacked on a hive during the Euc and Sage flow, and the mother colonies will pull the foundation by the box during the flow, and do it quickly. This source material can be cycled into the nucs.

You cannot stack two boxes of foundationless frames on a mother hive and have any reasonable expectation they will draw these out in a non-hallucinatory fashion.

I charge the "foundationless" hipster for the effort and impact of drawing their "special" comb. The only practical way to draw the raw material for these nucs is to continually interleave it into the brood nest of a donor hive. The labor is high, the rate of production slow, and the risk to the hive pulling the comb is substantial. 

The specification of "8F, Med, FL" is the high-dollar, high-labor, high-risk corner of bee-keeping.

The specification is best understood in terms of social anthropology of human in-group solidarity.


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## Oldtimer

Oh well, give the customer what they want long as they pay LOL.

I got a problem at the other extreme, my customers want plastic frames cos of the burgeoning thixotropic manuka industry. I don't like plastic, much prefer wood and wax and so do the bees, but gotta make the customer happy all my hives are plastic now. 

A thought, one of the things those well heeled natural comb buying hippies will assume is that their comb is residue free. If it's drawn between treated combs it might not be. But as you point out, mass production of natural comb in commercial quantities is a much more involved process than putting a few boxes of foundation on.


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## cerezha

rwurster said:


> ... Keeping it straight can sometimes be tedious but out of 300 new deep frames that I got drawn this year maybe 20 of them started going wonky.


 My current theory is that bees actually learned how to make comb straight in foundationless approach. They also somehow transfer this knowledge to daughter-hive.


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## dsegrest

Oldtimer said:


> If you are in bees to make money, use comb foundation. I'm going to say this is MY OPINION ONLY because there are some strong feelings about this, along with all sorts of theories on the matter.


If you are in bees to make money, sell equipment or give lectures.


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## AR Beekeeper

Dsegrest, I wish you had told me that years ago! 

Deknow, You are correct that the advice given was more nuanced, Hutchenson recommended hiving swarms on foundationless frames in the brood nest and using foundations in the section boxes. The reason he did so was because the bees would draw the foundation out faster than the bees would draw the foundationless comb in the brood chamber. This would force all of the incoming nectar into the sections and that was his goal, honey to sell. 

Go to the American Bee Journal and Gleaning in Bee Culture, especially the issues from 1890 to 1922, that are in the Internet Archive Digital Library website and read the advice given to questions asked by beekeepers concerning foundation use in the brood nest which is what I assumed we were discussing. By the time they reached their latter years of beekeeping, Doolittle, Hutchenson, Miller, and the other well known beekeepers were recommending foundation in the brood nest.

I want comb in the brood nest that is all worker sized cells, that is my goal. I want all my drone comb on one frame so that I can place it where I want it, and I can remove and destroy drones, or put them in other colonies to furnish mates for my virgins. I want the comb drawn rapidly and accurately, and I want it done right the first time. Foundation in the frames gives me the best chance for this.

In my location the window of opportunity to have comb drawn on the flow is short, otherwise I must feed syrup to get it done, and I don't enjoy feeding.


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## deknow

I seem to recall an I terestong section where he talks about, during a flow, foundationless comb gets built , filled with honey, and capped before the queen can lay...making br99dnest expansion unlikely. Using foundation, the queen can lay before nectar can be deposited....and then the bees draw out the foundation 8n earnest....which is what MP's post above reminded me of.


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## JRG13

I think it mostly depends on how best they can ladder efficiently to begin festooning, if both options are available and equally attainable then perhaps it just comes down to random 50/50 chance.


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## Oldtimer

All depends how the hive is set up, how many bees etc. Foundationless has to be built top down, one cell at a time. Put a frame of foundation in the middle of a busy colony and they can work on all the cells at the same time.

As standard procedure when I was a commercial queen breeder, the breeder hive had a new piece of comb foundation given to it each day. The bees would draw it and queen lay in it in 24 hours, this comb was then moved every day to the other side of an excluder, then removed the day the eggs hatched to provide larvae for grafting, I would not have tried that with a foundationless bar.


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## Oldtimer

dsegrest said:


> If you are in bees to make money, sell equipment or give lectures.





AR Beekeeper said:


> Dsegrest, I wish you had told me that years ago!


Ha Ha, I think those comments get the best ironic humor of the day award.


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## Eduardo Gomes

rob6118 said:


> The question isn't about explicit costs, its more about the implicit cost of crooked, collapsed comb, of the bees having to draw it themselves, of not having enough comb available perhaps to take advantage of the flows completely.


"From the results above, it is clear natural cell beekeeping is not a successful method to control Varroa mites in small scale, commercial apiculture. In addition, the increase in management and decrease in honey yield, probably due to excessive drone production, is not compatible with profitable beekeeping."

You can read the entire study here http://rosecombapiaries.com/2012/02/bee-research-2009/


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## Eduardo Gomes

Michael Bush said:


> As far as foundation and foundationless, since they have always drawn the foundationless faster, I see a time advantage to foundationless over foundation.


 *or*

"EXTRA EDITORIAL: Did colonies with or without foundation draw comb faster?

Anecdotally, the colonies with foundation built more comb and built it faster. Especially as they moved up, and especially during the main honey flow when surplus honey was stored. Data I collected however, is mixed, indicating there is more to the story and that I didn’t collect all the data needed to show this. The strongest evidence that colonies on foundation build faster is in the significantly higher honey yields in colonies with foundation. And that overall, significantly more comb was built by control colonies (100% ± 0, mean ± s. e.) as opposed to natural cell (87% ± 5.78; P = 0.0492).

However, if you look at data I collected during the first year of test colony establishment, its harder to tell that this is the case. I’m convinced colonies build up quicker with foundation overall, but in the first box of new colonies where the colony is expanding mostly horizontally, *I think their growth is about the same, or might even be quicker in foundationless, for just that first 10 frame box or 5 frame nuc, if you start them in a nuc. If you don’t mind some extra drone comb and time with management, try it and see, but clearly (to me anyway) as they build up in more boxes, foundation is a very, very good thing for getting more combs built. But, I don’t think you will slow your bees down using foundationless in the first box, only."

If you are interested you can read more here: http://rosecombapiaries.com/2012/02/bee-research-2009/*


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## rwurster

Michael Palmer said:


> The sheets of foundation were drawn out from corner to corner...enough for the queen to lay in the cells. I'd like to see a foundationless setup do that.


Of all the people's comments on BS I take Michael and OT's comments pretty seriously. On this one though I have to disagree. I moved all the frames in my bottom brood box to the front and all the frames in the top box to the back and this is what I got a day later. I cut it out and put it into a frame and stuck it in the noney super. When I checked the box again the comb was full of capped brood. Although it wasn't side to side drawn, I cut a substantial amount of comb off to fit it in the frame. It was laid in top to bottom, side to side though, which had I looked, I would have used OT's method of queen rearing to make some queens instead of putting it in a frame.


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## jbeshearse

rwurster said:


> .... With some SC foundation


You slipped SC (small cell foundation) into the test. I would imagine they draw the foundationless quicker, because they do not like the SC, not because it is standard foundation. In my foundationless tests, they drew out more drone, more Honey cells and failed to draw the comb out to the frame bottoms as well as with standard foundation. The top of the honey combs tended to be thinner, thickning to normal thickness at about 1" below the frame top (10 frames in a 10 frame box).

Also interestingly, mice draw vertically wired foundation all the way to the bottom of the frames, while the thin surplus they tended to cut out the bottom 1/2 inch and leave it unattached at the bottom at times. (I run all mediums and do not ever cross wire.). Also I do not run any plasticell, etc. All my foundation is was.

I am betting the the SC is the reason yours tend to draw foundationless faster.


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## asd

The idea of foundationless is not that it's more or less profitable, nor quicker. I'm convinced that the process is much more smooth using foundation. There is no doubt in that.
But what about all the articles regarding comb contamination? Randy has a lot of them. Are all these just philosophy?


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## rwurster

My bees are all small cell jb. They don't like the large cell I put in honey supers either.


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## Oldtimer

rwurster said:


> I take Michael and OT's comments pretty seriously. On this one though I have to disagree.


Happy to be disagreed with, so agreeably.

I dug through some old photos and found these. The first is comb foundation going into the queen compartment of a breeder hive. It is placed between 2 brood combs. The second pic is taken 24 hours later. It shows the foundation drawn (and has eggs in it but you can't see those). Also, on each side of the foundation some foundationless drone comb is drawn, this also has eggs in it. The bees were very motivated to build drone comb as the whole hive was made on worker foundation.

The foundationless drone comb is drawn nearly as deep as the foundation, so I guess it is possible for the bees to draw foundationless comb almost to the bottom bar of a medium frame in 24 hours.

I suspect the relative speed of building comb with or without foundation is probably situational. IE a frame placed mid brood nest would be a different proposition than a couple supers placed on top.


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## Michael Bush

>Anecdotally, the colonies with foundation built more comb and built it faster. Especially as they moved up...

Success and failure is all in the details. If you manipulate the combs in such a way as to give them a ladder and in such a way as to give them a guide to get the next box started right things work much better than just adding boxes of empty frames. Besides that, just because you use foundationless does not mean you can't extract and reuse comb.

Give me a general statment where there is actually a controversy in beekeeping and let me design the experiment and I can set it up to give you the outcome you want. But the real test is when you are trying to make it work.

>Deknow, You are correct that the advice given was more nuanced, Hutchenson recommended hiving swarms on foundationless frames in the brood nest and using foundations in the section boxes.

This if from "The Production of Comb Honey" by Hutchinson. Emphasis is from the original.

"Four happy, delightful, profitable days were passed with Mr. Heddon; and his hive, fixtures and system so appealed to my reason that the next season found me using them. Since then I have raised comb honey. 

"Among other things, Mr. Heddon cautioned me against filling the brood apartment with combs when hiving swarms. Said he: "The bees -will rill these combs with honey the first thing they do. When this is done you would naturally expect them to begin work in the sections; but, in reply to your invitation to 'come up stairs,' many of them will roll up their eyes and decline with, 'Oh, we're pretty well fixed down here!' Hive them upon foundation and transfer the supers from the old to the new hive ; then honey will be stored in the sections first, because no honey can be stored in the brood-nest until the foundation is drawn out; and as soon as the bee3 begin drawing out the foundation the queen begins occupying it with eggs; and the result is that most of the honey goes into the sections and the five Langstroth frames in the brood-nest become filled nearly solid with brood." All this appeared so plausible that I was inclined to carry the same line of reasoning still further. I said: "In two days the foundation will be _comb_, then the conditions will be exactly the same as though the swarm had been hived on comb, with this most important exception, the bees have _commenced_ storing honey in the supers and will continue to do so. Now, if it be an advantage to keep comb out of the brood-nest two days after hiving a swarm, would not the advantage be greater if it could be kept out still longer; or rather, would it not be better if the brood-nest could be _gradually_ filled with comb at such a rate that the queen could keep pace with the filling; and, if so, in what more practical manner can this be accomplished than by allowing the bees to build their own combs in the brood-nest ?" 

"Mr. Heddon replied that, so far as his experience went, more honey would be secured if both brood-nest and sections were filled with foundation. Still I was not satisfied, it seemed so _unreasonable_; and as though to still further disturb my equilibrium, Mr. Doolittle continued to assert that it was more profitable to have combs built by the bees than to use foundation. 

"So much faith had I in my theory that I determined to test it by experiments; so the first swarm that issued was hived upon empty combs; the next upon foundation ; and the third upon frames with starters only. This order was continued until fifteen swarms had been hived, when the use of empty combs was disc entailed a loss. From this time on, until the close of the season, an equal number of swarms were hived upon foundation and upon empty frames. Circumstances prevented their alternate hiving, which detracted somewhat from the _decisiveness_ of the experiment, but enough was proved to show that, at least, with my methods, nothing was gained by using foundation in the brood-nest, except for starters, when hiving swarms. I have since continued to carefully experiment by hiving swarms alternately upon foundation and upon empty frames, weighing both the surplus and brood- nests at the end of the season and comparing results, and the evidence has been in favor of empty frames _every time_."--W. Z. Hutchinson, The Production of Comb Honey, introduction (pages 3-6)


https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Production_of_Comb_Honey.html?id=I4VlAAAAMAAJ


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## Eduardo Gomes

Michael Bush said:


> Success and failure is all in the details. If you manipulate the combs in such a way as to give them a ladder and in such a way as to give them a guide to get the next box started right things work much better than just adding boxes of empty frames.


Michael this guys in the study give a guide as all we can read: "Project activities: Bees building comb from a waxed, wooden starter strip instead of pre-stamped foundation. In this frame, they are building drone sized cells and storing incoming nectar..
At two locations, beehives were managed with wooden starter strips instead of standard 5.4mm foundation by turning the wedge of a ‘wedge top’ frame on its side and applying a bead of wax. Doing this provides a guide for the bees to build comb from the top of standard frames." If they used this guides in the supers it seems to me that nothing is said, to the best reading. 

Like you I love to appreciate the details.


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## jbeshearse

rwurster said:


> My bees are all small cell jb. They don't like the large cell I put in honey supers either.


So is all the foundation less they build 4.9 ?

were the regressed and when?

you have a departure from mainstream beekeeping so I would expect your results to be different. 

So so if they don't like the large cell (I assume you mean standard and not drone etc) what do they draw in the honey supers?


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## jbeshearse

asd said:


> The idea of foundationless is not that it's more or less profitable, nor quicker. I'm convinced that the process is much more smooth using foundation. There is no doubt in that.
> But what about all the articles regarding comb contamination? Randy has a lot of them. Are all these just philosophy?


contamination was covered pretty extensively in the following thread. 

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?313792-wax-rotation


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## Rolande

> "Among other things, Mr. Heddon cautioned me against filling the brood apartment with combs when hiving swarms. Said he: "The bees -will rill these combs with honey the first thing they do. When this is done you would naturally expect them to begin work in the sections; but, in reply to your invitation to 'come up stairs,' many of them will roll up their eyes and decline with, 'Oh, we're pretty well fixed down here!' Hive them upon foundation and transfer the supers from the old to the new hive ; then honey will be stored in the sections first, because no honey can be stored in the brood-nest until the foundation is drawn out; and as soon as the bee3 begin drawing out the foundation the queen begins occupying it with eggs; and the result is that most of the honey goes into the sections and the five Langstroth frames in the brood-nest become filled nearly solid with brood." All this appeared so plausible that I was inclined to carry the same line of reasoning still further. *I said: "In two days the foundation will be comb, then the conditions will be exactly the same as though the swarm had been hived on comb, with this most important exception, the bees have commenced storing honey in the supers and will continue to do so. Now, if it be an advantage to keep comb out of the brood-nest two days after hiving a swarm, would not the advantage be greater if it could be kept out still longer; or rather, would it not be better if the brood-nest could be gradually filled with comb at such a rate that the queen could keep pace with the filling; and, if so, in what more practical manner can this be accomplished than by allowing the bees to build their own combs in the brood-nest ?"*


So, we have Hutchinson, a commercial beekeeper, recommending giving foundationless brood frames to swarms which were being put to work on sections because his experience was that foundationless would be the _slowest _way to get the brood combs built..


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## Oldtimer

I think the idea was that the box of sections with foundation was put on top, and under that the foundationless brood nest. The swarm would immediately draw the foundation and start filling the sections with honey. Then they would start drawing the foundationless frames at a slower speed that Hutchinson thought the queen could keep up with, so as to stop the bees storing honey there. And as they were already putting honey in the top boxes he considered they would keep putting it there.

In fairness to his comment about the foundationless being built at a slower pace, once the swarms have a deal of comb in the top (honey) boxes, they will then progressively slow down as they move further down the hive. The other problem would be that it would be a great way to get the brood nest filled with drone comb. The foundation in the top boxes was presumably worker sized, once that's built and the bees move down to the foundationless part they will be thinking it's time to build drone comb.

I can see the theory, don't think it's the way I would do it.


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## AR Beekeeper

The following is from Hutchinson's book "Advanced Bee Culture," the 1919 edition, page 62. I think this accurately conveys his thoughts about the use of foundation in the brood chamber. 

"If securing straight, all-worker combs is not the greatest advantage arising from the use of foundation, it is certainly next to the greatest. The advantages of having each comb a counterpart of all the others, to be able to place any comb in any hive- in short, to have each interchangeable with all the others, and to be able to control the production of drones, to have them reared from such stock as we desire, and in such quantities, no more and no less, all these are advantages that can not be ignored, even at the cost of filling our frames with foundation, and securing a little less surplus. We must have straight worker combs. If they can be secured without foundation, well and good; if not, foundation must be used."

He goes on to give conditions when foundation is used at a profit in storing surplus honey. The book on producing comb honey was an early work of Hutchinson. After that book was printed, he then refined his beekeeping methods and made changes in his later works. His ideas about foundation use did a 180 degree turn from his first writings, as did those of Doolittle.


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## Decebal Tuturici

Hello!
I want to start foundationless. In my country I do not really have many people that I can talk about this subject. 
If small bees and large bees are in same apiary and large bees want to rob a small bees hive, the small dimension is it important during the fight at the entrance? Are small bees in disavantage? 
I think that they aren't sumo wrestlers, that the dimension count much ... But these are just my thoughts ...
Is this a reason to not start foundationless hives in same apiary with bees raised on large cell foundation?


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## gnor

Here is my small experience. I studied nothing but beekeeping for almost 18 months before I ever bought a bee. I read books, Randy Oliver, Michael Bush, and Michael Palmer, plus hours and hours of video. I gave this a lot of thought. I eventually settled on wax coated plastic foundation.
Cost? 
At $.099/ sheet, it is negligible over the half life of a wooden frame. I can recycle them after 4 or 5 years, hang them in the solar wax melter, and a few hours later put a clean, sterile frame back in service.
Durability?
In extracting, plastic doesn't collapse, and you can spin the extractor up to full speed a lot faster.
Speed? 
If you are only going to recycle comb every 5 years or so, what matters a few days in the beginning? Once it's drawn, the speed argument disappears, doesn't it? I will bow to MB's expertise here, but here is my own small experience. I hived up a 4 frame nuc into a 10 frame deep, adding 5 frames of undrawn plastic, plus 1 Randy Oliver drone trap. I will be feeding until they have 2 boxes drawn out. It took them some time to build up, but last week, they drew, filled, and capped 1-1/2 deep frames, and they are about half done another. The drone trap has about 1/3 plastic foundation, with the rest open to build drone cells. They have completely drawn the plastic, but are only about 25% done the foundationless portion.
Disclaimer:
These bees came from a commercial beek, so they are used to plastic foundation.


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## Dan the bee guy

After reading all of this I got the impression "it depends"


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## Little-John

I think the foundation vs. foundationless argument is a little skewed, insomuch as foundation provides two advantages over and above the provision of an embossed pattern upon which to build cells. The first is that is provides ladders for the bees to easily climb up to the top bars, and the second, that it provides a pre-made mid-rib.

If a plain, unembossed mid-rib were to be provided, this would level the playing field for a fairer comparison, perhaps ?

With this in mind, you may find the following of interest (apologises if I've posted this before now):



> Results
> The study indicated few statistical differences between comb built from the experimental frames. Cell diameter, cell size and angle at which cells are held to the horizontal were similar for combs developed from the plain non-embossed wax sheets, embossed foundation and the starter strips. The thickness of midribs of combs developed from all experimental frames were not significantly different, ranging from 0.23 mm to 0.27 mm. Therefore no matter how thick the original wax sheet, the resultant comb had a consistently thin midrib. A comparison of the amount of wax added to a unit area of foundation indicated highest fresh wax production using the thin non-embossed wax sheets. The starter strip, the thick non-embossed wax sheets and the embossed foundations followed in descending order, in terms of amount of wax added to the resultant combs.
> 
> Observations made during the study indicated a preference by the bees to use thin nonembossed wax sheets to make new combs rather than thick non-embossed wax sheets or embossed foundation. Cells built on combs from non-embossed wax sheets were, however, irregularly arranged as compared to the regular, orderly arrangement of cells on combs developed from the embossed foundation. Beekeepers can therefore reduce costs and make good gains in colony development and production through the use of plain non-embossed wax sheets. European bees readily use them and construct good combs within frames; a repetition of this experiment with African and other bees will show whether or not they do the same.
> 
> LOW~COST FOUNDATION, Aidoo K S, Paxton R J., 2009, University of Wales, Cardiff, UK.


LJ


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## Michael Bush

>If a plain, unembossed mid-rib were to be provided, this would level the playing field for a fairer comparison, perhaps ?

In my experience you would at least have to run the unembossed sheets through press to soften them. They are too hard when you just dip the boards and peel them off. The bees don't like to work them. They have always preferred no foundation in my observation and draw that the fastest. The "ladder" argument only makes sense if you don't use some drawn comb for a ladder... if you do use drawn comb pulled up to the next box, then it becomes moot.


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## deknow

I wouldn't call it moot....if all frames have foundation or wax sheets, then the broodnest can be gradually expanded upwards....that can't really happen with foundationless and a few ladder combs.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> If you are in bees to make money, use comb foundation. I'm going to say this is MY OPINION ONLY because there are some strong feelings about this, along with all sorts of theories on the matter.


I use foundationless for brood frames (where it might make a difference) and wired foundation for stores. I also have a percentage of unwired because I like to sell cut comb. As I run an unlimited brood nest the bees often brood on patches of wired foundation, but most of the business goes on below. 

I agree: making comb is costly. As I've expanded hard I've struggled to get much honey; but the really good hives build and fill like billio. I slow-feed thin syrup till midsummer to keep them moving along

Mike (UK)


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## BernhardHeuvel

mike bispham said:


> I slow-feed thin syrup...


Ts ts ts, husbandry...:lookout:

Starting to become a beekeeper. Good on ya. :thumbsup:


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## lharder

Lots of angles to this question and quite a few unknowns. 

I run foundationless and my overwintered nucs made about up to 6 medium boxes of comb full. They started out with one box, I've just done a final extraction and they are sitting on 5 full boxes of comb. They also donated a lots of brood to nucs as part of my aggressive plan and will donate a bit more before the season is done. It looks like they can make comb, and even an old time bee keeper was impressed when he had a look through them. He hadn't encountered foundationless at that scale before. It does take managing. I had some cross comb to deal with at the height of the nectar flow, but I can count on one hand how much. But I have hopefully learned and can manage more effectively next year. I can see how it is probably a bit of an nuanced skill that gets better with time. 

I make my own frames and boxes as well. I have more time than money. If I bought all those materials, my expansion would have taken place at a much slower rate simply from a financial perspective. I also run 1 1/4 in the broodnest and the local supplier has limited selection. Making my own gives flexibility. 


Issue 1 Chemical residue. Does it have an effect on bee health especially the queen. If my bees are a bit more healthy and live longer (especially the queen), less supercedure etc. How beneficial is this? Also when I sell honey to customers, I can say with some assurance that I have done what I can to reduce their exposure to chemicals. There is a marketing angle to this. 

Issue 2. Hive organization. Is there an advantage to having more drone cells? Seems to me they get filled with honey alot of the time and they are probably more efficient to build than worker. Could having more drone cells improve wintering. Does hive function become more efficient with nature comb? Those kinds of hive dynamics are dimly known. With all my manipulation, I have probably completely disrupted a natural hive organization, but with experience I hope to get a handle on what that looks like. 

Issue 3. Swarm control. Seems providing a place to put wax is a key component. Does the perception of empty space vs being walled in by foundation affect a hive's swarm plans? In a mature apiary with lots of comb, does it make any sense to go to the expense of adding foundation to the mix. Maybe one can turnover less frames and get the same effect. 

I don't think these issues can be resolved with a season of beekeeping. Rather it needs to be tracked over time. Foundationless may be slower at the beginning, but may catch up with a mature functioning hives. Tracking honey production with time is probably useful, but also queen longevity and bee health. Management such as treating and premature queen replacement also may negate the benefits of foundationless as it does with long term bee genetic health. Short term gains vs long term benefits.


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## mike bispham

BernhardHeuvel said:


> Ts ts ts, husbandry...


Not the first thing that comes to mind when I think 'husbandry' Bernhard. The term has lost its proper meaning.

Mike (UK)


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## Gino45

One cost being ignored here is the cost of comb replacement when the need or opportunity arises. And with foundationless, my
bees build a lot of drone and honey storage combs that I like to cut out at the end of the season. Nice wax, too.

And in the event of colony death it is the easiest and cheapest means of replacement.

The savings in both labor and money for frame replacement is a huge advantage for the foundationless and wireless method.


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