# open frames vs foundation frames



## Gypsi (Mar 27, 2011)

ok, I'm trying to do the budget plan on bee purchases this year. I've been reading on here about using open frames with popsicle stick guides and getting the bees to fill those out. On Dadant.com found this: 

http://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=23_39&products_id=90

I figure 100 frames will run me a while even if by some miracle the bees make honey this year. I'm not thrilled with plastic foundation, I bought coated plasticell last year, and my bees made do and did build on it. Don't really want to get into wiring wax foundation in. 

So, for the hobbyist beekeeper short on time, not terribly long on cash, but coveting an air nailer or air stapler anyway, what's my best choice? Your opinions please. 

(and since my boxes are dadant, and I learned about different depths of frame ends and boxes, I have to go with Dadant. Plus they are closer. Probably less freight.)

Gypsi


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

If you can put them between either brood comb or capped honey you can just use an empty frame - no popsicle stick or anything - and they will build beautiful comb like this - 










Although that is actually a home made frame with a triangle comb guide in the picture, they really will do just as well without any guide at all.


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## rwurster (Oct 30, 2010)

I've never used foundation and all my bees drew comb fine straight from the package.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Here are pics of foundationless comb honey and foundationless brood:




















The bees seem to be able to build comb just fine, even without the help of foundation.


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## tjmuenc (Dec 22, 2011)

Very nice pics, could you also explain how you extract. Like can you still use a manual extractor and be careful not to ruin the combs.

THanks
Tom


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr (Feb 27, 2010)

A large portion of this discussion would be, "What do you want your bees doing?" With foundation, your bees are ready to start drawing cells, and preparing for egg laying or storing pollen, honey. Without foundation, you will see thousands of bees, hanging in chains of bees, from top to bottom, side to side, as they attach comb to the top and side, and then begin to draw cells. To make wax, or cells, the bees will have to consume five pounds of honey to make one pound of comb. So new bees would need honey they haven't made yet, to make the equivalent of the starter wax, you can give them. Either way will work, but, unless money is the primary discriminator, I would use starter wax. Give your bees every advantage you can, and they will return the favor, many times over. cchoganjr


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Foundationless extracts just fine. The only wax that is replaced by foundation is the paper thin division between the front and back cells - much thinner than foundation. Probably not a half ounce per frame.


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr (Feb 27, 2010)

David LaFerney, did you check to see if those queen cells had eggs in them? Looks like a perfect setup for a split and a free hive with the bees making themselves a new queen. cchoganjr


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr (Feb 27, 2010)

Let me make one more comment to possibly help Gypsi in his decision. Then I will hush. Feral bees rarely attach the bottom of combs to whatever the bottom is. This is also evident in all three of the foundationless photos above. They tend to leave the bottom open and hanging. If you plan to transport and/or extract, the foundation will give extra stability to the comb, because the foundation is attached to the top and bottom bars by the beekeeper. The bees will knit to the end bars , and the top and bottom is already attached. cchoganjr


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

For plastic I would go with the Mann Lake PF100 series (PF100 for deep PF120 for medium). They were more reasonable before, but are still not bad.

Foundationless works fine as well. You can just buy the wedge top bars and break out the wedge and turn it, or you can buy foundationless frames from Walter T. Kelley.

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


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## Gypsi (Mar 27, 2011)

Are Kelley's top bars on their frames a good fit for Dadant boxes? Because I hear that Dadant's ledge to hang the frames on isn't as deep. And the local boxes I had made - I'm going to be taking my dremel to, to even get clearance for Dadant frames. I don't want to replace all of my boxes. Wear them out, then replace. 

I notice on my comb from last summer that most of it drops down below the plastic foundation frame, where on the pics above, they left a bee space between the bottom of the comb and the bottom of the frame. Still not deciding tonight. My daughter's truck emergency took the fun out of thinking. I am NOT a mechanic. Would rather fix a house.

Gypsi


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Are Kelley's top bars on their frames a good fit for Dadant boxes? Because I hear that Dadant's ledge to hang the frames on isn't as deep. And the local boxes I had made - I'm going to be taking my dremel to, to even get clearance for Dadant frames. I don't want to replace all of my boxes. 

All the top bars from all the manufacturers are 3/8" tall, including Dadant and Kelley. The deeper frame rests on the Kelley boxes are made up for by the "T" shaped metal rests that raise the frame back up to the usual place.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Cleo - Those are indeed queen cells with queens in them. That frame had been in a mating nuc where one brand new queen (the one that layed that nice pattern) had been removed and replaced with a queen cell that was a dud. So of course the bees did what they usually do and built there own. Notice that mating nucs don't tend to build much drone comb.

About the bottom attachments in foundationless - 1) By the time that the frame is fully capped is is usually attached enough to extract without a problem - you do have to use a little judgement of course. 2) If it's foundationless brood extraction isn't an issue.


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## dray34 (Apr 21, 2011)

Joseph,
Do you use wire or fishing line to help support the comb? I didn't see any in the pics but wanted to make sure. I am planning on trying foundationless this year.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I tried a few with fishing line, but I don't like it. I've done many without any wire or fishing line support (the comb honey pic is an unsupported comb). I have come to prefer having horizontal wires for comb support. In our Summer heat comb becomes too soft and fragile, the wires help very much.


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## Mr. C (Oct 27, 2011)

When did all the manufacturers switch to 3/8th ears? I measured a bunch of the old frames I have laying around and a lot are exactly like the build it yourself dadant style frame with a half inch ear that tapers slightly. The plastic frames laying around are 3/8ths, but not my old wooden frames (no idea on their age, they are not in circulation in my operation currently).


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Last year were several posts about people's foundationless combs being all drone comb, including mine. Pictures at the beginning of this thread show almost all perfect worker comb. Let's be fair fellows, and show the beginners a good cross section of your foundationless combs.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

If you have a hive that is full of comb that is all built on regular worker size foundation and you give it a foundationless frame in the brood area they will be likely tobuild it full of drone - because they don't have anywhere else for drone. That is also why they build drone in all the nooks and crannies. Once they don't need any more drone they stop doing that. If you do foundationless they build what they need, and some of that will be drone - but they know that they need a lot more workers.

My frame was built in a mating nuc - small growing hives need workers so that is what they built.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

odfrank said:


> Last year were several posts about people's foundationless combs being all drone comb, including mine. Pictures at the beginning of this thread show almost all perfect worker comb. Let's be fair fellows, and show the beginners a good cross section of your foundationless combs.


Whenever the bees draw almost entirely foundationless combs of drone cells, I immediately place them where I want (honey super/brood nest/storage), or leave them where they are, if that location suits my purpose. Any comb that is too badly malformed can be melted down to become part of my beeswax stock and the frame given back to the bees, so they can try again.

So, basically, the combs I keep, are combs of my choosing -- I don't let the bees keep combs that I wouldn't want them to.


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## delber (Dec 26, 2010)

I am using all foundationless frames. I think that there are 2 reasons why people got a lot of drone comb. 1 is they have all foundation w/o any significant area for them to lay drones. They want to have some, and 2 the frame width is just right for drone comb. If you use 1-1/4" wide frames there will be less drone comb for sure. (per my research, not experience yet) Most of my frames have larger cell size at the top and smaller in the middle and bottom. I'll look and see if I can post a good picture when I get home. When I started I went and took pictures of the progress of every frame to see how things were going, so I have a wide assortment of pictures on foundationless. I haven't wired mine either. It's just another step and if I don't need to then I'm not going to do it. If I have problems later I may try to do it, but for now it's worked great. I haven't extracted so I can't speak to that though.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Frank, did you learn anything that would be helpful to other beekeepers trying foundationless comb to avoid the problems you had? I hope you did...there were 10 pages of discussion talking about why you got what you got.

deknow


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## DC Bees (Sep 24, 2009)

Here are a few pics of some foudationless frames i have in my basement.They have a mix of worker and drone cells!

http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i418/DCBees/DSC01933.jpg
http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i418/DCBees/DSC01932.jpg


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## Gypsi (Mar 27, 2011)

Joseph Clemens said:


> (the comb honey pic is an unsupported comb). I have come to prefer having horizontal wires for comb support. In our Summer heat comb becomes too soft and fragile, the wires help very much.


Joseph - I get plenty of summer heat. what weight wire, and do you run it through the sides of the frame, or wrap around and twist off. Aluminum wire? Or is something else better?

Gypsi


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

DC Bees said:


> Here are a few pics of some foudationless frames i have in my basement.They have a mix of worker and drone cells!QUOTE]
> 
> These pics show the other side of what to expect from foundationless, thanks for a more realistic viewpoint.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

deknow said:


> Frank, did you learn anything that would be helpful to other beekeepers trying foundationless comb to avoid the problems you had? I hope you did...there were 10 pages of discussion talking about why you got what you got.deknow


Yes, I learned that it is as complicated and difficult to get a majority of worker cells in foundationless as it is to get good small cell combs. You must have a nuc or swarm draw them, or draw them interspersed in the brood chamber, not anywhere near honey storage. And have drone comb already present. I will continue to use foundation for my brood combs. I might try some more foundationless in my bait hives, although some last year some collapsed when I moved them. I think foundationless is more realistic in medium frames, not deeps, unless wired and not moved for a while.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

DC Bees - those look great to me. What's not to like about it?

Odfrank - I guess it all just depends on what you want/expect. I raise a few queens, so I don't fret about drone comb. But I doubt if any healthy hive will build too much - that is, they naturally have to produce enough workers to produce excess honey or they wouldn't survive. I bet if you replaced every frame in a healthy hive with drone comb they would find a way to remodel a lot of it into worker comb.


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## DC Bees (Sep 24, 2009)

Dave,i think the frames are fine also.Most of my hives are a mix of small cell and foundationless frames.If i see to much drone comb near the brood nest i will move it to the outer edge.I have not had to buy any foundation for my brood boxes since 2008, saved a good bit of money.Does it balance out in the end?May be!My better hives put up 100lbs on average so i can't complain!I have never had any help from anybody except for beesource,for that i am greatful.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Gypsi said:


> Joseph - I get plenty of summer heat. what weight wire, and do you run it through the sides of the frame, or wrap around and twist off. Aluminum wire? Or is something else better?
> 
> Gypsi


I use the wire most beekeeping suppliers sell for the purpose, I believe it is tinned, high-carbon steel. There are brass or steel grommets also used in the wiring holes to keep the wire from biting into the wood of the frame end bars. The details are in several threads, and I believe in the POV section. When foundationless frames are wired, the wires, of course, don't need to be embedded into foundation, so, for me, it is easier letting the bees incorporate the wires into their combs.


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## delber (Dec 26, 2010)

I was able to get some pictures of 2 of my frames that show a good variable. This is from a swarm from the last week of June this past summer. They build worker comb fast, then after they had a couple cycles of worker they started w/ drone. 
This one you can see the drone off to the right side of the frame.
http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/x323/delber2/100_8024.jpg

This one if you look at the bottom you'll see the middle section where drone is off to the right and worker is about 1" away to the left. Interesting how it varries.
http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/x323/delber2/100_8130.jpg


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