# Here's a crazy idea to save on foundation cost?!?



## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

It just sounds counter productive, to me, to be melting down comb the bees have already made, in order to make foundation for them to have to draw out all over again. ???

Why not just stay with foundationless beekeeping, especially since you are starting out that way in the beginning?


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## Shazam (Mar 1, 2010)

Indeed. If you go with all mediums you don't need to worry about wiring particularly, though you can. If you do go with wiring, just use fishing wire which is cheap supply. The main thing to worry about with foundationless is excessive drone cells, and you can address that by just cutting out the parts of the comb that are drone cells and letting them remake it. Once you've got a good solid stock of worker comb, you can put in empty frames and they'll likely make drone in it. 

The main other issue hits at first which are things like crosscombing, but take care of that early and get your comb to start straight and they'll draw the neighboring comb straight (usually.)


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## mr.newbee (Jun 13, 2012)

well all foundation is recycled bees wax, and the reason i dont want to go foundationless full time is the difficulty in extracting the come, 500+ hive is too much for crush and strain, and besides the experts say that foundation is better for commercial stints. since 1st year is usually loest anyway why not save 13000$ on foundation. the idea is to save on startup, is there anything that i'm missing that could make this counter productive?


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## K.E.N. (May 5, 2011)

How about the cost of the embossing machine about $2600.00. Sounds like a lot of foundation to me! How about the cost of melting and sheeting. I'm guessing your time is free and you don't have to take care of those 500 hives that often! Just a thought!


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## DamSutt1986 (May 26, 2012)

Sounds like running all mediums would be ideal. Especially with the warmer weather there. I would guess you could winter over with 2 mediums (That's a very ill-informed guess, I will admit). 

So, run all foundationless mediums and only buy 1/2 to 2/3 of your goal hives this year. Let the bees build up and super them fast. Next year, use all of your drawn comb from the supers as brood comb, and let them rebuild all the super comb. Then you would have enough drawn comb for brood boxes to finish your total number of hives. Force them to build their own super comb again.

It would take 2 years to get up and running, and your 3rd year would be your first crop from all 1500 hives, but you may not have to buy any foundation.


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## mr.newbee (Jun 13, 2012)

isnt there a cheaper machine? i havent sourced one yet but i hope i can get a better deal than 2.8k, but even still id be saving around 10K on foundation. and by what i hear o these forums i should be able to make them in time with a little help. if anyone knows where i can purchase a cheaper embosser pls do tell


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## mr.newbee (Jun 13, 2012)

in term of over wintering its basically spring/summer where i live, so here is reasonable forage all year round, while we have 1-3 really heavy flows depending on the area. that idea is interesting too, and look easy enough to work


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## BigGun (Oct 27, 2011)

mr.newbee said:


> isnt there a cheaper machine? i havent sourced one yet but i hope i can get a better deal than 2.8k, but even still id be saving around 10K on foundation. and by what i hear o these forums i should be able to make them in time with a little help. if anyone knows where i can purchase a cheaper embosser pls do tell


Saw an embosser on eBay for 600 bucks or so.


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## EastSideBuzz (Apr 12, 2009)

what about this one http://www.dhgate.com/beeswax-found...pment/p-ff808081341cc5ca013421fe72b0464a.html

500-700 sure makes me think I need to check into one also. Let me know which one you decided on and why.

This one must be made of gold http://www.legaitaly.com/index.php?...rtuemart&Itemid=68&lang=en&vmcchk=1&Itemid=68 4500 euro's.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

mr.newbee said:


> if anyone knows where i can purchase a cheaper embosser pls do tell


Beesource member _Skinner Apiaries_ has one offered for sale for $1000 in the _For Sale_ forum here:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?271492-Foundation-Making-machine-aka-Embosser


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

EastSideBuzz said:


> what about this one http://www.dhgate.com/beeswax-found...pment/p-ff808081341cc5ca013421fe72b0464a.html
> 
> 500-700 sure makes me think I need to check into one also.


Click the _Shipping Time and Cost_ tab and check out the shipping cost of this item: * US $1446.03 !! 

*Also note the page says the item is sold out.


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## tommyt (Aug 7, 2010)

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Click the _Shipping Time and Cost_ tab and check out the shipping cost of this item: * US $1446.03 !!
> 
> *Also note the page says the *item is sold out*.


When I'm sold out 
I run 50% off :thumbsup:


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## the kid (Nov 26, 2006)

I don't feel your going to come out any cheaper ,, as remember it takes around 8 pounds of honey to make a pound of wax so if you sell honey for $2.00 a pound each pound of wax is costing you $16.00 a pound ,, then you say you want to go with foundation later ,, now add the cost of your foundation to your first ,, I would go with foundation ,, a lot cheaper , it will hurt ,, but cheaper


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## stangardener (Mar 8, 2005)

the comment that you must crush and strain foundationless is wrong. 
are you at 100 hives at this time? 
if not getting there will answer many of your questions.


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## mr.newbee (Jun 13, 2012)

has anyone ever ran commercial large scale on sole foundationless? how does one extract 10,000 supers of foundationless frames?


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## EastSideBuzz (Apr 12, 2009)

mr.newbee said:


> has anyone ever ran commercial large scale on sole foundationless? how does one extract 10,000 supers of foundationless frames?


With a large extractor. So if I do your math right you are talking 90,000-100,000 frames. If that is your goal I would say you need to go work for a big guy first for a stint to see how it is done. I went from 10-50-200 in 3 years and it is a stuff load of work and a costly way to get there and my losses have been exacerbated my my lack of experience. It is tough to listen to the old timers when they say go slow and grow slow and dont take out loans and let the bee's pay for them selves etc. But, they are correct.

Now all that said you could just go buy out an existing operation and get to where you want to go with out all the fuss and muss. You probably could get out yards etc. Where are you going to house that operation you look to build etc.


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## mr.newbee (Jun 13, 2012)

EastSideBuzz said:


> With a large extractor. So if I do your math right you are talking 90,000-100,000 frames. If that is your goal I would say you need to go work for a big guy first for a stint to see how it is done. I went from 10-50-200 in 3 years and it is a stuff load of work and a costly way to get there and my losses have been exacerbated my my lack of experience. It is tough to listen to the old timers when they say go slow and grow slow and dont take out loans and let the bee's pay for them selves etc. But, they are correct.
> 
> Now all that said you could just go buy out an existing operation and get to where you want to go with out all the fuss and muss. You probably could get out yards etc. Where are you going to house that operation you look to build etc.


Can foundationless frames be put into a regular Extractor?

i want to grow into it quickly and then sell it, the bee industry is just begining to boom here and and there are endless contracts from EU countries that are too large for small local holdings to fill. if i can cheaply grow into a large scale it would be worth a lot more than the start up.


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## deejaycee (Apr 30, 2008)

DamSutt1986 said:


> So, run all foundationless mediums and only buy 1/2 to 2/3 of your goal hives this year. Let the bees build up and super them fast. Next year, use all of your drawn comb from the supers as brood comb, and let them rebuild all the super comb. Then you would have enough drawn comb for brood boxes to finish your total number of hives. Force them to build their own super comb again.
> 
> It would take 2 years to get up and running, and your 3rd year would be your first crop from all 1500 hives, but you may not have to buy any foundation.


Comb drawn in supers is likely to be useless as brood comb. For honey storage, left to their own devices, they will tend to draw the largest cells - drone at least - it's just more efficient to build. Introducing that comb into a brood nest is only going to cause grief. 

If you want good brood comb drawn, it is best done in the centre of the brood nest. Which means establishing a good supply of worker comb tends to be intensive and invasive.

Natural comb is not necessarily the cheap and easy alternative to foundation it is often assumed to be.


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## K.E.N. (May 5, 2011)

Maybe you can use this info! I've done a study using my 15 hives. I started with 2 hives with wired foundation. After ther were good and strong I split them into 6 more hives. Now, 2 hives I used wax plastic foundation, 2 hives were foundationless and 2 were again wired foundation. What I found is the hives with plastic were extremely slow to build, about 2 months to fill up 10 frames. The wired foundation took about half that time and the foundationless was about half of that time. The only problem I ran into was that I had to straighten a couple of frames where the bees went crazy with there own foundation. I now only use foundationless frames in all of my hives. 

Keeping the foundation straight is no longer a problem as I put a 1" stip of wax in the upper groove of the frames for the bees to start on. I drip beeswax on the strips of wax to hold them firm and I no longer have foundation falling out in the hive and making a mess. I also melt a little wax on the sides of the frames so they will attach their comb to the sides. This helps to keep the foundation a little more rigid so when you flip your frame sideways looking for your royal highness the foundation doesn't break off and fall on the ground just to make you mad. Using this method does create a lot of drone comb but that's OK to because if you need to make a new queen you can more than likely be sure your queen will mate with one of your strains so she should be a good quality queen. That is if you start with good queens. drone larvae is also good for mite control too. As far as drone comb goes the bees just fill it up with pollen and honey when they don't need drones, pretty awesome! Good Luck!


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## naturaledge (Apr 27, 2011)

go foundation less and use 4 mesh stainless hardware cloth over the comb when you spin it . I use it for wood pellet fire logs I make, reposenow.com I had the material so when I found my comb falling out I made some from the same wire and it worked great . I will try to post some pictures tomorrow of the mesh on frames


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## mr.newbee (Jun 13, 2012)

K.E.N. said:


> Maybe you can use this info! I've done a study using my 15 hives. I started with 2 hives with wired foundation. After ther were good and strong I split them into 6 more hives. Now, 2 hives I used wax plastic foundation, 2 hives were foundationless and 2 were again wired foundation. What I found is the hives with plastic were extremely slow to build, about 2 months to fill up 10 frames. The wired foundation took about half that time and the foundationless was about half of that time. The only problem I ran into was that I had to straighten a couple of frames where the bees went crazy with there own foundation. I now only use foundationless frames in all of my hives.
> 
> Keeping the foundation straight is no longer a problem as I put a 1" stip of wax in the upper groove of the frames for the bees to start on. I drip beeswax on the strips of wax to hold them firm and I no longer have foundation falling out in the hive and making a mess. I also melt a little wax on the sides of the frames so they will attach their comb to the sides. This helps to keep the foundation a little more rigid so when you flip your frame sideways looking for your royal highness the foundation doesn't break off and fall on the ground just to make you mad. Using this method does create a lot of drone comb but that's OK to because if you need to make a new queen you can more than likely be sure your queen will mate with one of your strains so she should be a good quality queen. That is if you start with good queens. drone larvae is also good for mite control too. As far as drone comb goes the bees just fill it up with pollen and honey when they don't need drones, pretty awesome! Good Luck!


Interesting, very interesting indeed.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

one of the keys here is TIME to make you own foundation, and then wire it in (which is pretty well a must) so that even partial drawn frames can be extracted. takes more time than popping a .70 piece of foundation. I run about 100 hives. all my supers are plastic, or plastic foundation. I started weth wax and foundationless in the deeps but have given up on them there also. that foundation is the key to your success. why do you think the old timers spent hours wiring it in?


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Someone mentioned that wax costs $16.00 a lb in honey for the bees to make.
How much wax do they avoid making just because they started it on foundation? Don't they still make all the wax that forms the comb?
How many sheets of foundation are there in a lb? Foundation is far from free in the first place.

To me it seems frames are expensive either in cost or in labor no matter what you do. Sometimes it is a matter of what you can afford. Time/ labor, or money.

My great grandfather kept bees for nearly 100 years and never heard of foundation. It would be nice to know more about how he did it.


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## mr.newbee (Jun 13, 2012)

Daniel Y said:


> Someone mentioned that wax costs $16.00 a lb in honey for the bees to make.
> How much wax do they avoid making just because they started it on foundation? Don't they still make all the wax that forms the comb?
> How many sheets of foundation are there in a lb? Foundation is far from free in the first place.
> 
> ...


Intriguing post, i find is fascinating how early modern-modern beeks find foundation a must while ole timers in the past didnt use them at all.


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

I would string-up the frames with single runs of monofilament and use starter strips. The bees will build the comb over the fishing line.

I wouldn't want to babysit all those hives while the bees built out comb on foundationless frames.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

how many old timers ran 100's of hives?? (very few) most made a lot of cut comb... and almost all used wires... Don't get me wrong, running foundationless is fine, but the value represented in a piece of plasticell is more than the 1.00 cost to me, want to save money great!... time is money in this business, if you want to run 1000 hives you don't have time to monkey around.....


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## K.E.N. (May 5, 2011)

So you want speed! Time is money and that jazz. Foundationless will outdraw any other foundation out there. The first 2 hives I tried going all foundationless was May 2011 of those 2 hives I split into 4 hives in June of the same year. This year being June again I have split those 4 into 8 more Keeping the same 2 original hives in single deeps to build up again. 10 strong hives in a year. Now if all goes as last year everybody will be ready for winter and I'll still be able to steal some honey from them. I do have a couple of week hives those that I insist on leaving plastic in though I don't know why. Plastic is way to slow and the bees just don't like. They will use it if that's all they've got but they have attitude problems with it. "It's plastic! I'll draw it out when I feel like it! Right now I'm busy looking for vacant tree so I can move!"


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

and just how do you extract them ken? keep in mind he is talking about 1000 hives? every time I extract foundationless, without wires it ends up in the bottom of the extractor. thats not faster in my book. its a pain. plugs stuff up.


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## tommyt (Aug 7, 2010)

gmcharlie said:


> every time I extract foundationless, without wires it ends up in the bottom of the extractor.


Put Wires in the frame and let them draw
I had more than a few conversations with non-believers 
Plastic nor wax is not preferred by bees 
They will draw comb faster with nothing but Air in the frame


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

I read a comment the other day that one member observed bees drew foundation twice as fast as Plastic, and drew empty frames twice as fast as foundation. I have also observed the difference between air and foundation in one of my hives.

Assuming the above is the norm then speed cannot really be a top issue.

Btu what other related factors are there? how about getting the bees to put the comb in the center of the frame where it is wanted. I have already found that foundation can cause the comb to be missed placed as often as it gets it int eh right place. so that one does not hold up. Let the sheet warp just a bit and you have a lot of useless shallow comb being drawn.

The only advantage I see left is extracting and the durability of the frame. If bees will draw comb around wires. and if that results in reinforced comb just like foundation I don't see the reason for foundation at all.

There is also a cell size issue for many. So far I don't pay any attention to that one. The bees tear up my foundation eventually any way and make what they want. they don't like the foundation and actually make great effort to remove it from the hive sooner or later. My first hive is all of about 2 months old and a lot of the foundation has already been removed. nearly 25% of the foundation caused the comb to be drawn out of place and the bees will draw comb pretty much anywhere and everywhere but on new sheets of foundation. I am thinking of trying the wires in empty frames to see what happens.


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## fish_stix (May 17, 2009)

Mrnewbee; you can use foundationless frames and extract them. However, you need some foundation to get them started right or you'll spend all your time correcting wonky combs. Try alternating foundationless with foundation frames or drawn frames and they'll usually build it straight. For medium frames use crimp wired foundation, no wiring necessary. For deep frames, even using crimp wired foundation, you need to wire the 2 center holes if you're going to extract deep frames (2 wires). If only using the deeps for brood you don't need to wire them. You can place deep frames with a guide(thin sticks like tongue depressors glued into the top groove) in between drawn brood combs and they'll draw them out pretty fast to get more room for the queen to lay. To increase to the numbers you're talking about you need to minimize time spent in each hive or you'll never be able to get there so use guides and alternating foundation combs to minimize correcting bum combs. Once you have drawn mediums then alternate drawn combs with foundationless frames in your supers for minimum problems. Making your own foundation is labor intensive!


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## K.E.N. (May 5, 2011)

> and just how do you extract them ken? keep in mind he is talking about 1000 hives? every time I extract foundationless, without wires it ends up in the bottom of the extractor. thats not faster in my book. its a pain. plugs stuff up.


I use the crush and strain method myself! I just take a knife and cut the comb out all the way around the frame stick it in my crusher, the honey comes out the bottom (without heating mind you!) goes thru 1/8" screen and then 1/6" screen to get the big stuff. Then 600 mesh and 400 mesh screens and it's ready to bottle. I can cut and crush approximately 60 frames in less than hour, could be more. And I don't even Break a sweat. Of course I don't actually do the crushing, the machine does. All I do is come bak the next morning and collect the buckets of honey. I'm working on getting a patent for my crusher so no pics yet. It is very simple for me. After I cut the comb out the frames go right back in the hives they came out of and the bees get busy again. I love it! I'll never use foundation or wire again. The other benefit is cut comb honey, No wires, no special foundation and best of all since the bees do all the work it's basically free.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

thats an okay plan Ken,there is a downside though, bees for the most part will not draw wax late in the year, and DEFINATLY not at the rate of spring wax building. so your out of drawn comb for them to fill. you will also find a lot of "math" that says wax is costly in honey (not accepting that math myself)......

I know you can wire frames and let them draw,, I found wiring to be almost as costly, and definatly more time consuming.....

In the end, its up to the user, just hopeing he considers all the factors before deciding. I work with a lot of large scale guys, and they all use fondation for there operations...... After doing some work in the field, and some math, foundation is not as expensive as you might think, and its certianly useful.


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