# Can someone please explain the Foundationless hype to me?



## rrfunnyfarm

We're new beekeepers and this topic is very interesting to me.

1. Yes, less contaminants to start with and yes, the bees will eventually bring some into the hive. From there, it seems that the less we have, the better. Right?

2. I've had that same philosophical argument in my head... Bee"keeping" is not natural, but we are attempting to provide the most "natural" environment possible. AFAIK, no bees look for trees that have wired foundation in them.

3. For us, it's actually the same amount of work as we've been putting in 1" strips of cut comb foundation as a starter guide. I spent almost 2 years taking classes, visiting other hives and reading about bees before bringing in our own hives. I'm quite comfortable trimming comb and manipulating things as needed. I've found way more drone cells on the wired foundation than on the foundation-less frames. Having not measured cell width sizes in my hives, I'm not sure what the minute differences are.

4. My understanding was that without being forced into a particular cell size, the bees can be more hygienic by creating cell sizes that don't allow pests to occupy with the larvae. Yes, that may set them back a little but our primary goal is more, healthy bees. So, the delay can be compensated for with a little feeding and not expecting a large honey harvest.

On a side note, I love the look of the 'natural' comb when I open our hives. Hopefully this thread stirs the pot a bit and we get some interesting info.


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## xcugat

Thanks for the reply funny farm--
On answer 3 did you not see sections of all drone comb on the foundationless frames?--I know bees will chew and fit in the drones as needed on the foundation frames, but I my foundationless experience (I have tried it) I got alot more big all drone comb areas. 

to answer 4 you need to get a piece of comb and measure the cell size--I would bet it is not much smaller than foundation because the bees were not regressed and are larger themselves. If so your goal is not being reached as the cells are still big and big means more room more mites in the cells (if small cell actually helps but that is a separate topic for discussion other than this thread)


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## MrHappy

For foundation

1. I don't think the plastic contaiminates the honey any more that the pesticides that are being used withing a mile of the hive.

2. For this I just agree with OP, nothing we are doing is natural. Is stealing thier storage natural?

3. It takes me an extra 10 sec(?) to add a plastic foundation in the center as I'm nailing it all up. If you are that worried about time...

4. The size of the bees aren't the same as they were 500 years ago, so natural size? People have measured the size that the bees draw out normally and that is what the size is based on, so this is the normal size, we are just trying to make sure they don't add extra stuff, like drone cells, in the middle of everything else.

For foundationless - People do like cut comb though and I do go foundationless for that. It is kind of fun to chew on wax for a while.


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## rrfunnyfarm

3... Not that I have found. On the foundation frames, there will be spots of 4 or 5 drone cells but no large sections. On the foundation-less they are spotty. Due to the type of bees, possibly? We started with Buckfast bees but re-queened with BeeWeaver queens.

4... Tomorrow, I will cut out a small section during inspection and measure. I'm not expecting it to be much smaller but I would think that with the size of bees and the size of pests, that .1mm or even .05mm could make a difference.

Is there another thread on small-cell already? That's interesting to me too, but then again it steps away from "natural". 

In response to MrHappy, you're right, I highly doubt the plastic foundation adds any contaminants at all. Today's plastic technology is pretty good especially since people are more aware of chemicals leeching out of them. And heck yeah to chewing some comb. I was 'forced' to sample some the other day when trimming a bit of comb.


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## psfred

The two main ideas behind foundationless beekeeping are that all commerical wax, since it's coming out of existing hives, often treated with large amounts of miticides, is fairly badly contaminated with not only miticides by also various external things like chorothalonil (and other fungicides) at levels that may be detrimental to bees, and that the "standard" cell size was chosen to make larger than normal bees with the idea (unproven, I might add) that larger bees forage more.

The contamination issue could be significant, more so if you use standard miticides in you hives, or use thin surplus foundation for comb honey. The cell size issue is different, there is some evidence that smaller cells (hence shorter development time) means far fewer varroa mites. The jury is out on that, and you can get small cell foundation and "regress" you bees the easy way, too.

Drawbacks are that bees don't always read beekeeping books and fail to make nice, flat comb in the empty frames (swarms are the worst since they are in a huge hurry, but other bees will also sometimes simply refuse to build comb in the frames) and there is no guide for cell size and the bees will often make drone brood cells.

Of course, the hive need drones, and I am of the opinion that you can control the drone brood by giving them an empty frame outside where you want the brood nest to be for them to fill with drone comb. In my hive last here where I experimented, they made about 30% of the foundationless frames drones, with the remainder being normal brood cell size. You might have to move them around a bit to get a brood nest without drone cells, but they only built large amounts of it in the outer frames.

Peter


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## [email protected]

Let me see if I get this right. Foundationless frames so you get( Natural? ) sized cells that help reduce Varroa reproduction. Then you get 30% drone comb. Varroa prefer to reproduce in drone comb. So you are building a Varroa factory. Sounds like a dog chasing its tail.


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## odfrank

The modern beehive and most that goes with it was invented over 150 years ago. Hundreds of authors have written hundreds of books and hundreds of inventors have had 150 years to improve upon it. So there is little new for the current beekeepers promoting themselves as authorities with which to fill their websites, books and lecture series. So they come up with things contrary to everyday teachings to make themselves sound like novel innovators. Even though there are billions of queen excluders in service they condemn them. Even though bees build different cell sizes in all hives and in different climate zones they promote one cell size as salvation. Some promote not using a modern hive but a hive dating back to antiquity. Others seem to be able to keep bees with no interference with medications. Small cell, natural cell, and foundationless are just some of this decades catch words and hype. Whether there is any truth to their advantages is for all of us to find out as we sort out who to believe and who not to believe.


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## Keth Comollo

Hives manage their drone comb quite systematically. Perhaps people are seeing more drone comb right now because it is drone breeding season and all the new people trying foundationless for their first time due to reading about supposed benefits all winter are just seeing this for the first time. Wait till you have that foundationless comb in there for a couple of years and see what the numbers are and decide. Most hives balance to about 17% drone comb. But then again after a few years you have contaminated wax again due to pesticides being brought into the hive so go figure. It is a dog chasing its tail.


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## WLC

Let's see, advantages of foundationless over foundation that haven't been mentioned...

I wouldn't call foundationless a more productive method. However, it was the primary method in Langs until foundation was introduced.

Foundationless allows for crush and strain honey production. Which could be a good thing if you don't want to buy a regular extractor. Why spend the money on an extractor if all that you want is enough honey for yourself?

I haven't heard anyone bring up the microflora and microclimate issue. There's likely a real difference between the microflora found on the foundationless vs comb with foundation. Although, quite frankly, I can't recall any studies showing this to be the case.

Having more variation in the comb likely changes the 'weather' on the frames as well. Once again, I can't recall any studies on that either.

The main reason for using foundationless, as reported by others, is that it allows for hive survival in treatment free hives (similar to claims made for small cell), without the need for small cell foundation.

That's a pretty good reason for using natural comb if you are a treatment free beekeeper.


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## Barry

odfrank said:


> Small cell, natural cell, and foundationless are just some of this decades catch words and hype. Whether there is any truth to their advantages is for all of us to find out as we sort out who to believe and who not to believe.


Cut to the chase and find out for yourself. That's the surest way to sort things out.


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## xcugat

WLC
For crush and strain or cut comb you are correct foundationless works a treat. 
But.....
What do you mean by the 'weather' on the frames???

As for the survival of treatment free hives, the problem I have is that several posters are comparing foundationless to small cell foundation which is not really accurate-- In either case the comb will need to be removed several times to achieve the said goal of bee regression to have them small enough to make small cell comb.
*IF you are not removing the comb and regressing the bees you are not achieving anything as the bees are the same size* (or only slightly smaller) I would say that at least if you are planning on doing this correctly which is a bit involved at least the foundation gives the bees a head start. 

As a general note (and one of the reasons I started the discussion)
Alot of newbees do not realize these extra steps involved and just jump into foundationless and do not understand the why behind what they are doing--I am a big believer in if you cannot explain somethings design or purpose well enough to explain it to someone else logically perhaps you need more reading or understanding on the subject in question.


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## deknow

psfred said:


> The two main ideas behind foundationless beekeeping are


hmmm, we started using foundationless frames before we had ever heard of wax contamination or anything about cell size.

deknow


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## deknow

xcugat said:


> ...in a mindless fashion and do not understand the why behind what they are doing--I am a big believer in if you cannot explain somethings design or purpose well enough to explain it to someone else logically perhaps you need more reading or understanding on the subject in question.


...do you think most newbees (or even longtime beekeepers) that use foundation understand it's purpose well enough to explain it? ...and get it right? ...if not...should they not use foundation?

deknow


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## deknow

odfrank said:


> The modern beehive and most that goes with it was invented over 150 years ago. Hundreds of authors have written hundreds of books and hundreds of inventors have had 150 years to improve upon it. So there is little new for the current beekeepers promoting themselves as authorities with which to fill their websites, books and lecture series.


The modern beehive is built around beespace. Rarely have I read, in any of the (not hundreds, but certainly several tens) beekeeping books I've read a good description of bee space. 

Care to quote a good one? (description/definition of bee space)

deknow


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## psfred

Beekeeping was foundationless until the 1920s when foundation became widely available. People had been experimenting with it for decades, but until inexpensive roller presses became common, most people used empty frames.

Being a scientist, I'm somewhat perplexed that there is so little science applied at the practical beekeeping level -- there seems to be a significant dearth of theoretical investigation into the daily activities in hive management, and as a result, there is quite a bit of hands-on experience passed on by any number of people (and books) that may or may not apply in any given situation.

For instance, the discussion about queen excluders -- to my knowledge, that particular subject has been flogged half to death for the last century at least -- I would assume as soon as someone invented a reliable one. I'm equally certain that there is no significant theoretical research on whether they increase, decrease, or have no effect on production.

One should be careful to separate opinion from verifiable scientific theory, it helps quite a bit to keep the noise down. Bee hives are highly individual, just like people, and also respond differently in different conditions, so what works well for any given beekeeper in a particular situation may or may not work for someone else somewhere else.

Old fashioned beekeeping got knocked sideways with the recent arrival of both tracheal mites and varroa mites, and the increasing pesticide loadings aren't helping a bit. My grandfather kept bees for something like 40 years and never had anything result in a die-off of any kind. He did lose a couple hives over the years to AFB, but nothing remotely like deadouts due to varroa that we have all seen. 

Most people, I think, would welcome a management system that would greatly reduce or eliminate the use of heavy duty pesticides inside the hive, hence the interest in different management techniques, small cell bees, and foundationless beekeeping. It's not bashing tradition, it's looking for a way of managing problems that doesn't rely on chemicals that are highly poisonous to people and fairly toxic to the bees, too. A better way is to breed bees that handle the mites in particular better, but we have a very very small genetic pool to work with. The European honey bee was brought over here in fairly small numbers only a couple centuries ago, and all the bees we have (including the africanized bees) are descended from a very small number of genetic lines -- in the case of the africanized bees, literally six queens. Europe has it better than we do, as they still have a fairly large native population, but even there the loss of habitat has shrunk the gene pool considerably.

I have found that wired and cross wired foundation, while considerably more fiddlesome than foundationless frames, give very reliable comb production. Not perfect, but at least I don't have to worry about slumped foundation that ends up in bowed combs that are a hassle to move around, they won't blow out in the extractor as easily, and partially drawn frames are not so fragile they are hard to inspect. I do use a few foundationless frames because it's nice to have drone comb where I want it and not in the honey supers or between boxes. We shall see how that goes -- the bees are quite capable of making their own comb and foundation is an expense that for me is no problem, I don't have that many hives and don't anticipate making money from them, but for others it can be a problem. 

There are many systems of beekeeping, and most of them are fairly to very successful. Use what works for you and don't abuse people who do something different that works well for them, we can all learn from what other's experience. There are, as most of us know very well, no hard and fast rules in beekeeping.

Peter


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## xcugat

Thank you Peter thats the kind of answer I wanted for this thread--I like to hear people's direct experience or at least reasoning behind an idea--I have no problem with foundationless (despite being the devils advocate in this thread!) I just want some reasons people go with it other than just because someone else told them to either some personal experience or study or any facts of interest. This is especially for the new beekeepers, who can be very impressionable and get alot from this forum but need background information.

Deknow-- I dont expect anyone to be a scholar or an Entomologist here (though there probably are some) what I mean is at least with foundation you are going with the norm, and easy to use and teach system which is very helpful for new beekeepers who have enough on their plate rather than be alternative for no particular reason. 
As for the foundation purposes as I understand it (since you asked) 
foundation serves as a support for bees to build their comb on which can be quite helpful as new comb is rather soft and very pliable to the point of sagging or falling off the frame especially on a hot day. It also aids in reducing the overall amount of beewax needed to produce comb and thus saves on wax which saves alot of honey consumption. It also promotes the creation of more worker bees in the hive as the foundation is all worker sized cell--yes the bees will chew and make drone comb on frames or in the spaces at the edge of the frame but ususally the amount of drones overall is less than without comb (this is the one that is certainly subject to debate but it is one of the reasons foundation was made originally)


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## cerezha

Ok
This is really delicious topic! I have to disclaim that I am amateur bee-enthusiast who prefer to study the subject before doing anything. Being a scientist by profession, I studied a LOT of books, search the Internet.... regarding the bees and beekeepers. And what I discover? There are few discoveries: (1) all information is very controversial - it looks like every beekeeper has his/her strong opinion on everything; (2) Many beekeepers of 21 century actually is using approaches, hardware and "technology" of 17 century, amusing! (3) Major beekeeping technologies were developed BEFORE Varroa Mites and other diseases become an issue, nevertheless, many beekeepers still use outdated approach(es) and so on...

Foundation is just a small part of the problem. The bigger problem is why bees in US are dying? It distilled down to couple of "improvements" in beekeeping, which made beekeeping "an industry": re-use of comb and centrifugal honey extraction (mechanization - requires standardized approach); implementation of the "bee space" (crowded space in current beehive design - easy disease spread within the hive)); concentration of beehives in small areas (easy disease spread, Varroa etc); seasonal massive movements of bees for pollination (stress, spread diseases, "single-use" beehives) etc. And of coarse, massive use of pesticides is a huge problem (I do not blame on beekeepers). Foundation problem is related to re-use of comb and centrifugal extraction. For centrifuge, comb needs to be strong, thus - foundation. Additional benefit was that comb may be re-used in beehive, so bees will produce more honey not spending time/energy on building the new comb. Also, human being was thinking that it is possible to dictate to bees by implementing fixed size patterns in the foundation. 

Well, 100 years later, we discovered that bees actually are doing much better if we do not dictate them what to do... there are MASSIVE amount of information indicating that bees in healthy environment ALWAYS prefer foundationless frames if there is a choice. Also, apparently, they build a new comb much quicker on foundationless frames than on the frames with foundation... Also - apparently, bees DO like to build the comb without foundation - numerous studies indicated that bees are relaxed when build the comb (no foundation). Opposite is also true - bees are stressed out when forced to build a comb on the foundation... 

*1. Less contaminants in the hive-- *the problem is that when comb (wax) is recycled and returned into the hive many times, pesticides and other chemicals have accumulated in the wax and at some point becomes toxic. On foundationless - there is no accumulation because wax used only once and then happily burned in form of Christmas candles!

*2. It is more natural-- *it is more natural in the sense that bees have a flexibility to built what they needed. You do not put a stick inside the tree to make it grow straight, right? I actually think that beehive even in modern shape is quite natural - it is basically just a "vessel" for bees. What is unnatural is an environment around the beehive -machinery, pollution, monoculture, concrete etc ... Building a comb - what is more natural? If it is not natural, than, what is natural in our life? 

*3. *TB is the way to go, than, yes, it is much less work to build the "frame", i.e. TB. I do not see any advantage of using classical frame in foundationless approach. It is sort of half-solution... Langs design needs to be re-stylish to accommodate TBs for more natural beekeeping.

*4. I want natural comb cell size--* see my emotional statement above - bees do like to build the comb and they will do it right! My bees without any foundation are filling up 3rd super now and they are 6 boxes tall - this is the pay for letting them to do what they like to do! Drones - they ARE essential part of colony even if you don't think so. In my limited experience, I had no issue with drone cells - few cells here and few cells there, not big deal. My bee-instructor suggested to eat cupped drones, since it is good protein... so, some "stuff" goes into my honey, this is why I claim my honey is 102% natural! 

The major issue here is that industry needs simple and profitable solutions. But bees are wild animals, they are not domesticated. Imposing on them strict rules, keeping them crowded, feeding them pesticides and food-substitutes, treating them with nasty chemicals - all made them unhappy, stressed and as a result - vulnerable to the diseases and eventually - die ... 

Note: I had no intention to criticize anybody or be disrespectful. I just sincerely concern about the fate of bees in this unfriendly (to bees) environment we created for them.


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## WLC

"What do you mean by the 'weather' on the frames???"

xcugat:

There's likely a significant difference between heat and moisture characterisitcs in a foundationless hive vs a hive with foundation. I don't know what they are however.

"...there are MASSIVE amount of information indicating that bees in healthy environment ALWAYS prefer foundationless frames if there is a choice."

cerezha:

Maybe you could give an example or two of any studies that show the above. I'm not aware of any.


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## bejay

would think just not having to buy foundation, would be one of the major benefits to going foundationless.


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## AmericasBeekeeper

Beeswax is a chemical sponge, as Jerry Hayes calls it. It soaks up chemicals and contaminants that the bees bring in or beekeepers are putting in the hive the last couple decasdes. Regular comb replacement is the only soluton. Replacement is not dependent on foundation type. Plastic foundation is easily scraped with a capping scratcher for "crush and strain" harvesting or regular comb replacement.
Small cell and natural cell studies in several states and worldwide have proven ineffective in controlling Varroa or anything else. The spatial relationship changes as bees "regress" so there is no benefit. The bee biology that makes AHB resistant to Varroa is called absconding. AHB leave when the mite load gets high. We are starting to see this with all bees. It goes by another name also - CCD.
Beekeeping is a relative unknown with so many people showing interest and the Internet so willing to show "a better mousetrap" or the "perfect solution" I would put more trust in scientific research than what you can read on the Internet, even this forum, or this post. More thn once I have read ardent seemingly knowledgeable posters here who experience the same challenges a year or two later when they get their first hive.
There is nothing natural about horizontal hives or checkerboarding, but great interest in both by beekeepers in the last couple decades.


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## WLC

"Small cell and natural cell studies in several states and worldwide have proven ineffective in controlling Varroa or anything else."

I do recall some controversy over some of the small cell studies done. I don't recall the natural cell studies though.

Apparently, you actually need to have established treatment free bees first for the whole thing to work with natural cell/small cell.

Treatment free bees could be resistant because of other scientifically proven mechanisms. Hygienic behaviors are one. Another is attenuated mites. I'm also very much aware of the Maori finding that inserted sequences (like those from viruses) can make bees resistant via RNAi molecular immunity. Monsanto acquired Beeologics based on that.

So, it is possible that treatment free bees and natural comb is real.

It's not just anectdotal.


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## WLC

Let's try to remember that treatment free is a layered approach. Simply putting any old bees onto natural cells isn't going to make them resistant.

For example, Steven G started with resistant queen stock.

Mr. Bush also dips his hives in artificial propolis.

There's the principal of creating competitors for pests/patogens by increasing microflora via eliminating chemical contaminants or putting frames close together (attenuated mites count as well).


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## MattDavey

Another thing for foundationless is that foundation in the broodnest can be ignored, but an empty space won't be. They will fill the gap.

Matthew Davey


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## Solomon Parker

WLC said:


> Let's try to remember that treatment free is a layered approach. Simply putting any old bees onto natural cells isn't going to make them resistant.
> 
> For example, Steven G started with resistant queen stock.
> 
> Mr. Bush also dips his hives in artificial propolis.


That's the first time I've ever heard it called artificial propolis. It's just wax dipping, it is for wood preservation, it has nothing specifically to do with beekeeping.

I put my stock in the concept of natural selection. Let them die if they can't deal with it. People used to say that you couldn't beat mites because 'there's no such thing as wolf resistant sheep'. But nobody was breeding for wolf resistant sheep. They were breeding for wooly and tasty sheep. On the other hand, on the Serengheti, you have a better chance of surviving childhood if you're a wildebeest than if you're a lion if you get my meaning.

But back on topic. Being the moderator of the TBF forum and neck deep in small cell methodology and mythology almost since its mainstream beginnings (if in fact it is mainstream, at least it's available for purchase) I see 'natural cell' day by day. I refuse to use the term natural cell lately. It's foundationless. Just like there's no such thing as a 'natural treatment.'

I have tried it a frame at a time because I don't want to deal with having to do cutouts on my own hives (again). I find it to be most useful for creating drone frames in medium size because nobody makes them in plastic. Beyond that, they lose most all utility for me and utility is my main focus.


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## Stromnessbees

*The foundationless hype: a distraction from neonic problems!*



xcugat said:


> Hello,
> 
> I like to post thought provoking posts so I ask those pro and against, what is the surge in interest for foundationless that I have seen online in the last few years all about?


I provide my bees with a strip of wax folded over horizontal fishing line. On a broodframe I have 4 parallel lines and 3 on a super frame, they go through holes in the side bars and are stretched tight, the comb built on them is pretty strong. As long as I am carful I can put even virgin comb through the extractor. 

This system suits me and my bees, and I get lots of fresh comb drawn every year.
On the other hand I can understand people who use foundation instead, as it can make hive management more straightforward. 

And now to the original question: *Why the hype?*

The answer is simple:

The whole topic is mainly a distraction from the real reason of our bee problems: modern agricultural pesticides. 

Beekeepers are dragged into the most weird and wonderful discussions like cell orientations and cell sizes, while up and down the country colonies are sick and dying from neonic pesticides. But the blame is put on the varroa mite, which on it's own would never be as much of a problem as in combination with the neurotoxins brought into the hive with pollen, nectar and feed. 

I say: ban the neonics - and varroa treatment will become much easier, as the bees won't be compromised in their hive hygiene anymore. Then everybody can just use the beekeeping method that suits himself without fearing to risk the survival of his bees.


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## psfred

*Re: The foundationless hype: a distraction from neonic problems!*

There are lots of other things in the hive besides neo-nics. Fungicides and herbicides also accumulate there, and the interactions between all these chemicals are unknown.

The two largest changes in beekeeping since WWII are probably large scale "migratory" bee "hauling" (the bees don't migrate, people load them on trucks and haul them all over) and the widespread use of pesticides. Lead and arsenic were significant problems before WWII, as most orchards were heavily sprayed with lead asenate to control codling moths and other pests (to the point where the soil was poisoned and the trees died, believe it or not), but the organic pesticides were post WWII.

The results are that not only are the bees exposed to low levels of a huge variety poisons and are exposed to lethal levels fairly often, but we spread whatever new diseases or pests appear all over the country in very short order by transporting hives to all 48 states during a growing season. 

Peter


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## Stromnessbees

*Re: The foundationless hype: a distraction from neonic problems!*



psfred said:


> There are lots of other things in the hive besides neo-nics. Fungicides and herbicides also accumulate there, and the interactions between all these chemicals are unknown.


The difference to other contaminants is that neonics were designed to kill sytemically and with a delayed action.

Here is Bayer describing how Imidacloprid kills colonies of termites:



> Premise® Insecticide, introduced by Bayer Corporation in 1996, works synergistically with nature to provide value-added termite control. Premise Plus Nature,TM the term the manufacturer uses to describe the product's unique mode of action, affects termites *by making them susceptible to infection, disease and death by naturally occurring organisms. *


http://www.pctonline.com/Article.aspx?article_id=39807

Bees and termites are related to each other and both use grooming behaviour to keep out infections and parasites. 

Neonic contamination is extremely widespread nowadays, it interferes with grooming and hive cleaning, that's why varroa mites can overrun our colonies.


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## Rick 1456

Pick a side and run with it till it doesn't work, then pick a new side, run with that till it doesn't work. One day, something will work for you, your bees, where you are. The thing is, what do you want to end up with? Some chemicals, or none ? There are chemical free treatments, methods if you will, that are effective for mites. To each their own. What ever makes you happy with your bees.  
Here's what makes me happy.  Starting all my new hives and swarms(the one) with foundation less frames, beginning to change the established ones over as I can. Why? It is something I have not done before, I can't begin to understand the complex relationships between the micro flora and fauna, that exist in a bee hive. I just know that it is. I have no issue with foundation. It just makes sense to me if one chooses to be treatment free, to do it as "natural" as possible. I believe that environmental (mites) pressure can and does evoke change from a community to deal with problems. It makes no sense to me that will happen in an un natural state of anything I would do to eliminate mites. So, I'm trying foundation less. Might try regression next year, cuz I ain't never done it before.
My bees are alive, healthy, and I still enjoy this hobby. That's what matters


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## WLC

Foundationless vs natural cell? While I do use both terms, I think that foundation is any backing that has cells stamped on it. You could use boards without any cells on em and it would still be foundationless.

"That's the first time I've ever heard it called artificial propolis. It's just wax dipping, it is for wood preservation, it has nothing specifically to do with beekeeping."

I've mentioned it before. If you melt beeswax and rosen, you get artificial propolis.


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## Paul McCarty

Foundation is darn pricy when compared to going without. And you have to replace every so often. I have no regrets about using foundationless frames. The bees like them better than the others and draw them quicker and make more bees per inch when they regress. You can also slap comb from cut-outs - (which I do regularly) - into foundationless MUCH easier. Foundation has it's place, but there are lot's of things out there designed simply to separate you from your money - especially in the bee world. Simplicity is a virtue. Why buy things you don't really need?

And WLC, I have seen some studies from South Africa where they used a blank sheet of wax for foundation with good result.


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## Solomon Parker

WLC said:


> If you melt beeswax and rosen, you get artificial propolis.


So is 'artificial propolis' defined as mostly wax? Because regular propolis is mostly not-wax. Or maybe you're confused with the differences between resin and rosin. I guess I could see your point on the basis of the number of constituents, two versus 50 including the two. Is gasoline artificial oil? Is coal artificial mountain? Is T-bone steak artificial cow?

Call it what you want, it is still for wood preservation and has nothing to do with beekeeping. Perhaps you remember how it was done to death in TFB by someone with an ax to grind wanting to call it a treatment?



In reply to Paul, you buy things you don't really need because they're darn useful. When you get past a handful of hives, suddenly all that effort to keep hundreds of frames of foundationless comb in order becomes prohibitive. Michael Bush uses foundationless, but most of his frames are PF-120's with some permacomb mixed in. Rather than treating a frame as a sub-unit of a hive like most of us do, he treats whole 8-frame boxes as units. It's why I switched to plastic frames. Sure, I got pretty good at assembling frames and wiring them and installing foundation, but not 'comes ready out of the box for the same price' good.


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## jdawdy

psfred said:


> Being a scientist, I'm somewhat perplexed that there is so little science applied at the practical beekeeping level -- there seems to be a significant dearth of theoretical investigation into the daily activities in hive management, and as a result, there is quite a bit of hands-on experience passed on by any number of people (and books) that may or may not apply in any given situation.
> 
> Peter


As a new beekeeper trying to learn as much as possible, I want to echo Peter's statement. I was quite shocked at how little published scientific literature there is on beekeeping, and especially on AHBs. Much of what there is, is 10-20 years old (or more).

For one thing, why is an industry, which is worth some real money, not more closely investigated? Lemme tell you, the cattle industry is a seething hotbed of scientific research compared to apiculture. 

I was also surprised that beekeepers in the US are limited to a very few subspecies of bees (German, Italian, Russian, Carniolan, Caucasian), most of which were imported over 60 years ago. You would think that with AHBs, someone would be studying hybrid genetics of some of the many other races of bees. Living in the hot southwest, I have to think that a subspecies such as Apis mellifera sahariensis, which is a gentle bee from Morocco used to an arid climate and able to travel up to 5 miles in search of nectar, would be ideal.


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## Solomon Parker

The difference between real money in bees and real money in cows is that even Texans can figure out how to raise cows.  Just joking.

Cows are fully domesticated. Bees are not. Far more people will touch a cow than will touch a bee. Cows are more useful as food than bees. Cows require far more space and resources. Bees will do their job in the wild out in nature, cows will get eaten. And I won't even get into the massive government subsidies that go into meat production and research and into the grain that goes to feeding them.

On the other hand, cow farmers are out on horseback rounding up the herd, beekeepers stand around arguing about foundation.


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## Paul McCarty

I have PF -105's and my bees hate them. I really wanted them to like them, but no bueno. Even when I spent an enormous amount of time re-coating them with wax. I only really use them to correct curved comb. And at $2.20 a piece compared to $.99 a piece for the foundationless - it was a no brainer for me. 

It might be that my particular wild breed of bee just hates them. Maybe a more domesticated variety would take right to them. I don't know, most of mine are wild caught. 

Funny about the AHB thing. For them to be such a bogeyman, there is very little true research being done about them. Even stranger is the fact that DNA survey's has shown previous African genetics in some of our bees, mainly from out West, that were probably brought over by the Spanish in the old, old days. That is never mentioned either. I suspect most of the wild sort in my area have more to do with these bees than anything that came up from Brazil - but I am no scientist.


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## Solomon Parker

Paul, what is your method for getting the bees to draw the PF-105? I too had some problems with them when I was trying to stick them in peacemeal. But I find it works much better when I stick them in three or more together at a time or with newly started hives or if I just don't give them another option. They're almost always drawn very well and treated no differently from then on.


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## xcugat

In reference to the cost of foundation I dont consider it to be a cost as much as a money saver. This is because of the cost assoicated with foundationless comb which requires more wax to make and thus more Honey. I am selling honey here for 10 dollars a pound so for me at least, it is alot cheaper in the long run to buy some foundation and get more honey than the other way around. Also, with plastic foundation you can scrape off old comb and reuse it after a light coating of new wax--so you only have to buy it once. With wax foundation you could save enough of it so that when you go to a supplier to get new foundation, they will discount your new foundation in exchange for your rendered wax.


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## Paul McCarty

If I give them no other choice they usually draw a little of them and the goober up the rest. Lot's of one side only deals with big globs where they reform the wax and try to draw in between the frame. easier and faster for me to just slap some foundationless in and check them once a week when i do my rounds. May not be perfect, but they draw it out quick normally. However, I have noticed they don't like to move up into supers sometimes with foundationless frames, even with a few plastic ones to help move them up. My few standard langs have become nuc breeding factories, that I use mostly to stock my bigger long hives and raise queens for them. Too hard to deal with. 

My system works for me, but would probably not be so good in a different region. You guys have to remember New York is a far cry from the nearly Third World conditions found in some parts of NM. Heck, I don't even have mail delivery.


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## xcugat

For those trying PF 120s they are small cell frames, so unless you have regressed bees they are not going to like to draw it out--anyone with small bees care to chime in?


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## rweakley

xcugat said:


> In reference to the cost of foundation I dont consider it to be a cost as much as a money saver. This is because of the cost assoicated with foundationless comb which requires more wax to make and thus more Honey. I am selling honey here for 10 dollars a pound so for me at least, it is alot cheaper in the long run to buy some foundation and get more honey than the other way around. Also, with plastic foundation you can scrape off old comb and reuse it after a light coating of new wax--so you only have to buy it once. With wax foundation you could save enough of it so that when you go to a supplier to get new foundation, they will discount your new foundation in exchange for your rendered wax.


There is another cost involved also and that is the cost of time. Here in Misery we have a limited time window for them to draw frames out. I have found that foundationless are built MUCH quicker than foundation. How do bees build comb? By festooning. Let me see is it easier for them to build a comb with nothing in the way and festoon down the middle or to festoon some bees on one side of the foundation and some bees on the other side of the foundation. Making wax is what bees do, along with honey and collecting propolis, I reject the notion that it costs too much honey to make comb, it costs them time to build on foundation and TIME is MONEY brother.


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## RiodeLobo

xcugat said:


> For those trying PF 120s they are small cell frames, so unless you have regressed bees they are not going to like to draw it out--anyone with small bees care to chime in?


They are drawing out mine with a minimum of error, less than 10%. They did manage to get some drone cells in one. They are a just normal packages.


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## WLC

'Let me see is it easier for them to build a comb with nothing in the way and festoon down the middle or to festoon some bees on one side of the foundation and some bees on the other side of the foundation.'

rweakley:

What a marvelous observer you are!

That's got to be a winning argument for foundationless if ever there was one.


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## WLC

Perhaps rweakley's observation could suggest a way to speed up comb building on foundationless frames?

I already glue popsicle sticks to the top bar. I've glued a bunch to the bottom of some. I might just do a comparison.


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## cerezha

WLC said:


> cerezha:
> Maybe you could give an example or two of any studies that show the above. I'm not aware of any.


WLC - you just search Internet- there are few posts on this forum (see * this * thread also) and many more on forums related to natural beekeeping. As I stated in my original message - there is huge discrepancy between beekepers in practically any aspect of the beekeeping. So, one with some efforts could find support to any idea,foundation, no foundation... I just distilled what I did find in literature. BUT the best way to learn is just to try. If somebody really want to learn, than just try both approaches,foundation and no foundation: dedicate for "experiment" a strong hive, which already made a *full* super of honey. Remove two frames from the box, let say in position 3 and 7 for 10-frames box. Install one brand new frame with foundation of your choice and another - with no foundation but with starting strip. Install the box just on top of the nest and watch. Take a pictures of each frame every 7-10 days. When done, please, report to us and show the pictures. This is totally unbiased way to learn and very educational. Good luck! 

My general impression after 10 month of bee-observing (do not feel, I am a beekeeper) is that the whole approach needs to be re-evaluated in the light of current reality: pesticides, 100+years old dogmas, congestion, concrete, industrialization, pollination, migration, "bee space", new diseases etc. It needs to be accepted that current beekeeping industrial system - fails! Nearly 50% of bee-colonies lost every year in US - it IS a failure of the current approach. If system did not work, it needs to be changed in accordance to the new reality. If someone repeating the same thing and it fails every other time - is this right way to do business? Like, if every other space shuttle will fail? I think, such forum(s) is a good place to discuss a new ideas and learn new approaches from the people who may be "discovered" something better for your bees. 
Sergey


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## WLC

I've already seen that bees prefer to build on foundationless frames while ignoring perfectly good small cell frames. I've also added an empty foundationless body to small cell comb containing body to see what happens.

I also have ritecell deep frames in my nucs that were drawn by placing a deep over a body with fully drawn foundationless frames.

So, I kinda understand some of the dynamics involved, and the frustrations as well.

However, I never really thought about the way bees festoon when building comb and how that might affect the speed (or preferences) when building new comb on different types of frames.

There's something there.

So, I'll see if popsicle sticks on the top AND bottom of a foundationless frame speeds things up or not.

It's just a hunch. Besides, it'll give me something to look for that I can see clearly.

I've heard of the anectdotal reports that foundationless frames are drawn more quickly than frames with foundation. I haven't really noticed that. I think that the deep frames with ritecell were drawn more quickly than foundationless frames or small cell frames.

So, I'll give it a second look.


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## rweakley

WLC said:


> Perhaps rweakley's observation could suggest a way to speed up comb building on foundationless frames?
> 
> I already glue popsicle sticks to the top bar. I've glued a bunch to the bottom of some. I might just do a comparison.


My point was that foundationless is FASTER than using foundation not the other way around. I think the only way to speed up comb building any faster on foundationless is to personally bottle feed each bee.


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## cerezha

WLC
Like I says - many thing in beekeeping is controversial! Measuring the speed of honeycomb formation is not a simple task. Many factors needs to be accounted. I never actually measure the speed of honeycomb creation, but I noticed that honey comb on foundationless frames is thicker than on the frames with foundation (I am doing 8 in 10-frame medium box) . In my hive, foundationless frame full of honey is approximately 30% heavier than completely filled frame with foundation. So, I have more honey from foundationless frame. In this sense, if you want accurate measurements, you need to normalize your data per pound of comb (honey+wax+drones), per day. 

By the way, in my hands, the top plank of the standard frame works as great as a full frame. My local bee-store sells to me only top parts for something ridiculous - 0.24$ per piece? Also, I do not see a difference between using "popsicle sticks" type guide or just fill up the groove in the plank with melted wax. I prefer the latest because it is much quicker and attachment of the comb to "frame" seems to be more secure. So, right now, I am replacing all frames on just top planks with groove filled with melted pure wax. I found that it is much better to alternate empty frames and full frames - when box is full of honey, I took each other frame, sort of checker-boarding... girls work like crazy to "repair" the damage. It has additional benefit - it looks like they are so busy that keep forgetting to swarm... As for honey extraction - you just dump everything in the mesh bag installed in suitable container with holes and let it drip! It is scalable - one could use a barrel or even something bigger. Next day you have a really raw, grade A, non-heated beautiful honey. I mix the remaining wax/honey leftovers (still in the mesh-bag) with water, remove wax with mesh-bag and use the liquid to make a honey vine - just add yeasts and plug the water gate. Wax is used for candles.... As everything in beekeeping, my non-professional dilettante approach may not work for you. Sergey


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## Solomon Parker

xcugat said:


> For those trying PF 120s they are small cell frames, so unless you have regressed bees they are not going to like to draw it out--anyone with small bees care to chime in?


That's not what I've heard, and in fact, we've been recommending PF-100's and PF-120's as the best option for regression as the bees draw them well almost every time, small cell or no. I regressed with wax years ago, but I can tell you that right now, PF frames are drawn much better than small cell wax. After hundreds of frames, I haven't had to scrape but two or three and that was just in small spots. It's true they don't build them out as fast, but I haven't heard of any problems with them, small cell or no.

Now the old Dadant small cell plastic foundation was another story. It was horrible, but fortunately, it's not still on the market. I still have five pieces. I tried them again this year just for kicks and it was an abject failure.


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## WLC

I don't doubt that foundationless is drawn quickly and has has many other benefits.

My experience with rite cell just happened to be a positive one. It may simply be a great product.

I am interested in seeing how bees on drawn natural cell (foundationless) will build on PF 120s. I'm also interested in seeing how bees on drawn PF 120s will build on foundationless frames.

I hope to see a reduction in cell size when PF 120 'bees' draw on foundationless. I expect to see the bees 'balk' when they go from foundationless to PF 120s.

I also expect that the bees will confound any of my expectations. 

As for the festooning observation, I'm interested in seeing if having a comb guide on both the top and bottom of the frame speeds things up.

What I really want to do is observe how the bees festoon on the top and bottom vs the top only comb guide frames.

Who knows? There might be a some differences that may suggest possible improvements.


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## Rick 1456

Someone with an observation hive should make a time lapse video of comb drawing in the above cases. Just a thought


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## buzz abbott

psfred I was told of this site recently
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/
I have not taken the time to check it out so take it fwiw.


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## Stromnessbees

*Biased!*



buzz abbott said:


> psfred I was told of this site recently
> http://scientificbeekeeping.com/
> I have not taken the time to check it out so take it fwiw.


This site claims to be independent about science, but I found it highly biased with regards to research on pesticides. R.O. just can't accept that without solving the pesticide problems beekepers will struggle to keep their bees alive.


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## psfred

*Re: Biased!*

That's Randy Oliver's site. I have found quite a bit of good information on there concerning bee nutrition, feeding protocols, and general bee health. I don't find him biased particularly, but he does have a focus on pesticides.

Remember that he keeps bees in California for almond pollination amongst other things, and there is probably more pesticide applied at more times in the Central Valley of California than at any other place in the world (including herbicides and fungicides). I suspect that bee kill-offs are a significant problem. Bayer just last year de-listed neo-nics for use on almonds due to concerns that the bees, without which there will be no almonds, were being killed off. 

Naturally, he's quite concerned about pesticide effects on bees, and research on "CCD" has focused quite a bit on some pesticides that came into common use at about the same time as CCD showed up (notably neo-nics).

The recent scare about slamonella and e.coli on lettuce has resulted in a very serious "weed eradication" program that pretty much removed any non-crop plants, too, which is causing some stress problems. 

In my opinion, the second worst problem beekeepers face (after loss of forage) in the near future is pesticide use that seems to keep increasing all the time. Mites can be managed by treatment, or better, by breeding resistant bees and non-lethal mites, but we are never going to breed pesticide resistant bees.

Peter


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## Aerindel

*Re: Biased!*

Here is something that nobody has mentioned yet.

Its more fun!

Even if all the claims about foundationless turn out to be false its still going to be a simpler and more enjoyable way to keep bees.



> but we are never going to breed pesticide resistant bees.


This isn't true. We are experts at breeding pesticide resistant insects. Any time you use a pesticide that does't kill 100% of a population you are eventually going to end up with pesticide resistant insects. This applies to bees just as much as it does mosquitoes. 

The problem is that bees have a longer life cycle than most the insects we are trying to kill and so will adapt slower than the pest species. 

For the most part pest species also adapt faster than the chemical industry. I'm not actually all that worried about pesticides. Given enough time they'll all become useless. Heck, given evolutions track record we'll probably end up with insects that depend on pesticides as part of their biochemistry. We'll have healthy bugs filled with so much poison nothing else will eat them.


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## BeeGhost

bejay said:


> would think just not having to buy foundation, would be one of the major benefits to going foundationless.


This to me is a huge benefit, no need to spend money on foundation which equates to more money to buy more hives/frames!!
Another advantage to foundationless is being able to cut out whole capped queen cells (for splits) without much worry, as opposed to doing that on plastic.

You can also do the fatbeemans method of cutting a strip of comb off with eggs and put it into a cell starter, I dont think you can do that with plastic, without grafting. Another good thing is if they do make a frame or two of drone comb, you can move those up into the honey supers and have LARGE cells of honey!!

This is my first year of foundationless and I am impressed at how fast the bees draw out the comb compared to plastic. Its also fun watching them start the comb and amazing how they can make something so nice and architechual!!

But he main thing for me...............saving money!!


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## beeG

I am sorry I am interested in foundationless.. Only because it is cheaper. Secondly the benefits of contamination from another wax source is also a plus. cell size. my foundationless are huge cells. Maybe they are building giant bees  maybe those were not drones I saw :scratch: maybe I am breeding giant bees :lpf:


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## xcugat

Can someone quantifiably show that foundation less is cheaper? By my calculation it is not-- you are losing honey production. If I buy foundation from Dadant, seven sheets equals one pound so for 2 deep boxes that is 20 sheets or 2.85 pounds of wax, which translates at 8 pounds of honey per pound of wax 23 pounds of honey. I sell honey at 10 dollars a pound that is *230 dollars lost money*. Even if you include the cost of the foundation, which if bought in a fifty sheet pack would be 19 dollars worth of foundation for the above example--there is still a *loss of 211 dollars honey *profit just to start to draw out the brood boxes let alone the supers-So how is it cheaper again?


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## WLC

xcugat:

What you really mean is why don't all of the commercial operations use foundationless if it's so great?

My guess: time bandits and money pits.


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## Rick 1456

I shouldn't do this,,,
But see, there we go again, putting production first, and bee health somewhere down the road. I'm not singling anyone out here but the attitude is,,,,,disheartening. It reminds me of the "curmudgeon" at the last, and I mean last, bee meeting I went to. Take all the honey from the bees sell it, and then feed them syrup, because honey is worth more than the cost of sugar. Maybe it is just me, but is it any wonder there are problems in a management system like that ? We are talking back yard beeks here. 
 I have my bullet proof vest on


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## xcugat

Rick I hope its kevlar! 

I understand what you are talking about, but you are comparing apples to oranges here. This discussion is about not using foundation not all beekeeping Modus operandi. I agree with you taking all the honey is clearly wrong but that is not at all the same as using foundation. Just because I am demonstrating cost effectiveness doesn't mean I am shortchanging the bees "way of life" wax foundation is just that beeswax from bees which helps them get a head start on comb drawing. Yes there could be contaminants in it but even with foundationless contaminants will get in in a season or two- unless you plan to constantly remove combs, which most people do not.

WLC I dont think they question should be why don't all commercial beeks use foundationless if its so great but why dont *ANY* use it if its so great (unless you know of someone?)


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## bejay

just because you add foundation the bees still have to make wax so your loss isnt that much, having fully drawn out comb is much better for production than either foundationless or foundation either one, the hives you give comb to will produce alot more honey than the hives that just have foundation.
so 50 sheets of wired deep foundation is about 1 dollar a sheet for plastic probably more.

http://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=23_38&products_id=69


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## xcugat

bejay--it is at least that much--my calculations were just for the weight of the foundation brand new (at around .95 cents a sheet) not the drawn out frames--that would require considerably more wax and consequently honey.


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## bejay

why dont you do a test take 10 hives and only super with foundation on 5 and foundationless on the other 5 and see what you end up with in average honey production the difference isnt going to be very much in my opinion.


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## Rick 1456

Understood, we are good to go My point, I guess, and what I perceived, was the cost analysis, of honey needed to generate comb for foundation less vs. savings, in honey, by using a foundation, thus requiring less honey/resources, and therefore more for the bee keeper to harvest. It is they way some folks look at things. (as I have seen) Just an opinion


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## cerezha

xcugat said:


> Can someone quantifiably show that foundation less is cheaper?... that is *230 dollars lost money*.


Xcugat, I do not understand how you count. I would do estimate as following:
- you save $1-1.5 on each new frame; you could re-use old frames with little effort.
- you probably do not save on labor since new technique will require some learning/optimization;
- you do not need an extractor - $100?? savings;
- you do not need the space to keep unused frames with comb - you save on space.
- if you fill up the box with foundationless frames you shall have approximately the same amount of honey (or more) at the end, no loses.
- major reason to go framless is the believe that bees are doing better with this approach, so your tremendous gain is healthier bees! 
- in addition you have a wax, which you could sell.
- for those who Russians - additional benefit is honey-vine!

P.S. I do not think that it is easy to translate a new wax into how much honey has been lost. It is much more complex than that.
Sergey


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## deknow

xcugat said:


> Can someone quantifiably show that foundation less is cheaper?


A flow.is.a.temporal event...it has a limited duration. When the flow is strong, the bees are very unlikely to be collecting all the nectar available....especially if they dont have drawn comb to store it in.

In.such a case, the bees use.some.of the flow to make wax. But, given the same number of bees, they draw the foundationless.and.fill it faster than they do with foundation. The issue is how.much can be stored.in the limited time the flow.is on, not how much nectar it takes. Within this limited time frame, the amount of nectar available is, for.practical purposes unlimited.

If you had an unlimited amount of.money for a short period.of.time, what would.you save by looking for the lowest price?
deknow


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## xcugat

Sergey The math is based on the generally agreed figure that it takes approximately 8 pounds of wax for one pound of bee wax. In regards to your post I take issue with is

*major reason to go framless is believe that bees are doing better with this approach, so your tremendous gain is healthier bees! 
*
How are the bees demonstrably doing better with foundationless? People keep spouting this but I have yet to see some real evidence. That and I got an old extractor given to me for free


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## Aerindel

> 2.85 pounds of wax, which translates at 8 pounds of honey per pound of wax 23 pounds of honey.


I know this is generally accepted but so are an awful lot of things that aren't true. Has anyone ever proved this or is it something that someone said a hundred years ago that everyone has taken on faith ever since? I don't have any reason to think that its not true but I also don't accept things just because they are generally accepted. I'd like to see the write up for a reproducible experiment that shows how much honey wax production consumes.

Not to mention you can sell bee's wax for $8 a pound or more so wax isn't a completely lost product in any case.

Here is an interesting calculation. Honey is about 17% water so out of your 8 pounds of honey 6.64 lbs of it is the actual honey molecules. Now if it takes 6.64 lbs of honey "solids" to make 1 pound of wax then that means that the bees are throwing away or loosing thermodynamically 5.64 pounds of solid matter for each lb of wax produced. This seems extraordinarily inefficient considering that unlike most animal feeds honey is composed almost entirely of easily digestible high energy components.

And here is yet another interesting question that I have no answer for, is that bees need eight pounds of honey to produce a lb of wax or is it they consume eight lbs of honey in the time that it takes them to build a lb of wax? Do they have to eat extra honey to produce wax or is it a by product of the honey/nectar they normally consume?


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## psfred

The 8 lbs of honey for a pound of wax is derived more or less from the difference in energy content and the metabolic energy used do reduce the carbohydrate to lipid. Simple thermodynamics and metabolic energy transfer.

This is why you want to keep as much drawn comb as possible, it really does take quite a bit of nectar that would otherwise be honey to make comb.

Drawing foundation into comb is not the way bees evolved, they normally build comb by festooning in empty spaces, so foundatinless comb is easier and more natural for them to draw out. Better is a matter of opinion, but foundationless is what's normal. Drawing foundation is more like doing repairs.

Peter


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## cerezha

Well
This wax/honey equation is a strong argument... I am not knowledgeable enough to discuss thermodynamic of the conversion... Besides the science, couple of things come to mind:
- first, it is not honey but nectar, which fuels worker bees during the flow.
- bees who deliver nectar and who made a wax - are different.
- I do not know what eat wax-making bees, nectar?
- the assumption that all delivered nectar will be converted into the honey - I do not think it is a case. It is like if all food one consumes will be immediately converted (and stored) into the fat... It is possible that for example only 50% of nectar converts into the honey by bees. So, another 20-30-50% may be used to create the wax. If so, these two processes may go in parallel. Since, making wax is natural process to the bees, I would not be surprised if my assumption is close to the reality. In another words, wax-bees may consume the energy, which is not dedicated to be converted into the honey... thus, creating the wax does not affect amount of honey stored...

As for bees well-being - I already explained in my previous posts that bees are stressed out when forced to work on the foundation. Opposite is also true. You know that stress affected immune system. Weak immune system means - weak beehive ... eventually decease and death. It is from the physiology textbook, I am sorry, nothing personal.

In all these arguments pro and contra, I could see only one, which is not really clear to me since I am in SoCal - if nectar flow period is so short that bees may not have time to make a comb. This is I really do not know. But,this argument is in the area of business and profit... I guess, one should not have industrial honey production in the area where nectar flow is so short that bees have no time to build the comb... It is my understanding that there are "waves" of nectar flow - bees could build comb between the waves... Sergey


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## odfrank

cerezha;As for bees well-being - I already explained in my previous posts that bees are stressed out when forced to work on the foundation. Opposite is also true. You know that stress affected immune system.[/QUOTE said:


> The two tall hives behind me in this picture had both drawn out several deep and JUMBO supers of foundation put on to slow them down so that they would not get too tall. If drawing out foundation stresses bees out I have very stressed out bees. THAT must be why so many die during the winter - stess. Or maybe all those contaminants in the foundation.


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## Paul McCarty

I believe the issue is creating a new paradigm of operation which does not involve the past large scale or migratory operations and practices. Unfortunately, new paradigms lie outside the mainstream to most involved. This whole thing reminds me of the argument by Western ranchers that the elk eat all the grass that their cows should have and should be re-imbursed by the government for the loss of graze. How do you quantify that? Wax/Nectar? Isn't that how we got into trouble?

PS; Those are some tall hives! very nice!


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## JWG

Foundationless is great -- if you like drone comb, and breeding lots of drones. Foundation gives you a maximum of worker cells in the brood nest, and so a stronger work force. In the honey supers I have used strips many times, resulting in natural comb -- virtually all drone or storage sized cells -- and then either reused the comb for honey storage year after year (extracting) or selected nice "virgin" capped combs for cutting for comb honey. It works okay with medium or shallow supers. Just don't let the queen go up there.


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## cerezha

OdFrank
Spectacular but looks dangerous... My hive is 6 boxes tall and it needs extra box(ex) - I could not add more because I just afraid it will flip over from the steep terrace... So, I just remove frames with honey every 2-3 weeks to keep it under control. The whole hive is fondationless and treatment-free. It is at least 3 years old colony(same boxes). Again - if your bees are doing well and you have 95+% surviving rate - than, why bother and change anything? The whole story began when people discovered that nearly 50% of bees in US die every year. If it is not a problem for you,than - it is really great and I am so happy for you! Sergey

PS I really do not think that over-production of honey is a good criteria for determining if bees are happy. In recent history, slaves produced a lot of goods for Americans, but it does not mean they were happy and healthy... 
Sergey


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## Paul McCarty

That is an impressively tall hive, but it would blow over in New Mexico. It would need guy wires.


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## waynesgarden

JWG said:


> Foundationless is great -- if you like drone comb, and breeding lots of drones....


I must be doing something wrong because I almost never see a super-abundance of drone cells in foundationless comb mixed with small cell foundation.



JWG said:


> In the honey supers I have used strips many times, resulting in natural comb -- virtually all drone or storage sized cells....


Which works out well for me because in the honey supers, that's where I want the larger cells. Seems the bees know what to do.

Some disparage foundationless because of all the work involved at the beginning, checking it and keeping the hives level and the frames spaced correctly... All things I would be doing anyway in my large-cell foundation-based yards. Foundationless is great in that I do not have to spend all that money on something the bees have shown me I do not absolutely need. Another year or two of sm. cell experience and I'll likely be be converting all my hives to sm. cell/foundationless.


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## Paul McCarty

Drone comb hasn't been much of an issue for me either.


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## rweakley

JWG said:


> Foundationless is great -- if you like drone comb, and breeding lots of drones. Foundation gives you a maximum of worker cells in the brood nest, and so a stronger work force. In the honey supers I have used strips many times, resulting in natural comb -- virtually all drone or storage sized cells -- and then either reused the comb for honey storage year after year (extracting) or selected nice "virgin" capped combs for cutting for comb honey. It works okay with medium or shallow supers. Just don't let the queen go up there.


I do like drone comb, for honey storage. If you move the drone comb to the outside positions 1,2 and 9,10 where they normally store honey and pollen anyway it doesn't really mater does it. When the hive needs drones they will have the queen lay eggs in these frames. As far as having lots of drones, First bees try to keep a certain percentage around anyway, (healthy, queen right hive). Second, let me think about this, I like the genetics of my bees, which genetics do I want spread in the surrounding area, mine or joe shmo around the corner or perhaps africanized bees. 

Also on a different part of this that is being discussed the whole 8 lbs of honey for 1 lb of wax thing. That is a straw dog, because how much wax do you really think it saves the bees to start with foundation VS foundationless. Now if the argument was drawn comb VS foundationless that would be a valid argument, but I am willing to bet that the difference between the Given wax (foundation) VS the fact it actually gets in their way of building a new comb (festooning) is a wash.


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## Aerindel

A lot of the "hype" could be from Bush's site. It is among the topic results of any search about beekeeping and his stuff is much better written and current than most of the other information on bees. Its a very inviting and easy to use site, especially for a newbee and as part of his site he makes a very logical and compelling argument for foundationless which is hard to ignore.


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## valleyman

I have not read most of the posts on this thread, because as with most I have my own opinion, and here it is. First, I don't think you can spin and extract frames of foundationless without damaging some. I'm convinced that some use foundationless to keep from buying foundation. I've never tried foundationless, never will. I've used wax foundation, duragilt, and differient brands of plastic foundation. The duragilt is not even worth putting in a hive. It will not be drawn out well in most cases, and I've noticed that the queen will be hesitant to lay on frames that are drawn out. I hate the wax because they will always chew the bottom of the foundation so that they can travel back and forth from one side to the other, making it very difficult to locate a queen. My bees, differient genetics, will always draw out the extra wax coated plastic before they do the wax or anything else. While some treehuggers and elcheapos want to go foundationless, I will use what works, by far the best for me. Plastic with extra wax brushed on from a cheap crock pot, with a cheap 4" chip brush from Dollar General or Harbor Freight. I know the whole argument that we are going against the nature of the bees, but if that is what you want to do why not hollow out some trees so they can build in them. I want to be able to examine a frame for queens, queen cells, pollen, honey/nectar, eggs, larvae, and type of cell. Again plastic is far superior in my opinion. Especially in the supers for extracting. To each his own. Good Luck!!


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## beeG

I have been trying foundationless.. I have found one problem but it could be due to my inexperience with honey extraction methods. I finally got honey, and some of the frames are foundationless. I took a hot knife and uncapped them. one kind of bent because the comb is a bit wavy. Well I put it in my extractor and all the comb just spun out. it even broke the fishing wire. so all my honey had little pieces of wax in it and I sadly had to pasteurize it to get the wax to the top. but it still taste good. I will continue to use foundationless.. Why because it is cheap  I did have an over abundance of drones. But I will deal with that. any suggestions on harvesting honey on natural comb? minus the idea of putting comb in the jars?


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## rweakley

I get the feeling you extracted radially? I have had more luck extracting tangentially because of the cage supporting the comb. You need to start slow with the extracting, take half from one side and then the entire other side and then finish the first side. Sounds like it would take a long time, but it really doesn't. I count to 60 on the first side, flip, count to 100, flip and then count to 60 again. DONE You didn't have to "pasteurize" the honey to get the wax on top, if you had just left it for a couple days the wax and stuff would have floated to the top and you could have filled jars from the bottom.


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## SantaFeBeek

xcugat said:


> Can someone quantifiably show that foundation less is cheaper? By my calculation it is not-- you are losing honey production. If I buy foundation from Dadant, seven sheets equals one pound so for 2 deep boxes that is 20 sheets or 2.85 pounds of wax, which translates at 8 pounds of honey per pound of wax 23 pounds of honey. -So how is it cheaper again?


There is an obvious flaw in this logic, that being the false assumption that the rib of foundationless comb is somehow equal in weight to purchased foundation. I have not seen any research into how much the rib weighs, but I would be surprised if the weight of the rib was even 10% of the weight of a sheet of foundation. Bees are not producing the rib for stability and strength to survive handling by machines and humans, for shipping through our fragile sensitive postal service or shipping companies, handling by the consumer, or for the forces exerted by extractors. I don't know that seven fully pulled foundationless combs of fresh wax would even equal a pound. Without this knowledge, you're comparing apples to oranges.

In addition, the argument that the foundationless comb will eventually be contaminated with pesticides, etc. is not legitimate. Not all beeks, especially backyard hobbyists, are operating within close proximity (bee travel distance) of areas using pesticides, herbicides, etc. Whether or not toxins are brought into the hive over time, it is obviously more harmful for the bees to START with contaminated products in the hive. Even if you assume that the hives will accumulate toxins from the environment at the same rate, the dosage will always be much higher in a hive that starts with contaminated foundation. Also, most foundationless beeks will use the crush and strain method of honey harvesting and rotate out comb every 2 to 3 years.

While foundationless is probably not financially viable for many commercial operations, in the same line of thinking, organic grass fed free range beef is not financially viable for McDonalds. But, I don't eat at McDonalds and I don't buy honey from large commercial operations. It's not just about money for everyone. Many new beeks are getting into beekeeping to help the dwindling bee populations and the environment in general, not their own pocketbooks.


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## D Semple

Quoting WLC

>>>I don't doubt that foundationless is drawn quickly and has has many other benefits.

I agree with Rod (rweakley), I think foundationless is easily drawn out in half the time.

Picture is of a 5 day old new swarm removal, it's incredible what bees can accomplish when we stay out of their way:









>>>I am interested in seeing how bees on drawn natural cell (foundationless) will build on PF 120s. I'm also interested in seeing how bees on drawn PF 120s will build on foundationless frames.

I do both, 2nd year beek with 50 or so hives on foundationless, they draw out PF 120's just fine as far as cell size, may be because the local ferals I get from removals and beetree swarms are already very small bees. I only bought 300 frames of PF 120's this spring thinking I would give each hive 1 box of PF 120's so I would have straighter combs for Pyramiding up my foundationless frames when adding boxes. 

Going the other way from PF 120 to foundationless is no problem also, My only regret is that I wish PF-120's came in 1 1/4" widths, which works WAY better for SC bees, if I buy any more I will be shaving them down. 

>>>I hope to see a reduction in cell size when PF 120 'bees' draw on foundationless. 

Once small bees they don't unregress unless you give them larger foundation.

>>>I expect to see the bees 'balk' when they go from foundationless to PF 120s.

They do, you just have to put the PF 120's where they want to work, or not give them any foundationless at the same time.

>>>I also expect that the bees will confound any of my expectations. 

They do mine.

>>>As for the festooning observation, I'm interested in seeing if having a comb guide on both the top and bottom of the frame speeds things up.

I don't think it will, but you will get comb that is attached to the bottom bar better, and I think it will help you if you like to Nadir. 

>>>What I really want to do is observe how the bees festoon on the top and bottom vs the top only comb guide frames.

Bees don't festoon up for shinola, you need to quit breathing that New York air : 









Don


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## beehonest

I think you explaned it yourself, Hipe. Not a bad thing but not all it's made out to be either.


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## psfred

Lumpy uneven comb is likely to blow out, wires or not, because the forces are uneven. 

You can just strain the honey through cheesecloth or fine nylon mesh bags (or stainless steel screems) to get the wax out, it's not necessary to heat it unless you are in a big hurry to filter it.

My Grandpa always heated his, but he had #3 washtubs full and didn't have time for it to run slowly!

Peter


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## beeG

rweakley said:


> I get the feeling you extracted radially? I have had more luck extracting tangentially because of the cage supporting the comb. You need to start slow with the extracting, take half from one side and then the entire other side and then finish the first side. Sounds like it would take a long time, but it really doesn't. I count to 60 on the first side, flip, count to 100, flip and then count to 60 again. DONE You didn't have to "pasteurize" the honey to get the wax on top, if you had just left it for a couple days the wax and stuff would have floated to the top and you could have filled jars from the bottom.


Rod good call. Because 2 days ago I spun some small frames that had foundation on them, I spun the guts out of them too. oopsie. So thank you for the post and good call. It was not the foundationless. It was me going too fast.


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## beeG

SantaFeBeek said:


> There is an obvious flaw in this logic, that being the false assumption that the rib of foundationless comb is somehow equal in weight to purchased foundation. I have not seen any research into how much the rib weighs, but I would be surprised if the weight of the rib was even 10% of the weight of a sheet of foundation. Bees are not producing the rib for stability and strength to survive handling by machines and humans, for shipping through our fragile sensitive postal service or shipping companies, handling by the consumer, or for the forces exerted by extractors. .


Well for me it is cheap. Being that I am a new beekeeper, and selling honey is not an option at this time. The cost of foundation is an added expense. If I got into bees with thousands of dollars, and failed . I would not keep wasting my money, and trying. Now getting in cheap, and losing here and there is no biggie. I am not effecting my families comfort over my hobby so I will fail, and keep coming back. Now if I were a commercial beekeeper your logic may be correct. But at this time I am not. I am just begining, and trying to keep the cost of my learning curve to a minmum.


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## psfred

Unless you live on the moon, you are going to get pesticide build up in your comb. I cannot think of anywhere that someone isn't spraying something --- even the Forest Service sprays herbicides and insectides on National Forests. If you have anyone living within six miles, be assured that some time or another you will get your bees exposed to something, and whatever it is will very likley accumulate in the wax.

We live in a soup of pesticides, no way to avoid them. They come in with the rain, in dust blown in, and in the ground water.

This is why there is really no "organic" honey, it's not possible to prevent the bees from picking up pesticides somewhere or other, particularly if you are within 6 miles of any sort of agriculture. 

If you live in a large, fully organic community, you will have significantly less accumulation, but will still get some.

Peter


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## Solomon Parker

Pesticides are ubquitous. You'll find traces of them at every point above the soil surface of the earth and many places below the surface. And it's not just pesticides. There are all manner of chemicals released all over the planet which drift all over the planet. 

The turnover of comb in natural hives is part of the health of the hive.


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## SantaFeBeek

The point I was making is not that pesticides will not accumulate in the comb, it was that comb started on foundation, all else being equal, will always have significantly more contaminants present, especially miticides used by the previous owners of the wax. 

As an environmental scientist/engineer, I would have to say that it is a stretch to say that every point above the soil surface will have traces of pesticides. I think every point within a certain range of populated areas would be a more accurate depiction.

The Forest Service may use pesticides and herbicides around designated campsites that they maintain, but they aren't spraying these chemical willy nilly "on National Forests." They certainly don't have the time or money for that, at least not in NM. Is there actually any NF in Indiana?


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## Solomon Parker

I disagree, but I won't frivolously use my credentials as an environmental engineer to back up that statement. I have to save those for lawsuits. 

There are a vast array of chemicals that exist everywhere, carried by the wind, water vapor, and particulates therein.


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## SantaFeBeek

I have personally sampled many areas that have no traces of pesticides. 

I don't disagree that there are a vast array of chemicals everywhere, as everything consists of chemicals, just not specifically pesticides everywhere.


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## Solomon Parker

Traces? I find it hard to believe that you tested for all pesticides and found not a trace. But I could be wrong.


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## SantaFeBeek

I guess I should qualify that with "non-detect" based on the detection limits of our current analytical technologies. 

We live in very different states, as well.


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## Rick 1456

The aforementioned being the case, why not let the bees adapt to the pesticide ridden environment they live in? It's what we do. Why go through the trouble to rotate comb to protect the bees when we aren't protecting ourselves any better? Seems to me the bees need to APIS Up!!!


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## WLC

The pesticides that accumulated in wax foundation were put there by beekeepers as part of their routine treatments. I doubt that you would be able to detect any of those specific chemicals in the 'background' since they aren't that widely used.

I suppose that bringing up that the plastic foundation of small cell PF 100s and 120s ,that has been touted by many treatment free proponents as being effective in producing resistant bees, doesn't add any clarity to the issue.

It's plastic, it's foundation, and it's effective.

However, it isn't foundationless or natural cell.

If you don't treat, chemical accumulation in PF 100s/120s won't be an issue either. 

Does anyone treat and use foundationless?

Here's the reference on what was found in brood comb:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0014720


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## cerezha

Solomon Parker said:


> Traces? I find it hard to believe that you tested for all pesticides and found not a trace. But I could be wrong.


 I apologize for being not polite, but it is just a paranoia (nothing personal) to think this way. To think this way is counterproductive - than we all shall just kill themselves since everything is polluted and we will die... Russians say that life is most dangerous thing because it causes the death (if you are not living, you could not die). 

Mother nature actually has incredible powers to restore itself. Most of the organic chemical compounds (see definition of organic chemistry on Google) are sensitive to UV and oxygen; it will degrade quick when on the surface. Underground compounds will stay much longer, but from bees prospective they are unimportant. Plants also have an ability to purify the environment. The problem with contamination of the wax - it is inside the hive and wax protects chemicals from degradation via oxidation and UV. Thus, those chemicals will stay active (bad) longer and will be accumulated... Solomon, it is not "treatment-free" forum with special rules. Solomon could do whichever Solomon wanted in Solomon's forum (I follow the rule not using "you"), but here, I think it is rude to comment on somebody's credentials the way it was done - I would rather listen the person with proper scientific background speaking sense. I am sorry, but your comments are nonsense to me (well, I am a scientist). I apologize for inconvenience, nothing personal, just healthy comments. Sergey


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## rweakley

And what exactly are the limits of our current analytical technologies. How pure would you like to test down to 1 part per billion. GEEZ Give me a HP Gas chromotography machine, standard material of active we are testing for, a good internal standard, and I will test samples checking down to 50 or so parts per million. (I have worked in an analytical lab at a company that manufactured bug killers so been there done that a few thousands of times). In fact with malathion I can detect the active in a flush sample down to like 100 ppm with just my nose. I doubt that the environment it self is so contaminated that the bees are bringing SO MUCH back to the hive that it's contaminating the wax to a great extent. If there was that much everywhere the bees would just die. As was stated by someone else the problem with wax these days is what the beekeeper puts there not what the bees are bringing back. Now who is going to buy me my GC so I can get to testing???? :banana:


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## cerezha

rweakley said:


> ... I have worked in an analytical lab at a company that manufactured bug killers so been there done that a few thousands of times...


 Rod
Could you evaluate the paper WLC mentioned above: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0014720
As a specialist, you probably could tell us it it truthful or not. Thanks, Sergey


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## WLC

"The three most frequently detected pesticide residues in treatment combs were the beekeeper applied miticides fluvalinate, coumaphos, and coumaphos oxon metabolite."

That's why folks go foundationless. To avoid contaminants in wax foundation.

It doesn't really apply to plastic foundation though, does it?


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## rweakley

Well if the plastic foundation is wax coated then..... 


And sergie the link you wanted me to look at was broken.


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## WLC

rweakley said:


> Well if the plastic foundation is wax coated then.....
> And sergie the link you wanted me to look at was broken.


Then that would include PF 100s and 120s as well. :?

Try the link on my post for the PLoS ONE paper.


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## Solomon Parker

Is there really a hype? Yes, I have seen a few more newbees wanting to do foundationless than in the past, but not that many. At the same time, I see plenty of people who have been doing it for a long time. Michael Bush is probably the most visible, however, I would classify his foundationless use as tertiary in his operation, primary being PF-120's and secondary being Permacomb or whatever it is. I forget. Plastic comb. A typical Michael Bush box is one permacomb in the middle and eight PF-120's Occasionally you will come across a small batch of foundationless, but primarily, it is PF-120's.

Having seen Mr. Bush's operation, I've moved wholesale toward PF-120's and 100's when necessary. They're just so easy to use and bulletproof. The difference with me is that I trim them to 1 1/4" end bars. I do put the occasional foundationless frame in between PF-120's mostly because you can't get drone frames in medium size.


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## WLC

Aren't PF100s and 120s wax coated? As in, CONTAMINATED WAX coated?

Are you sure that you're really treatment free?

Hmmm...


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## Solomon Parker

Treatments affect pests. Contaminants affect bees. I can avoid treatments, can't avoid contaminants.

If you treat your bees, then you have no stones to throw.


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## WLC

Solomon Parker said:


> Treatments affect pests. Contaminants affect bees. I can avoid treatments, can't avoid contaminants.
> 
> If you treat your bees, then you have no stones to throw.


If you read the paper, coumaphos and fluvalinate are both found in the low ppm range in comb wax.

That's significant.

So, by using PF 100/120 frames, we're introducing pesticides into our hives from the get-go.

Maybe the only treatment free folks are the ones who are both 'hardcore' treatment-free and foundationless.

Is there such a beekeeper?

Dean?


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## Solomon Parker

No stones to throw.


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## WLC

It's an asteroid...

http://www.plosone.org/article/fetc.../journal.pone.0014720.t001&representation=TIF


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## Solomon Parker

So you stick this stuff in your hives but you criticize people who don't because they don't live up to your definition of "don't"?

No stones to throw. No foot to stand on.


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## WLC

Solomon Parker said:


> So you stick this stuff in your hives but you criticize people who don't because they don't live up to your definition of "don't"?
> No stones to throw. No foot to stand on.


For a student of environmental engineering, you dismiss the key components of a treatment-free system too readily.

I used PF 120s because they were recommended by certain treatment free types.

Now that I've made the transition from foundationless (which I was) to PF120s (which took a while), I realize that I've contaminated the whole danged thing since I've mixed them in the same hives.

The concentration of pesticides in the wax coating of PF 120s is far higher than I realized now that I've looked at the data from the study above.

Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.

This is no small matter. It's an unpleasant surprise...

One I'm sure that some of you will try to sweep under the rug (kinda like the artificial propolis/wax dipping).


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## Solomon Parker

It does a huge disservice to the whole beekeeping community to muck about with definitions. Call it (treatment-free, contamination, denial, etc.) what you want, but the facts aren't going to change.

The very highest concentrations of chemicals in this study you keep referencing are chemicals put in there by the beekeeper. The rest are chemicals tracked in by the bees. There is nothing that can be done to isolate the wax from those chemicals and their corresponding low doses. But I can keep bees without adding chemicals. That's the part I can do. The rest is fanciful nonsense intended to obfuscate the efforts of others.

They told me I couldn't do it, then I did. Now they tell me I'm not doing it. It's hokum.

Wouldn't it be great if this convo got moved to TFB, then you'd have to abide by the actual definition.


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## SantaFeBeek

Maybe there should be a separate category from "treatment free", such as "contaminant minimized" or "keeper-introduced contaminant free".


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## BayHighlandBees

SantaFeBeek said:


> The point I was making is not that pesticides will not accumulate in the comb, it was that comb started on foundation, all else being equal, will always have significantly more contaminants present, especially miticides used by the previous owners of the wax.


I use both foundationless and plastic foundations. That said, its such a tiny amount of wax that gets put on plastic foundation. I would think even if the wax used to coat the foundation was massively contaminated with miticides it would have minimal effect since its such a small amount and that its buried in the back of the comb. Is that wax even 1% of the total wax on the frame when its built out? At worst you've deluted the toxins to 1% the strength coming from the orignal source of the wax (which probably hosted healthy bees). If its reduced to 1% the strength, I would think that wouldn't be that far off the ambient level of pesticides in all the air / soil.


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## SantaFeBeek

I have no idea as I've never used any foundation. My goal is just to do everything on my end that I can to reduce any input of potentially toxic chemicals into the hive. I can't control outside of my yard, but I can control what I put in my boxes.

Perhaps the folks who did the study referenced earlier in this thread will continue their experiments with wax-coated plastic.


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## SantaFeBeek

My personal concerns with plastic basically center around the fact that plastic is made from petrochemicals and will most likely have some off-gassing or leaching that will in some way affect the bees. We are continually finding human health issues related to chemicals leaching from plastics that we have been using for years. BPA, for example, is one that has been used in baby bottles, water bottles, can linings, etc for many years and we're just getting around to finding out that there are health effects. As a backyard beek with no intentions of profit, why take chances when the bees can do it themselves?


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## WLC

When you get microgram quantities of pesticides in each gram of wax (about a mL), then you can appreciate why even wax coated plastic can be problematic. That 8ppm number for coumaphos is big.

So, from my perspective, foundationless is the best approach to minimize contaminants.

That's the real 'hype'.

I can't believe how much pesticide must be in my hives right now just because I mixed wax coated plastic w/ foundationless frames.

D'oh!

Here's a different study with Frazier's name attached.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0009754

Taken together, both studies clearly indicate the extent of the wax/foundation contamination problem.

PS-I've noticed that no one has mentioned that wax from a foundationless/treatment-free operation would make for cleanr burning beeswax candles.


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## Solomon Parker

WLC said:


> I can't believe how much pesticide must be in my hives right now


Micrograms, surely.

I understand the confusion now, it's a matter of understanding units. One microgram is one millionth of a gram. For instance, if you weighed 150 lbs., it would take about 102000 micrograms of cyanide to kill you.

You could just order your frames without wax coating and coat them yourself or even leave them uncoated. Maybe you didn't think of that.

The best approach to minimize contaminants in real numbers is not to dump chemicals in your hives.


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## WLC

'You could just order your frames without wax coating and coat them yourself or even leave them uncoated. Maybe you didn't think of that.'

Someone forgot to mention getting PF 120s UNWAXED.


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## BeeGhost

How can going foundationless not be cheaper? Plastic foundation is $1 a piece, $10 per box. I run two deeps and super on that for my honey, thats atleast three boxes of foundation per hive which equates to about $30 just in foundation. If I have 10 hives thats $300 just in foundation. I can take that saved money and buy more frames and more hive bodies. 

As for the drone comb being built on the whole frame...........GREAT!! I can cut out the whole "varroa trap" frame and let them build it out again. I do have a couple hives that had full frames of drone comb, I can also circulate those into other hives or move them up and they can pack it full of honey for me!!

I dont know if foundationless is healthier for bees or not, im not a scientist. But I have found them to draw it out WAY faster than if they have to start on plastic without the extra coating of wax. Some of the comb does get jacked up, but its rare and mostly due to my putting undrawn frames next to undrawn plastic. If they mess it up, I cut it out and they can start again, afterall the house bees do need something to keep them busy, right!

I am going to try one box of foundationless in the medium honey super and see how it goes, right now I do run plastic that I bought last year when I started.

I do love foundationless, but the real test is going to be when I move my bees here shortly from one yard to the next and see if the foundation comes apart, if it does I will be ready with rubber bands and will end up going back to plastic foundation with extra wax melted onto it.......and pouring out more money for it!!LOL


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## BayHighlandBees

WLC said:


> When you get microgram quantities of pesticides in each gram of wax (about a mL), then you can appreciate why even wax coated plastic can be problematic. That 8ppm number for coumaphos is big.


A microgram is 1 millionth the size of a gram. A milligram is 1 thousandth the size of a gram. Rounding 8 micrograms to a milligram seems like a stretch to me


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## SantaFeBeek

Solomon Parker said:


> Micrograms, surely.
> 
> I understand the confusion now, it's a matter of understanding units. One microgram is one millionth of a gram. For instance, if you weighed 150 lbs., it would take about 102000 micrograms of cyanide to kill you.
> 
> The best approach to minimize contaminants in real numbers is not to dump chemicals in your hives.


When comparing the weight of a bee to a 150 lb person, micrograms are real numbers.

The biggest reduction in contaminants is, of course, to not dump chemicals in your hives. The best approach to minimizing contaminants, on the other hand, is to not put anything in your hives that may contain toxins that could affect the bees.


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## SantaFeBeek

In addition, toxicity to humans for a variety of chemicals is in the microgram range.


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## WLC

The LD50 of many of these wax contaminants is 2ng/bee.

I am comfortable going from ng/g to ppb, etc. . The 1st paper showed amounts in the ppm range for individual contaminants.

What we need to know is how much wax (in grams) is used to coat a plastic frame (or contained in a sheet of foundation) to get an idea of how close to the LD50 you get.

I think it's pretty close per frame. I would also note that synergistic effects have been shown to occur when different pesticides are combined.

The second paper showed lower pesticide amounts and had some useful median values as well.

I suppose someone could take out a calculator once all the values are known to see how bad things can get when using wax foundation or coated plastic. 

It's a useful way to compare the pesticide burden in wax foundation/wax coated plastic frames vs foundationless.

Why guess?


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## BayHighlandBees

From the emotion being posted on this topic, I get the idea that there are a lot of people watching this thread that are losing sleep over this. To their horror they've realized that they are using plastic frames in their hives and that they have given their bees a death sentence from vast (i.e. microgram) amounts of toxic sludge found in the wax coating of their frames. 

Just want to offer a sanity check here. We are talking about the thin layer of wax coating on the frames and it's level of contamination was at a concentration that was habitable to previous hives. That coating wax is minuscule compared to the actual clean wax that they will draw out on the frames over top of this and use. 

How much wax is used to coat a set of 10 frames? Is it even a grams worth used to coat a full set? The actual amounts of wax that gets harvested by melting down completely drawn out frames is nothing (and thats for full drawn out comb not the wax coating).


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## BayHighlandBees

SantaFeBeek said:


> When comparing the weight of a bee to a 150 lb person, micrograms are real numbers.


are you suggesting that individual bees are ingesting micrograms of the toxins? I wouldn't necessarily think that the 60,000 bees concurrently living in the hive (or even a year's worth of subsequent bee generations) would be collectively consuming micrograms of toxins.


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## SantaFeBeek

Based on what WLC said above, that the LD50, which means that 50% of the bees will die at that concentration, is 2 nanograms per bee. That means one bee would only need 2 or 3 1000ths of a microgram to die. I don't doubt that there are various detrimental effects to the bees systems at lower dosages than that. 

Another problem that I can see with wax contaminant accumulation is that as foundation is used and more contaminants are collected in that wax, then the wax is recycled for more foundation, the contaminant concentrations would logically be getting higher and higher over time. That would be an interesting study, as well.

Good discussion! I hadn't thought about a lot of these issues this critically before.


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## WLC

There's alot of information in both papers. They're worth looking over at least a few times.

However, I don't think that a gram or 2 of wax per plastic frame is an exageration. Also, wax foundation probably comes in at alot more than a gram per sheet.

I'd say that a sheet of wax foundation can easily have 10-100 ug of pesticides.

PS-Don't forget that the fungicides can interfere with pollen/nutrition, etc. .


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## Aerindel

Here is another thought. As a beginner would you rather be choose a method that involves picking out the right kind of foundation among dozens of choices, choosing the right size, wire or no wire, maybe getting an extractor, monitoring for diseases and then choosing a chemical treatment that may or may not work and then determining the right time to use it, 

Or,

Being told just to buy all medium boxes and medium frames, coming up with a guide and then just dumping the bee's in there and basically ignoring all the the terrible things that you hear about effecting hives until fall where you simply pull out your frames, cut out the comb and strain the honey in a plastic bucket. If your hives die then your not a failure, your just removing bad genetics.

Even assuming none of this is actually true, which method sounds the most appealing?

Its the same reason people by Apple (computer) products. Simplicity is perhaps the most appealing trait that a product can have.


----------



## cerezha

rweakley said:


> And sergie the link you wanted me to look at was broken.


 O-oo, I am sorry. Try this:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0014720
it is the same as WLC's a few posts above. It would be really great if you could evaluate it. To me it sounds OK and experimental part is fine with me, but I am not experienced in beekeeping, so I could not tell if any flaw in bees part of the experiment.


----------



## cerezha

WLC said:


> ...Maybe the only treatment free folks are the ones who are both 'hardcore' treatment-free and foundationless. Is there such a beekeeper?


 I have two beehives in urban environment for 10 month. These bees are survivors. They never saw any "treatment" on purpose. They were the same way for 2 more years before I inherit them. They used to have some occasional frame with foundation. Now they are 95% foundation free. One hive recently swarmed (my mistake) and small (one deep) in comparison to another - nest occupies 3 mediums and 3 more medium full of honey on top, total 6 mediums. This gigantic one has a stable mites count of 50, which I guess considered to be high, but bees are living with this for 10 month with me and 2 years before. There is no evidence of complication from mites. I never was introduced to her Majesty, but it looks like they are flourishing. I never did a deep inspection of the nest and could not tell to you how much, for instance, pollen they have... In Los Angeles we have quite a big movement towards a natural beekeeping. I do not think that "natural" is the same as "treatment-free". The idea of letting bees die by "natural cause" seems to me ridiculous - we bring them from Europe by force, placed them in unnatural conditions and now, like God, imposing the "unnatural selection" on them ... I would help my bees to survive if I could - same way as I would help any animal, who is in trouble. The problem is that as with any wild animal, how to know what is good for them? Do not do more damage. This is a real challenge. With bees - they teach me what is good and what is bad for them. I am a good learner so far. I wish you bees be happy and healthy! Sergey


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## BayHighlandBees

SantaFeBeek said:


> Based on what WLC said above, that the LD50, which means that 50% of the bees will die at that concentration, is 2 nanograms per bee


Is the LD50 rating based on bees ingesting the 2 nanograms of toxin, vapor exposure to the toxin, or is it based on skin contact? I'm assuming the rating is based on ingesting it in a water-based food solution which is much different measurement than exposure of it residing in buried wax.

Again if the LD50 was based on a bees exposure to the toxin in wax, it would have killed off the original hive that had its entire comb containing the concentrated toxins well before it reached that level.


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## WLC

Table 4 in the second paper is a good place to look at the range of various pesticides found in wax relative to their LD50s.

There is an average of 12.4 ug of various pesticides per gram of wax.

As for how all of these various pesticides can impact a hive...

It's not just in the wax.


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## BayHighlandBees

WLC said:


> However, I don't think that a gram or 2 of wax per plastic frame is an exageration.


Googling I found that some beekeepers who roll their own wax on waxless frames use roughly 2 pounds for 100 frames. If you go with that as a baseline that converts to about .3 grams of wax to coat the 2 sides of a frame. I would speculate that the frame companies are even more efficient when applying wax, so the standard store bought frames would likely use less than .3 grams.


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## rweakley

BeeGhost said:


> How can going foundationless not be cheaper? Plastic foundation is $1 a piece, $10 per box. I run two deeps and super on that for my honey, thats atleast three boxes of foundation per hive which equates to about $30 just in foundation. If I have 10 hives thats $300 just in foundation. I can take that saved money and buy more frames and more hive bodies.
> 
> As for the drone comb being built on the whole frame...........GREAT!! I can cut out the whole "varroa trap" frame and let them build it out again. I do have a couple hives that had full frames of drone comb, I can also circulate those into other hives or move them up and they can pack it full of honey for me!!
> 
> I dont know if foundationless is healthier for bees or not, im not a scientist. But I have found them to draw it out WAY faster than if they have to start on plastic without the extra coating of wax. Some of the comb does get jacked up, but its rare and mostly due to my putting undrawn frames next to undrawn plastic. If they mess it up, I cut it out and they can start again, afterall the house bees do need something to keep them busy, right!
> 
> I am going to try one box of foundationless in the medium honey super and see how it goes, right now I do run plastic that I bought last year when I started.
> 
> I do love foundationless, but the real test is going to be when I move my bees here shortly from one yard to the next and see if the foundation comes apart, if it does I will be ready with rubber bands and will end up going back to plastic foundation with extra wax melted onto it.......and pouring out more money for it!!LOL


If i can extract my deeps and mediums I'm sure you will be able to move your hives without too much trouble.


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## rweakley

cerezha said:


> O-oo, I am sorry. Try this:
> http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0014720
> it is the same as WLC's a few posts above. It would be really great if you could evaluate it. To me it sounds OK and experimental part is fine with me, but I am not experienced in beekeeping, so I could not tell if any flaw in bees part of the experiment.


The only thing missing was the exact methodology of how they extracted the pesticides and such from the wax, what kind of standard material did they use, did they use an internal standard (another chemical that is put in with the standard sample and the sample being tested, helps remove equipment noise and such.) I will assume from the overall professionalism of the rest of the paper that the other methodology was probably correct as well. Sounds like they were using better equipment than I used when I was in a lab. My machines were almost as old as me. I didn't read the whole thing yet, just enough to get the jist of things.


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## cerezha

BayHighlandBees said:


> Googling I found that some beekeepers who roll their own wax on waxless frames use roughly 2 pounds for 100 frames. If you go with that as a baseline that converts to about .3 grams of wax to coat the 2 sides of a frame. I would speculate that the frame companies are even more efficient when applying wax, so the standard store bought frames would likely use less than .3 grams.


 Did anybody take arithmetic in the middle school? 1 pound is approximately 450 grams times 2 = 900 grams divided by 100 = 9, nine! grams of wax per frame!!!! Is this number manipulation done purposely? To confuse people? Sergey


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## BayHighlandBees

SantaFeBeek said:


> Another problem that I can see with wax contaminant accumulation is that as foundation is used and more contaminants are collected in that wax, then the wax is recycled for more foundation, the contaminant concentrations would logically be getting higher and higher over time.


SantaFe,
I think for concentrations to get higher and higher from recycling wax it would require a much thicker amount to be applied to new plastic foundation than is. If you are only applying enough to coat the plastic, I don't see how that would ever move the dial on increasing the concentrations. Perhaps wax foundations might have more possibility of a cyclical effect?


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## cerezha

rweakley said:


> .. I will assume from the overall professionalism of the rest of the paper that the other methodology was probably correct as well. Sounds like they were using better equipment than I used when I was in a lab. My machines were almost as old as me. I didn't read the whole thing yet, just enough to get the jist of things.


 Many thanks Rod. Since they sent samples to specialized laboratory for analysis, I guess, they used a standard to the field procedures. It is common practice in research papers to refer to the standard procedure instead describing in details. Sergey


----------



## BayHighlandBees

my bad, I converted to Ounces inch:



cerezha said:


> Did anybody take arithmetic in the middle school? 1 pound is approximately 450 grams times 2 = 900 grams divided by 100 = 9, nine! grams of wax per frame!!!! Is this number manipulation done purposely? To confuse people? Sergey


----------



## WLC

So, using an average of 12.4 ug/g of total pesticides in wax, that's about 110 ug of pesticide per wax coated frame. Wax foundation would contain 100s of ug of total pesticide per sheet.

So, at least we have a baseline showing that we can eliminate milligram quantities of pesticides from hives by going foundationless.

Not bad at all.


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## SantaFeBeek

BayHighlandBees said:


> SantaFe,
> I think for concentrations to get higher and higher from recycling wax it would require a much thicker amount to be applied to new plastic foundation than is. If you are only applying enough to coat the plastic, I don't see how that would ever move the dial on increasing the concentrations. Perhaps wax foundations might have more possibility of a cyclical effect?


Bay,
Unfortunately, that logic would not be accurate. The thickness of a coating of 9 grams of wax (which if I'm correct was a measurement of the thin coating on plastic, so it would be much more for straight wax foundation) would have nothing to do with microgram or nanogram levels of pesticide residue in the wax. When you're talking about adding 1/10,000 of anything to another product, it is very unlikely to change the physical characteristics of that product, unless it is a specific type of chemical for thickening or thinning fluids.

Another thing I've seen others say on this thread is, "well, the bees were OK for the previous owner of the wax, so it should be OK for me." Another false assumption. None of us knows where that wax came from or the condition of the bees that it came from. Have you heard there's this thing going around called CCD? Who knows what the real cause is? Is it possible that increasing contaminant levels in wax could be a contributor? I would think so and the studies seem to suggest that. That wax that you purchase as "clean wax" could have come from dead hives as well as well hives, you never know.


----------



## WLC

With about 35,000 bees per average hive...

That means that there are at least 30 ng of pesticides per bee in the total wax foundation/wax coated plastic frames of a typical hive.


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## SantaFeBeek

Correction: After reading more than the abstract of the paper, I see that the LD50 for the high toxicity pesticides is less than or equal to two micrograms per bee, not nanograms, so that is why hives aren't completely dying out at the current pesticide residue levels...sorry, should have checked that myself instead of assuming the previous post was correct. 

That being said, the issue of the paper, and the issue for beekeepers using contaminated wax, is "sub-lethal" effects, not lethal effects.


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## SantaFeBeek

The study only used one source of contaminated wax, so it would be interesting to see some analyses of commercially available wax, or wax coated plastic, foundations in order to have a clearer picture of what is being introduced into the hive. It is quite possible that the levels are much lower, as the wax in the study was taken directly from commercial keepers who treated. In contrast, if the wax was sourced from a keeper who treated with higher or more frequent doses of pesticides, the levels could be much higher. Depending on the sources of wax that commercial foundation suppliers use, the concentrations of pesticide residue could be higher or lower. No way to tell without direct testing.


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## WLC

'...sorry, should have checked that myself instead of assuming the previous post was correct.'

?

Try to remember that a typical bee weighs in at about 0.1 grams. There are 2 papers involved Wu et al., and Mullins et al. .

Different pesticides have different LD50s. Also, they've included information on maximum, mean and median values.

Some of the wax did come in at above the LD50 for the particular pesticide listed.

What can I say? I can read a data table.


----------



## WLC

PS: You do know that you can use the information given in the data tables to estimate what fraction of wax comb in hives will be at or above the LD50 for each pesticide?


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## SantaFeBeek

WLC said:


> There are 2 papers involved Wu et al., and Mullins et al. .
> 
> Different pesticides have different LD50s. Also, they've included information on maximum, mean and median values.
> 
> Some of the wax did come in at above the LD50 for the particular pesticide listed.
> 
> What can I say? I can read a data table.


The paper I read does not contain LD50s for particular pesticides. If you are referring to Table 1 of "Sub-Lethal Effects of Pesticide Residues in Brood Comb on Worker Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Development and
Longevity", tha max, mean, and median are only referring to the pesticide residues in the particular contaminated comb they used for the experiment. They have nothing to do with the LD50.

The only reference to LD50 is from the "toxicity honey bee" column, which has footnotes at the bottom explaining the range of LD50s. Technically, one of those "high" rated pesticides, which are defined as less than or equal to 2 ug/bee could be down in the ng/bee range as 2 nanograms is less than 2 micrograms, but that would be a pretty huge range. 

Was the 2 ng/bee a reference from a source other than this paper we have been discussing? We are definitely not reading the same table or one of us isn't reading it right.


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## SantaFeBeek

The LD50 value for a particular pesticide, miticide, etc are a set number and you would typically only see a range of numbers for LD50 if it was in the particular study that determined the LD50 value. 

You should be able to find the MSDS (material safety data sheet) for any of the chemicals through a google search.


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## SantaFeBeek

Although I can't say I've ever seen an LD50 for bees on any MSDS sheet, so never mind. You'd probably have to dig up the research referenced at the bottom of Table 1 of the study.


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## WLC

Both papers have tables with LD50 values listed.


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## SantaFeBeek

WLC said:


> Both papers have tables with LD50 values listed.


No, they don't. You should really go back and look at the tables. I think you are confused.


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## WLC

Try downloading the pdf versions, they're easier to read.


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## SantaFeBeek

WLC said:


> Try downloading the pdf versions, they're easier to read.


I have the pdf version of "Sub-Lethal Effects of Pesticide Residues in Brood Comb on Worker Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Development and Longevity" - Judy Y. Wu, Carol M. Anelli, Walter S. Sheppard*, found here, http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0014720


There are 3 tables in that paper, none of which have LD50 values listed. I really don't want to waste time arguing about facts. Anyone else care to chime in? Help, please.


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## SantaFeBeek

Table 1. Pesticide residues detected in treatment combs (n = 13) used to rear worker bees in experiments.
Table 2. Total amount of pesticide residues detected in five pairs of control and treatment combs before & after experiments.
Table 3. Pesticide residues contained in treatment brood comb with observed delayed development of worker honey bees.


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## WLC

The second paper has a table with LD50s. :scratch:

Try reading the column headings.

You'll see one with LD50 in one of the tables.


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## SantaFeBeek

WLC, I'd like you to tell me exactly which table in the referenced report above has LD50 in any heading, any column, etc. Just saying it is there doesn't make it there.

LOD and LD50 are two very different things. 

I think you should consider trying all of the suggestions you seem to have for me because it is becoming more and more obvious that you cannot, in fact, read a data table.


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## WLC

The LD50s are listed as ranges in the Wu paper: Low, medium, and high.

The LD50s are listed in ppbs in the mullin paper in table 4.

Sergei had you pegged.

"I think you should consider trying all of the suggestions you seem to have for me because it is becoming more and more obvious that you cannot, in fact, read a data table. "

That comment gets you on the ignore list.


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## SantaFeBeek

WLC said:


> The LD50s are listed as ranges in the Wu paper: Low, medium, and high.
> 
> That comment gets you on the ignore list.


That is exactly what I said above and the opposite of what you said. 

So, now I'm the jerk for pointing that out. Oh no, you're going to ignore me...whaaaaaa:v:


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## SantaFeBeek

Still no reference for LD50 of 2 ng/bee??? Don't see that in either paper.


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## WLC

I get it.

2ng/bee is about 20ppb. That's a lethal dose for some neonics. It's in the 'Literature'

LD50 is usually done as part of the pesticide approval process for a number of days (usually on bees and water fleas!).

Of course, LD50 is subjective. Hives will go down at levels lower than the LD50 for a long time after 'the trial is over'.

Why don't more hives go down?

Bees and the hive microflora can detox the pesticides to an extent. 

I don't know why you're fixated on 2ng/bee.


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## Rick 1456

Look,
This has been an education, and make no mistake, I understand and appreciate the LD50 etc etc. The details have been an eye opener for me as I am sure others. I have some education, the level and discipline matters not. What matters is, what does it matter? I, and most everyone else are going to keep their bees the way they want to. I'm transitioning to foundationless because:
I want to
I think it is better for the bees
I will still use foundation when it suits my beekeeping needs
It is a new challenge, ain't never done it before
It makes rearing queens easier\
Don't care what any one else thinks
Here's the most important one,,,,,,,,,,,IT WORKS FOR ME!!!!!!!
Folks,,,do what makes this hobby enjoyable for you, isn't so complicated you can't sleep at night, figure out what success in bee keeping is FOR YOU,,,,and go with that.


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## rweakley

Amen Rick


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## cerezha

WLC said:


> There is an average of 12.4 ug of various pesticides per gram of wax.


 Little bit more arithmetic:
12.4 ug = 12400 ng per 1 g of wax times 9 (9 gr of wax per frame) = 111600 divide by 2 (2 ng per bee) = 55800 divide by 2 (LD50) = 27900

*One frame with waxed foundation contains enough pesticides to kill 27.8 thousand bees!* I think, it was great discussion. It illustrates how "common sense" (first hand experience) sometime misleading - apparently, with llittle effort it is possible to find a lot of "stuff" even in the innocent wax... knowledge is the power. Good luck to those who is with waxed foundation. Sergey


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## WLC

Well, that might be true if all of that 12.4 ug pesticide / g of wax was all insecticide. In fact, it's a mixture of insecticide, fungicide, herbicide, etc. .

The Wu study is showing that pesticide contaminated wax comb causes brood to take days longer to emerge, giving varroa mites a reproductive advantage.

That'll ruin any beekeepers day.


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## WLC

Since some of you seem fascinated with LD50s, I'd like to offer up a re-interpretation of the LD50 w/ regards to foaragers.

The normal average lifespan of foragers according to the study is 8 days.

In the treatment group (pesticide contaminated comb wax), the average lifespan of foragers was 4 days.

If we take a CASTE SPECIFIC LD50 for a time period of 8 days, My interpretation of the data is that pesticide contaminated wax comb had reached an LD50 for Honeybee foragers since they only live for an average of 4 days rather than the 'uncontaminated' average of 8 days.

So, we can say that contaminated wax comb is lethal to a specific caste, foragers. Finally, the treatment wax comb in the study had pesticide residues at the LD50 level for Honeybee foragers over a period of 8 days, the average lifespan of a forager, since they only lived an average of 4 days.

I think that beekeepers can understand the impact that delayed development and a shortened forager lifespan can have on their operation.


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## psfred

You are mis-interpreting the term "LD50" -- the correct definition is the amount that causes the rapid death of half the exposed subjects. Reduction in life span, impaired activity, failure to reproduce, and any other effects are NOT part of that definition.

The whole discussion about neo-nics and comb contamination is that there are significant effect on bee biology and behavior that are NOT accounted for by the LD50 dose of the pesticides under discussion.

The LD50 for insecticide in comb would be the level at which half the eggs failed to become larvae, or half the eggs failed to produce emerging bees. I'm not sure any studies have been done on that, it would be VERY interesting to see them.

Foragers are not in contact with comb to any significant extent by the time they are collecting nectar, any damage that results in shortened life span would have happened during development. This is a different measure than LD50.

Peter


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## odfrank

>Good luck to those who is with waxed foundation

If pesticides in foundation is what is killing my bees, why do they die in winter but thrive in spring and summer? You would think they would die quickly or gradually as soon as they come in contact with the foundations. Are bees on plastic foundation not dieing? Are foundationless bees not dieing? Around here I see bees in trees dieing at about the same percentage as hive bees.


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## WLC

I disagree with the limits placed on finding LD50s for honeybees. 

Others have brought up the issue of why limiting the time frame of finding the LD50 of pesticides on social insects like Honeybees, with many specific castes, to a span of 24 to 72 hours, is unreliable.

In short, the problem rests with how pesticides are tested, not my reinterpretation based on data. 

Frankly, the LD50 is a median value, not a mean value, so the pesticides contaminating the wax comb in the Wu et al. study were likely at a concentration higher than the LD50 for the Honeybee foragers.


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## psfred

The LD50 is what it is, and should not be used for anything except calculation of dose lethality. It is a simple measurement -- doses of active ingredient are applied in some defined fashion to whatever subjects have been chosen for the test and the dose that kills half of the subjects in some defined time is the LD50 -- read that as lethal dose for 50% of the subjects.

It cannot be used to determine ANYTHING else about the compound being tested, and using that number, whatever it is, for any other discussion is mis-interpreting the data.

I agree, the LD50 isn't of much use when talking about pesticides effects, but it's not intended to be, it's a measure of only acute toxicity. If you read an MSDS, there will be a lot more information than just the LD50 on there.

Replace "LD50" with "applied dose causing 50% short term lethality" in your comments and you will see what I mean. It only means something in a narrow, defined context.

Peter


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## WLC

"It cannot be used to determine ANYTHING else about the compound being tested, and using that number, whatever it is, for any other discussion is mis-interpreting the data."

Not really.

LD50s for pesticides are determined by plotting the cumulative of whatever distribution fits the data best. Most use the normal distibution.

It's common practice in the lab to use similar methodologies when optimizing mutagenesis experiments, virus plaque counts, etc. .

It's not a mystery. However, many feel that the LD50s published for many pesticides are unreliable. You can read an example of this in the discussion section of the Mullin paper. The presence of a single synergistic agent can increase lethality over 100 fold. The manufacturers aren't required to test entire formulations (with potentiators), but just the active ingredient.

As for my application of the LD50 to a specific caste of Honeybee, foragers, over 8 days based on data from a published study...

...think of it as a meta analysis.

I'm allowed to redefine LD50 as I wish. Really.

Yes, the pesticide concentration in the wax comb for the treatment group in the Wu study would be over the LD50 (8 days) for foragers as I've defined it.


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## xcugat

With all due respect to everyone who responded (and I do appreciate the responses) I think this thread has become bogged down with minutiae. I still contend that the small amount contaminants found in foundation or even less in wax coated plastic foundation poses little risk to the bees. Old comb is a different story but that is not what we are talking about here. 

If you were to use your own cappings wax and mill your own foundation in an area that did not have large monoculture farms or sprayed crops I would think that your homemade foundation would come out pretty clean (not perfectly but there are trace chemicals everywhere) If I lived in California I would not be able to step outside because everything there causes cancer (at as least some studies have suggested....)


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## cerezha

odfrank said:


> If pesticides in foundation is what is killing my bees, why do they die in winter but thrive in spring and summer?


 I think, it is excellent point - bees during the winter are physically "sitting" on comb and consume honey from the comb. If there is anything bad in the comb - bees exposed to it the most in the winter. If they are lucky enough to survive the winter (numerous reasons - genetics, fresh comb, less pollutants in the comb due "bad season" etc) - they will spend at least 30-50% of time outside the hive and will be less exposed to the bad stuff inside the hive. Also, they will build fresh comb, which will bury the bad stuff. With course of spring-summer, more and more "fresh" bad stuff will be delivered into the hive (even new comb will be contaminated now) and cycle may be repeated in the winter. So, summer - will generate the pollution (nobody sprays in winter, right?), and winter - bees will be locked in the hive with all chemicals accumulated over the summer. 
But the truth is that if even bees will survive - they may be weaker => see *research *article cited above by WLC. Did you notice that these days beekeepers requeen literally every season? Do you think, it is a co-incidence?
As for bees in the tree - it is exactly the same as for bees in the hive with foundation - bees in nature do not recycle the wax (when bees were created, there were no pesticides to worry)- they use it again and again in their nest, thus - accumulation of the chemicals in the bees habitat, in the tree or in the hive. Based on US statistics, most "feral" (originated from Europe) honey bees already died! The bees you see in the tree - they are from swarms from apiaries, they are not "feral"... and have exactly the same fate as yours! Spreading nasty chemicals everywhere, we, humans, poison wildness. And wildness dies first! Sergey


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## cerezha

xcugat said:


> If I lived in California I would not be able to step outside because everything there causes cancer (at as least some studies have suggested....)


 Exactly, but note that amount of chemicals in our (Californian) environment, which causes the cancer, probably 100 times less than reported amount of really bad stuff in the old-wax coated foundation! What drives me crazy is that people do aware that even tiny amount of chemicals could produce cancer in humans but completely in denial that chemicals could have similar (not cancer, but something else) effect on their bees or other animals? 

By the way, old wax is relevant to this discussion since only foundation approach permits the re-use of wax and therefore accumulate the bad stuff in the comb. No foundation - no old wax/comb! It was very nice discussion and I learned a lot (mainly how recycling of wax may cause the problem, I underestimate that). Thanks everyone for sharing your opinion. Sergey from cancerous (I am a cancer) California.


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## BayHighlandBees

cerezha said:


> Exactly, but note that amount of chemicals in our (Californian) environment, which causes the cancer, probably 100 times less than reported amount of really bad stuff in the old-wax coated foundation!


In California, even Starbucks has to post a sign in their store about the (unproven) cancerous effect of roasting coffee. Cerezha, I'm guessing you are not a coffee drinker (or roasted tea drinker for that matter either)

Again, just to center this discussion we're talking about the thin wax coating on plastic frames. I'm someone who uses both foundation and foundationless frames and I don't lose any sleep over plastic frames.

Like probably everyone reading this post, I live in a house that is made with drywall and plywood containing lethal amounts of formaldehyde. That said, its not a big deal and I expect that issue is 1000x bigger than having bees interacting with trace amounts of mite treatment in the wax coating on the plastic foundations.


----------



## BayHighlandBees

for the record, I'm physically "sitting" in my house all year round


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## cerezha

BayHighlandBees said:


> for the record, I'm physically "sitting" in my house all year round


 BayHighlandBees,
How you took care of bees, if you sitting inside all time? Do you keep them in the house? If they are in the house - you have to immediately evacuate them from the dangerous environment! Also, I never drink Starbucks coffee as well as I do not dine at McDonald, but I have to admit that I exposed to bunch of dangerous substances from the airport nearby. In this sense, I am very concern about my bees and already start the company to shut down the airport. As for "the thin wax coating on plastic frames", you made mistake in arithmetic once in this discussion trying to downplay the amount of the wax in the coating, I corrected you. It was 30x mistake. You still is trying to twist the real situation - see my post above with very simple calculations indicating that this "thin wax coating on plastic frames" contains enough dangerous chemicals to kill 20 thousand bees! If we assume that efficiency of killing is very low, 10%. What it means? Well - 2K bees per frame, 10 frames per box - 20K bees per box! This is very conservative calculation. Just think about this and do not downplay the findings of this discussion. It is your personal choice to use or not to use the foundation, but it is just not right, to establish "your" truth by compromising others. It is just my opinion. Cancerous Sergey from sunny California


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## BayHighlandBees

cerezha said:


> Little bit more arithmetic:
> 12.4 ug = 12400 ng per 1 g of wax times 9 (9 gr of wax per frame) = 111600 divide by 2 (2 ng per bee) = 55800 divide by 2 (LD50) = 27900


Just remember though that LD50 is based on the bees being fed the chemical directly and not living around it. Bees dont ingest wax.


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## BayHighlandBees

WLC said:


> The LD50 of many of these wax contaminants is 2ng/bee.


The miticides we've been talking about are not at an LD50 of 2ng/bee as you mentioned. Coumaphos specifically is listed as non-toxic (at beyond LD50 > 100μg/bee). Which miticide were you thinking is categorized as high toxic (2ng / bee)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesticide_toxicity_to_bees


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## WLC

I said 'pesticides', as in dozens of them.

How they can work synergistically is unknown since there's so many of them present.

I suppose we could pick out examples where the maximum value found for a particular pesticide present in wax samples tested at above the LD50.

But, I think that the foragers in the treated wax comb group lasting an average of only 4 days rather than 8 days is a BIG issue.

Frankly, it's more than enough for me to say that it is the 'hype' about using foundationless.

The Wu and Mullin papers taken together make a strong argument for going foundationless. Or, we need to use decontaminated wax in foundation.


----------



## BayHighlandBees

WLC said:


> I said 'pesticides', as in dozens of them.


Right but the study everyone was talking about referred to miticides because those show up in higher levels and build up in the wax. Pesticides coming from the environment are at much lower concentrations. If we want to talk about those, then we shouldn't combine them with the same study that was discussing the concentrations of mite treatments building up in the comb.

If we want to get into outside pesticides like Neonics, in low doses actually act as a stimulant to bees (similar to nicotene to people) and will cause your bees to be more productive (in low doses). Unlike miticides they will slowly breakdown and decompose after 2 years. Do you have studies that show neonics building up in the wax to high levels?


----------



## BayHighlandBees

WLC said:


> But, I think that the foragers in the treated wax comb group lasting an average of only 4 days rather than 8 days is a BIG issue.]


except that study was about hives that getting the old treatments every year at high doses. Its not about people starting out with plastic foundation and raising their bees with little or no treatments. I don't think the bees on plastic foundation will live less than the standard 8 days even if the 9 grams of wax used per frame came from beekeepers that were big dosers. The 2ng /bee limit doesn't apply to mite treatments like Coumaphos (which is listed in the non-toxic category of chemicals).


----------



## WLC

'Do you have studies that show neonics building up in the wax to high levels?'

Did you read both the Wu and the Mullins study? They both show neonics building up in the wax.

The imidacloprid concentrations are high.

While the published LD50s for many of the pesticides studied are old and have been called unreliable by many, they are 'too high' when newer studies (no citations provided) have examined their effects on Honeybees both on their own and when combined with potentiating agents (or synergistically w/ each other or with pathogens).

You really do get milligram per hive amounts of pesticides into your hive when wax foundation or waxed plastic frames are used.

9 ng/bee was the LD50 of one of the miticides when combined with a potentiating agent as described in the Mullins study.

It's the pesticide formulations that cause this over 100 fold increase in lethality above the published LD50. They determine LD50 for the active ingredient alone, not as a formulation.
That's one of the issues involved.

NB: they didn't account for known pesticide potentiators in either study.


----------



## Daniel Y

I first heard of foundation way back. and the reasons I heard for using it was that the bees draw comb faster and that it is better for passing frames through things like extractors. and that was it. I am not saying that is the only reason anyone has ever used it I am just saying it was the only thing I head anything about. I am not saying no one discovered other things they believe about it.

I am saying that what I believe foundation is really used for is to save the beekeeper time and work. it prevents losses and keeps the beekeeper from having to go into every hive and clean up messes in the comb. IT makes more durable comb and I have heard some say they believe that in increases production when you can just give the bees already drawn comb rather than empty frames. it takes to much wax for bees to make comb wasting honey produced. It is about the money or the labor. You can have these fringe arguments about every other reason you want to believe it is about. But with just a quick glimpse of the issue it is pretty obvious what it is about. Time effort labor and reliability. That overall is what foundation does. not a lot of people miss it and so you don't have to have endless debate about it doing that.


----------



## Bush_84

I will admit right away that I started reading the first page and noticed that this topic went all the way out to 10 and I stopped there. My only contribution at this point is the fact that if I buy foundation, my frames double in price. I had a hard enough time buying the frames when I can make Warre/TBH for pennies on the dollar compared to the Lang frames. People can argue about the actual benefits of going foundationless or if there are even any, but to me the cost of foundation is a big deal. I also like natural cell etc, but the cost can't be argued.


----------



## deknow

....to take an ld50 of an orally ingested substance and pretend that it has anything to.do.with an ld50 for what is in wax is pure ignorance, BS, and dishonesty....at least when those making such claims know better.

If I drink a.bottle of bleach, I will die. If I use a bottle of bleach in a normal manner, I will not.

If I breathe a.gallon of water, i will die. If I drink a gallon of water I wont.

If I stick my fingers into.an outlet, I will die....if I plug a lamp into an outlet I wont.

Deknow


----------



## AJ Boss

Can I Put a foundationless frame (undrawn) next to a drawn frame from foundation?


----------



## WLC

'to take an LD50 of an orally ingested substance and pretend that it has anything to.do.with an LD50 for what is in wax is pure ignorance, BS, and dishonesty....at least when those making such claims know better.'

Bees do use was in all kinds of ways, like making propolis (mouth parts are involved) or when they reform wax for making cells (they melt the wax with body heat, that's why the inside of a cell is round, not hex shaped).

The way that LD50s are determined is the source of the 'ignorance', 'BS' and 'Dishonesty'. Study after study has shown the LD50s for the same active ingredient to differ by orders of magnitude in tests on Honeybees. I've even seen a published LD50 for imidacloprid in the scientific literature at 1 ng/bee or 0.1ug/Kg (0.1ppb-at or below the LOD).

Yes, I do know better. The LD50 for an active ingredient is just a point on a distribution that differs by orders of magnitude depending on who is doing the testing and depending on the individual Honeybee colony.

Anyone can come up with an LD50, including for a caste of Honeybees because it has been proven to be such a subjective number, Especially when it comes to testing pesticides on Honeybees, that it's foolish to think of it as a constant.

LD50s were determined BY pesticide companies FOR pesticide companies. Honeybees just get in the way of that farce.

Dean, You're just tee'd off because I've pointed out that wax coated PF120s have a significant level of pesticide contamination.

Try to remember to tell folks to get PF120s UNWAXED.

PS-I'm a casualty myself. The PF120 bodies I added to my foundationless bodies have contaminated the experiment.


----------



## Solomon Parker

AJ Boss said:


> Can I Put a foundationless frame (undrawn) next to a drawn frame from foundation?


Yes.


----------



## deknow

WLC said:


> Bees do use was in all kinds of ways, like making propolis (mouth parts are involved) or when they reform wax for making cells (they melt the wax with body heat, that's why the inside of a cell is round, not hex shaped).


...and all of this is the long way around stating that bees don't eat beeswax.



> The way that LD50s are determined is the source of the 'ignorance', 'BS' and 'Dishonesty'.


Well, good thing you are at least citing them in good faith



> Anyone can come up with an LD50, including for a caste of Honeybees because it has been proven to be such a subjective number, Especially when it comes to testing pesticides on Honeybees, that it's foolish to think of it as a constant.


errrr, ok. But when someone comes up with an LD50 for an ingested pesticide, usually it is expressed either as an acute or chronic (with some timeframe specified) dose. Even if they are not comprehensively determined, they are at least relevent to discuss....points on a continuum.

To take a number based on the amount a bee eats in feed and then apply it in any manner to what might be found in wax (that the bees are in contact with, work with, but don't eat)...especially given the llipophilic nature of most of the substances of concern, is dishonest when it comes from someone with the kinds of credentials you claim.


> Dean, You're just tee'd off because I've pointed out that wax coated PF120s have a significant level of pesticide contamination.


...well, you've claimed that...but I'm far from convinced that you have started with a valid assumption of how much wax is on a coated pf100 series frame. How did you measure this again?



> Try to remember to tell folks to get PF120s UNWAXED.


...what great advice....ever try to get bees to draw out unwaxed plastic frames? ...if the frames need to be waxed in order to work well (I think they do), where is the new beekeeper going to get uncontaminated wax? It is a fact that anyone using the recommended methods of applying wax to a plastic frame (paint roller seems to be the best way) is going to put on far more wax than is sprayed on to even the most oversprayed frame of PF100. Unless you can make a case that the wax a beekeeper is likely to buy is orders of magnitude less contaminated than what Mann Lake coats on the frame, I don't see an advantage.

I NEVER tell new beekeepers to buy unwaxed frames...quite the contrary. We certainly have wax we could use to coat frames, but because part of what we are trying to accomplish is good recommendations for beginners (and others), we've only purchased the waxed product....results from frames that I wax heavily with my own wax may not perform like frames that are sprayed with a light coating of the wax used by Mann Lake.

You do know that I filmed Maryann Frazier in 2008 talking about that plos one study (2 years before publication), posted the video online (with her permission), had over 1000 viewers in the first 2 weeks, and discussed it extensively here on beesource and on other forums?

Here is a post of mine from another forum, dated june 28, 2010...note that I use actual experience to advise what seems to be working best.


> having regressed colonies using several methods, i think the best way is to use the Mann Lake PF100 series frames.
> 
> HSC takes too long to be accepted, and you really need to make it the only option for the bees...so, either you do a complete shakedown, or use a complicated method using queen excluders and trying to keep the bees from just raising a new queen outside the HSC.
> 
> Shaking down on to foundationless frames seems to bring them down to about 5.1mm....which I don't think is enough. Repeated shakedowns would probably solve this problem, but it takes a very long time.
> 
> SC foundation apparently doesn't get drawn out very well at first (I have not tried this approach myself, and rely on the observations of others). I'm also concerned about the contamination of the foundation and don't see this as enough of an improvement even if it did work well.
> 
> The Mann Lake frames (pf100 series NOT THE 500 SERIES) are 4.95mm cell size (0.002" larger than 4.9). The frames are cheap (much cheaper than HSC), they require no assembly, even if you get them coated with beeswax (which you should do unless you have your own known source of uncontaminated wax to coat them with yourself), there is so little wax present that the contamination isn't nearly as much as you can get from wax foundation. Our experience this year is that the bees take to them quite readily and draw them out perfectly. These could be fed into the middle of the broodnest a little at a time and get the regression happening at a reasonable pace...shaking a package onto this stuff is ideal, IMHO.
> 
> deknow





> PS-I'm a casualty myself. The PF120 bodies I added to my foundationless bodies have contaminated the experiment.


I assume that means that you have measured the actual ammount of various pesticides in your foundationless combs, and compared this to the amount of the same pesticides found in the wax sprayed on the PF frames? You didn't? Really?

Based on your recent reactions to all kinds of old news (mercury in HFCS, HMF in HFCS, contamination of all available beeswax), I'm beginning to think that the "C" and the "L" in WLC stand for Chicken Little.

deknow


----------



## BayHighlandBees

WLC said:


> Bees do use was in all kinds of ways, like making propolis (mouth parts are involved) or when they reform wax for making cells (they melt the wax with body heat, that's why the inside of a cell is round, not hex shaped).


It's a little bit of a gray area in that sometimes mouth parts are used in manipulating the wax, but they are not directly ingesting it and the thin wax coating lining the plastic frames is not the wax they are spending time on manipulating.


----------



## jim lyon

There is a small amount of "reforming" of wax that occurs in a hive but it is certainly quite small. Were that not the case once would only need to sprinkle a hand full of dry capping wax in when putting new foundation in a hive but of course bees will just carry it out the front of the hive like so much debris. The great majority of wax building only occurs with the stimulation of a honeyflow.


----------



## WLC

Dean:

This thread is about the hype over foundationless.

Obviously, one reason for the hype is that you don't need to deal with pesticide contaminants from 'God knows where' in your frames.

Foundationless wins over any other product in that regards.

"I assume that means that you have measured the actual ammount of various pesticides in your foundationless combs, and compared this to the amount of the same pesticides found in the wax sprayed on the PF frames? You didn't? Really?"

Neither did you Dean. Which, by the way, you should have done.

I took data from the Mullin paper that showed an average of 12.4 ug pesticide contaminants/g of wax comb.

It extrapolates out to milligrams per hive. That's even on PF120s. It's not rocket science.


I did look through your tome "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping". You forgot to mention the issue w/ regards to certain plastic frame products.

As for the 'Chicken Little' Crack, I got you back with your own book! 

Introducing contaminated wax into the hive is still a major problem in beekeeping, IMHO, and I doubt that it will be resolved if natural/treatment-free advocates won't even 'fess up' to the blunder of introducing it into their hives.

Foundationless does have a big 'leg up' in that reagards.


----------



## deknow

WLC said:


> Dean:
> 
> This thread is about the hype over foundationless.


ok. I guess it's good you were able to get that off your chest, but I don't really see the relevance.


> Obviously, one reason for the hype is that you don't need to deal with pesticide contaminants from 'God knows where' in your frames.


Yes. I'm not sure that was ever under debate. If you don't use foundation (or beeswax in general), then you won't introduce substances or pathogens that might be in that wax. I think this is pretty much self evident, and since the report from 2008, I haven't seen anyone offer any tests that they have wax that looks better.



> "I assume that means that you have measured the actual ammount of various pesticides in your foundationless combs, and compared this to the amount of the same pesticides found in the wax sprayed on the PF frames? You didn't? Really?"
> 
> Neither did you Dean. Which, by the way, you should have done.


OK, so I'm a bad boy because I used my cunning and intuition to determine that there is much less wax sprayed onto a plastic frame (where there is $$$ in the manufacturer putting on as little as possible) than there is in a sheet of foundation that I will complain about if it is too thin to embed properly/easily.

But then again, I haven't been tossing numbers around and making claims.



> I took data from the Mullin paper that showed an average of 12.4 ug pesticide contaminants/g of wax comb.
> 
> It extrapolates out to milligrams per hive. That's even on PF120s. It's not rocket science.


My admittedly basic math skills tell me that in order to do any of those calculations, you need to know how many grams are in a sheet of foundation, and how many grams are coated onto a pf120 frame. How many grams are on a pf100 frame? You don't know? Your calculator must have more buttons than mine.



> I did look through your tome "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping". You forgot to mention the issue w/ regards to certain plastic frame products.
> As for the 'Chicken Little' Crack, I got you back with your own book!


I suppose I should have made this disclaimer: I am a temporal being. I strive to keep as informed as I can, but I have not been able to overcome the issue that I do not have an opinion of a product until _after_ I have tried it. Our book contract came rather suddenly, and we actually wrote what we were actually doing. We had heard about the PF series from Michael Bush, but not having experience with it, we decided not to include it. We did recommend HSC, as it was the best thing we had used at the time. Now, we feel that the PF series is far superior.
There was a brief mention of the PF series in the book, stating that some have had packages that were clearly shaken from SC comb, probably the PF series (as they are cheap, and people buy them for the price alone).

Next time I sign a book contract, I'll make sure to have a time machine (or at least a flux capacitor) in place before signing. I will make sure to address every issue of every product and device I have not used.




> Introducing contaminated wax into the hive is still a major problem in beekeeping, IMHO, and I doubt that it will be resolved if natural/treatment-free advocates won't even 'fess up' to the blunder of introducing it into their hives.


I'm not sure what you think I'm not "fessing up" to? 

Is the wax on the PF100 series contaminated? Undoubtedly.

Is there wax available from any source that isn't contaminated?
Probably not.

Do I think think, with the experience I have, that there is an advantage to using PF100's over foundationless when starting with a package of unknown origin, or a nuc with large cell comb?
Yes. It is what I do if I can, and it is what I recommend.



> Foundationless does have a big 'leg up' in that reagards.


Yes.

deknow


----------



## WLC

"you need to know how many grams are in a sheet of foundation, and how many grams are coated onto a pf120 frame. How many grams are on a pf100 frame? You don't know? Your calculator must have more buttons than mine."

Sergey came up with the number of grams of wax used to coat a plastic frame.

He came in at 9 grams of wax per frame.

I really just need an order of magnitude to say that there are at least milligram quantities of pesticide in a hive with contaminated wax.

Yes, it could reach grams of mixed pesticides per hive because of variance.

Was that so hard Dean? 

You didn't even have to take your shoes an socks off. No 'calculator' required.


----------



## deknow

...Sergey did the math. The number came from BayHighlandBees, who "read it on the internet".

If you read people talking about coating the plastic frames themselves, they are generally trying to get as much on as possible without filling the cell bottoms with a huge puddle.

When the manufacturer applies wax, they spray as thin a coat as possible. I've seen it melt in the sun, there isn't much on there. I would guess more like .5-1g per frame.

According to the Mann Lake catalog, 25lbs of wax foundation is roughly 175 sheets (deeps). 11200 grams, so 64 grams/sheet?

You can do all the math you want, but 9g of wax on a prewaxed PF frame is not believable....and even if it is, it's still 7X less wax than in a sheet of foundation.

deknow


----------



## WLC

"You can do all the math you want, but 9g of wax on a prewaxed PF frame is not believable....and even if it is, it's still 7X less wax than in a sheet of foundation."

Yes, there's alot more wax in a sheet of wax foundation than you would find applied to a plastic frame.

I would say that there's over a gram per side of wax applied to either a PF100 or 120.

Either someone gets to call up the folks who manufacture the PF 100/120 frames, or some one gets to melt the wax off of a PF 100/120 frame.

You can weight a sheet of wax foundation directly however.

I would compromise with 5g of wax per side of PF 120 and 7g of wax per side of the PF 100.

Maybe Mann Lake would take a suggestion to offer decontaminated wax foundation and coated plastic frames seriously?

They might listen to an author. Hint.


----------



## Rick 1456

When, and how, do you folks find the time to enjoy Beekeeping? Hey, I guess it all perspective.


----------



## WLC

When? Today. 

The next project is combining some nucs.

Did some gardening too.


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## deknow

WLC said:


> Maybe Mann Lake would take a suggestion to offer decontaminated wax foundation and coated plastic frames seriously?
> They might listen to an author. Hint.


Errr, if I thought I could source clean wax, I would be manufacturing foundation commercially.

You will also note that a book that tells you how not too use foundation and how not to use treatments isn't so good for the beekeeping supply business. You will note that it isn't in any of the bee catalogs (even if it is the only beginners beekeeping book from a major publishing house).

But, I think, without weighing anything, without calling anyone, without melting any wax, exactly what I've been saying for a page or so....

There is much less wax in a coated pf frame than in a sheet of wax.

You don't know how much wax is on a PF frame, so all the math in the world won't tell you how much contamination could be on the PF frame. I guess you will have to turn to statistics to show how accurate your calculations are 

deknow


----------



## WLC

Actually, I do know the range. 1-10g.

That's more than enough to come up with a range for ng of pesticide per bee.

It's too high. Even for plastic coated frames.

Sorry.


----------



## Cleo C. Hogan Jr

Rick 1456... I'm with you. After 14 pages of hits and misses, it seemes foundation contains contaminates, who would have thought it. It also seemes foundationless is more difficult to move and extract, who would have thought it. You are not going to change someone's mind that is already made up, I don't care how many facts, charts, graphs, studies, you present. Do either of you think you are going to convert the other?? Dueling facts that go nowhere.

In the words of Rodney King..... "can't we just all get along??????"

cchoganjr


----------



## deknow

I don't really care what other people do. I do however, find it somewhat upsetting when someone claims a bunch of "scientist" credentials (especially when they are secret and unverifiable credentials) gets their panties in a twist every time they read about something they didn't know before...then tries to scare everyone else by making up numbers and repeating them over and over in order to make them sound true.

Yes, WLC, you know between 1-10g? Why? Because someone read "9g" on the internet, and I said my best guess was between .5-1g? Good thing you vet your data before plugging it into the old math machine....or are you citing real data that you found somewhere? I didn't think so.

deknow


----------



## cerezha

deknow said:


> ...Sergey did the math. The number came from BayHighlandBees, who "read it on the internet"....
> You can do all the math you want, but 9g of wax on a prewaxed PF frame is not believable....and even if it is, it's still 7X less wax than in a sheet of foundation. deknow


 I just did a calculation since BayHighlandBees made it wrong just 30 times... From HIS data, it is 9 gram per frame. I do not use foundation, so I have no idea if it reasonable or not. Similarly, I also did other calculations based on posted in THIS thread data (LD50 etc). Of coarse, it is not pretended to be absolute, it just gives a raw estimate what expect in worse scenario. * LD50 * is always very worse scenario - it was used to estimate effect of nuclear explosion on Japanese people (US wanted more casualties). All attempts to diminish this thread findings are just pure indication how some people biased and just ignorant... It is fine with me, because I already distill all useful stuff from this discussion. 

By the way. If somebody wanted to use the brain, there is simple math problem to solve: you have a size of the frame (LxH in cm) and thickness of wax you want to apply (h in cm). It is very easy to calculate the volume of the wax necessary to cover one side V=LxHxh, times 2 = *V*olume of wax needed for one frame. Than one could google to get the wax density (D g/cm^3). Than multiply volume by density = *V*xD. Note - do not repeat BayHighlandBees mistake - all science is METRIC! do not use in or _oz_! If you use cm you will have grams at the end. Great thread. I personally have a lot of fun AND it is very informative. 

Deknow - many thanks for acknowledging that *BayHighlandBees* provided numbers, which leads to 9g/foundation wax coat content. Now BayHighlandBees is trying to diminish his own findings and talking about miniscules amount of wax per foundation. It is inconsistency, not good. As for credentials - Solomon Parker I believe objected that somebody told at this thread that he has a credentials in environmental sciences. Somehow it was sounded that poor guy did something wrong by disclosing his (great) credentials... So, I felt, I do not want to make anybody uncomfortable with my identity. But, if you are insisting, I have nothing to hide: I have Masters in animal and human physiology (including bees),one PhD in Immunology, and one PhD in Molecular Biology. I am a research professor at UCLA Medical School. I have no specific education in environmental sciences, but, yes, it was a part of my Bachelor general education. Education helped me to understand (and solve) the problem, but I am presenting here as an amateur bee-enthusiast. I do not consider myself a beekeeper. So, hello everybody. Sergey


----------



## WLC

Dean:

I have melted beeswax before. I do know how a ml of melted wax flows. I've also examined PF 120s. There's easily 1 gram of beeswax per side of a PF 120.

What amazes me is that you won't even acknowledge 1 gram of beeswax per side of a PF 120.

I can understand why both you and the other treatment-free/small cell gurus might be annoyed at the thought that you're putting significant amounts of pesticides into your hives by using wax coated small cell frames.

That's why someone contemplating keeping treatment/chemical-free hives should consider the foundationless approach.

It's a litle tricky, but you can avoid a major pitfall (I've fallen in myself) and get off to a clean start that way.

When comparing foundationless/natural comb to small cell, I'd say that the wax contamination issue tips the balance in favor of foundationless.


----------



## Solomon Parker

Okay, I just weighed an actual sheet of small cell foundation. It weighs 64 grams. Let's see what y'all will do with that. Tell me how dead my bees should be.


----------



## Solomon Parker

Oh, don't forget that they spray the whole frame, not just the foundation faces. :ws:


----------



## WLC

Your foragers will live less an average of significantly less than 8 days (if only you had gone foundationless).

Simple, no?


----------



## Solomon Parker

A PF-120 weighs 252 grams. But that's with the end bars trimmed to 1.25" A PF-120 with fresh white comb built on it weighs 293 grams.


----------



## Solomon Parker

So less than significantly less than an average of 8 days is like what, two days? Could you be a little clearer?


----------



## sqkcrk

WLC said:


> When comparing foundationless/natural comb to small cell, I'd say that the wax contamination issue tips the balance in favor of foundationless.


JUst jumping in here w/ a question. Does anyone think that foundationless comb is free of contamination or just less contaminated?


----------



## deknow

WLC said:


> Dean:
> 
> I have melted beeswax before. I do know how a ml of melted wax flows.
> 
> I've also examined PF 120s. There's easily 1 gram of beeswax per side of a PF 120.


...except that you were happily citing 9g until you were called on it...then you tried to attribute the number to the wrong person...when it actually came out of thin cyberspace. You've hardly instilled a sense that you are looking at any of this with any care...and we are now supposed to agree with your estimate because you have seen how melted wax flows?


> What amazes me is that you won't even acknowledge 1 gram of beeswax per side of a PF 120.


Yes, I will not acknowledge that your off the cuff (or out of your shorts) estimate is anything we should be even discussing. If you want to make a case, make it. If it's based on whatever made up numbers you feel like at the moment, it will be considered with the appropriate amount of skepticism....especially given the dishonest approach you have taken to "prove" how toxic this is (using LD50 data and pretending that bees eat wax like they would medicated syrup).


> I can understand why both you and the other treatment-free/small cell gurus might be annoyed at the thought that you're putting significant amounts of pesticides into your hives by using wax coated small cell frames.


I honestly don't care what you think should annoy me or anyone else. I've always acknowledged (since 2008 when I saw the first data) that the whole wax supply is contaminated. I've always acknowledged that this is true for the wax on the PF series of frames. I'm not sure what you are accusing me of. I'd rather that clean wax was available.


> That's why someone contemplating keeping treatment/chemical-free hives should consider the foundationless approach.


Gee, someone should write a book.....



> When comparing foundationless/natural comb to small cell, I'd say that the wax contamination issue tips the balance in favor of foundationless.


That's a fine choice. My own experience has led me to other conclusions. But what are you comparing? Have you quantified "small cell" like you have quantified "wax contamination"?

deknow


----------



## WLC

That would be the trend predicted from the Wu study.

The Mullin study has other data on contaminants in foundation. If you did a meta analysis of the 2 studies, replotted the adjusted cumulative distributions, then you could generate an actual estimate of the average number of forager days lost.

No, kidding.

For now, we can say that you would lose forager productivity.


----------



## Solomon Parker

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hokum


----------



## WLC

'JUst jumping in here w/ a question. Does anyone think that foundationless comb is free of contamination or just less contaminated?'

Basically, yes.

Honeybees are known to be excellent surrogates for examining environmental pollutants of many different types. They just seem to end up back in the hive somewhere. Even radioisotopes.


----------



## sqkcrk

So, not free of contamination, just less, Right?


----------



## WLC

No Sol, not hokum.

If you looked at the types of data listed in the tables, you'll notice that it was in a probability table format.

They plotted the distributions first and then generated those tables.

As a student of environmental engineering, you're going to see alot of those kinds of tables.

Yes Sol, they can tell you what fraction of your hives are predicted to have whatever loss in forager days you want to examine, as well as other stuff.


----------



## BayHighlandBees

Solomon Parker said:


> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hokum


great description!


----------



## WLC

Yes Mark.

But here's another one: why aren't commercials using fondationless?

Because commercial beekeepers can still find ways to make more money using standard practices.

Now if someone could find a viable way to decontaminate beeswax, then the debate would be over (and maybe small cell would have better chance).

This debate really only applies to a philosophy of beekeeping.

You can't put pesticides into your hive and say that you're treatment free although that is your original intent.

Foundationless avoids some major pitfalls, but is seen by many to be a throwback to another era.


----------



## julysun

This newbie is confused by this thread. Foundation-less frames are just another somewhat random shot in the mite reduction war. So why all the heat? 

I do see many videos of bee removal and that wax is as tough as cardboard, so strength is passable. 

I like the idea of foundation-less comb because I can cut the comb out easily or just mash and strain. 

On LD50, I trust most chemist, but, their work must meet critical review.

Just saying...


----------



## BayHighlandBees

WLC said:


> For now, we can say that you would lose forager productivity.


you could if you were reusing the entire comb from the study for a new hive; however, in this thread we're talking about new foundation with a thin coating of wax (not reusing the entire comb). And its worth noting that the recycled wax on new frames isn't frankenwax from a crazy 'nuke and soak the hive with miticide' experimental study).


----------



## WLC

Now for the hokum lovers.

You may not like the Mullin or the Wu study, and there are many other studies out there that have been done on the effects of pesticides on Honeybees, but they make it pretty clear: Beeswax has been contaminated by pesticides, and even small doses aren't good for honeybees.

That's the real strength behind the foundationless approach. It avoids contaminated beeswax.

Just one fun fact for you.

It would take over 50 years to eliminate the pesticide contaminated wax from our hives if pesticides were banned tomorrow. That's how bad it is.


----------



## BayHighlandBees

WLC said:


> Now if someone could find a viable way to decontaminate beeswax, then the debate would be over (and maybe small cell would have better chance).
> 
> This debate really only applies to a philosophy of beekeeping.
> 
> Foundationless avoids some major pitfalls, but is seen by many to be a throwback to another era.


I think the real issue with Small Cell goes back a century, when Prof. Ursmar Baudoux recalled:

"About 1891, foundation with cells 920 to the square decimetre was introduced into our country [Belgium]. Beekeepers all adopted this size of cell. The experts of that time believed that it was advantageous to produce as many bees as possible on the least possible surface of comb. Thus there was a premature narrowing of the cells, and at the end of a few years the bees were miserable specimens."

The idea of foundationless is that bees will build the cell size they need when they need it. Usually they will want something in between large and small cell and will want to build drone comb at times. With foundationless, the bees decide.


----------



## sqkcrk

WLC said:


> Yes Mark.
> 
> But here's another one: why aren't commercials using fondationless?
> 
> Because commercial beekeepers can still find ways to make more money using standard practices.


I can only imagine the problems a commercial operation would face were they to attempt foundationless commercial beekeeping. I can't imagine the trade off being economically worthwhile.


----------



## BayHighlandBees

WLC said:


> Now for the hokum lovers.
> 
> You may not like the Mullin or the Wu study, and there are many other studies out there that have been done on the effects of pesticides on Honeybees, but they make it pretty clear: Beeswax has been contaminated by pesticides, and even small doses aren't good for honeybees.
> 
> That's the real strength behind the foundationless approach. It avoids contaminated beeswax.
> 
> Just one fun fact for you.
> 
> It would take over 50 years to eliminate the pesticide contaminated wax from our hives if pesticides were banned tomorrow. That's how bad it is.


Link?


----------



## AJ Boss

WAW Did the guy that started this thread know he was starting bee world war one........
on another note it seems that many Beeks are way more educated than I.....interesting stuff..... I must say i am hooked....but a bit overwhelmed!
Think I need to enroll in a beek university!


----------



## WLC

Link?

I think that Frazier said that '50 year' comment.


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## jim lyon

WLC said:


> Link?
> 
> I think that Frazier said that '50 year' comment.


I'm confused, is this a fact or not? I trust you would challenge a student to prove such an assertion.


----------



## WLC

I wouldn't challenge the 'genius' bee lady. (Around April, 2008.)

It's a reflection of how difficult it is to clean up contaminants in bees wax. Maybe because of persistent cross contamination, etc. ?


----------



## rweakley

sqkcrk said:


> I can only imagine the problems a commercial operation would face were they to attempt foundationless commercial beekeeping. I can't imagine the trade off being economically worthwhile.


Actually all a commercial beekeeper would have to do is to stop buying foundation, it's not all that complicated. You buy new frames to replace broken ones or frames that are nasty and need to be replaced, so you buy either the foundationless ones (kellybees???) or you buy wedge top and turn the wedge sideways. Before you go telling me it's too much work to do that, please tell me you are already buying your frames with the foundation installed, because trust me I can pop the wedge, run a bead of glue and staple before you get the foundation out of the box. LOL The biggest difficulty you guys would have would be in the supers, because it does get a little dicey there from the stand point of them getting drawn out properly at first. The frames for brood are no big deal, stick in the middle of the brood nest to replace the frames you are taking out. Now you WILL, guarantee it get drone comb, big deal move it over to the 1 or 10 position and put another in the middle the next time you are replacing frames. You commercial guys, your bees eat honey don't they, well that's what they will put in the frame in 1 or 10 position when they don't need drones, no big deal. That's it I'm going commercial just to prove it can be done, ok not really, but I have a day job don't ya know. Most the the "difficulties" that people have with foundationless is between their ears. "I'm just keeping bees the way my daddy kept bees" Really? did he put poison in his hives too? It's so old of a way to keep bees that it's new again and anything new is difficult.


----------



## cerezha

cerezha said:


> If somebody wanted to use the brain, there is simple math problem to solve: you have a size of the frame (LxH in cm) and thickness of wax you want to apply (h in cm). It is very easy to calculate the volume of the wax necessary to cover one side V=LxHxh, times 2 = *V*olume of wax needed for one frame. Than one could google to get the wax density (D g/cm^3). Than multiply volume by density = *V*xD.


 Crazy,
Since nobody volunteer to do a simple math, well, I did it out of curiosity. I am publishing this because numbers look irreal to me, so you guys need to check if calculation is right:
Medium size frame foundation area - 43x15 cm = 645 cm square (area), two sides x2 = 1290 cm^2
I assume the thickness of coating is 0.1 mm, which is 0.01 cm
The volume of the coat - 1290x0.01 = 12.9 cubic cm
Density of wax - I approximate it to 0.9 g/cm^3 (paraffin, Wikipedia)
Coating mass for two sides of one foundation in grams - 12.9x0.9 = *11.61 g*
So, BayHighlandBees was absolutely right with his 9 g per foundation.
Note - please, keep in mind - I used 0.1 mm thickness of coating - it is VERY thin - to those, who is not familiar with metric, it is a thickness of the "newspaper" paper or even thinner. Again - it is for *medium* frame/foundation.
Sergey


----------



## cerezha

jim lyon said:


> I'm confused, is this a fact or not? I trust you would challenge a student to prove such an assertion.


OK, I am too lazy to go to Internet and find a "proper" reference - everybody could easily do it by yourself. But I want to tell a small story, which may be an interest for this respectful meeting. Pesticides... there is a scientific expression - "a half life" (in the same line as LD50) - "half life" used to determine for how long chemical need to deteriorate that only half left? It is used for instance for radioactive contamination - how many decades to wait until half radioactivity left in Hiroshima? The same - for pesticides, after how many years it will be half from original amount. *DTT* was widely used in 60ex. If you old enough - you may remember the dust DTT sprayed from small aircraft over your backyard. So, for DTT, half life is 50 years (believe me or do your own reseach). It means that 50 years later, in year 2010 (approximately) there is still 50% of original amount DTT present and active. In year 2060 we shall have 25% of original amount of DTT contaminating our environment. In the year 2110 we shall have 12.5% of DTT from original amount. It is just simply science. WLC gave you VERY optimistic prognosis that pesticides from wax gone withing 50 years! 

PS When you, guys asking for "links", you are so naive - I could find on the Internet anything I want, pro or contra. What I am doing here as well as many others - I do share my knowledge. It is your choice to accept it or not. But this "near-science" requests for proper "link" is just so naive... I am sorry, nothing personal. 
Sergey


----------



## BayHighlandBees

cerezha said:


> If you old enough - you may remember the dust DTT sprayed from small aircraft over your backyard. So, for DTT, half life is 50 years (believe me or do your own reseach).


certainly the 1st generation pesticides were potent, wide reaching, and long lasting. But that's why they've been phased out and replaced with modern more targeted pesticides (like neonics) which don't impact vertibrates and who's half life is only 34 days when exposed to sunlight (up to 3 years when not exposed).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid


----------



## BayHighlandBees

cerezha said:


> PS When you, guys asking for "links", you are so naive - I could find on the Internet anything I want, pro or contra.


I'm sure you could find anything to support what you are looking for, but if you post the link then it would be available to the board to scrutinize.


----------



## cerezha

BayHighlandBees said:


> I'm sure you could find anything to support what you are looking for, but if you post the link then it would be available to the board to scrutinize.


 *exactly* this is what says in link you provided: 
Environmental impact
Main article: *Imidacloprid effects on bees *...
...Neonicotinoid use has been strictly limited in France since the 1990s...
In 2008 Germany revoked the registration of clothianidin for use on seed corn after an incident that resulted in the death of hundreds of nearby honey bees....
In 2009 the German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety decided to continue to suspend authorization for the use of clothianidin...
On July 23, 2010, Dutch toxicologist, Dr Henk Tennekes had a scientific paper published in the journal, Toxicology (online) titled,Druckrey-Küpfmüller equation for risk assessment. He then authored and published a book in regards to his research called "A Disaster in the Making". The book explores the impact of neonicotinoids on the immune system of bees....

It looks like, you are quite unlucky with Internet - every time you are trying to support one side, your own link suggests the opposite... 

By the way, even for neonics 3 years half-life (I took your words) without sunlight (in the hive or storage) - it will take 21 year to reduce the concentration from 100% to approximately 1% from original. It is still a huge contamination! But, yes, definitely better than DDT! Also, keep in mind that many chemical compounds decomposing create even more toxic products (refer to organic chemistry course, do not ask for the link, this is a basic knowledge)!

I really do not see what is the point in this battle? Your own data indicated against you. You put yourself in the difficult situation, because you are now defending not only foundation (which is your own choice, but do not impose on others) but using pesticides, which are known to be harmful to the bees (see your own link). Are you on bee side, or what? I think we are all on the bee side at this forum, right? Sergey

Sergey


----------



## WLC

http://www.beesource.com/point-of-view/ed-dee-lusby/recycling-beeswax-part-1-2/

I think it was Frazier who said it originally.

"...Many beekeepers only recycle their combs through a 10 year period and if wax recycling for foundation continues it will take 50+ years to get down to unreadable levels and this still assumes an almost complete lack of chemical usage commencing immediately."


----------



## Cleo C. Hogan Jr

BayHighlandBees.... sqkcrk can address this better, Quote, "the bees decide" but, in commercial operations, the operator manipulates to get better results, translated, more money. 

If we are just playing or keeping bees for fun, sure, let them do what THEY want to do, commercially, you do what you can to make them do what YOU want them to do. From foundation, to swarm control, to box size, to colonies touching each other on pallets, to medication, on and on.

If it works for you, that is what I would do.

cchoganjr
\


----------



## sqkcrk

Thanks WLC. That's sorta what my point was too, that foundationless is not going to result in comb free from pesticide residue because bees bring contamination into the hives themselves. Something I learned from listening to Dr. Maryanne Fraziers talks and talking w/ her at the "Pollinators and Pesticides" Conference at Alfred State two years ago and her talk at the Fall Mtng of the Empire State Honey Producers Association, 2011 in Syracuse. At which she stated that bees fly a lot farther than previously thought, bringing back pesticide residue that had to come from as much as 5 miles away from the hives.

Dr. Fraziers study, resulting in quite a list of chemicals found in the Penn State beehives in the study, was done w/ package bees being installed in new equipment w/out foundation. The study showed the general pollution of our environment. Chemical pesticides are everywhere.

I don't have a link, but I bet someone could find one. I'm not talented that way.


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## SantaFeBeek

Sergey, I bow down to your credentials (wow, two PhDs!:applause and appreciate your defense of mine (BS and MS in Environmental Engineering), although some have misinterpreted your post as somehow being negative against me.

What I have found very sad and discouraging about this thread is that there are several folks on here who are more interested in protecting their egos and being “right” than are interested in divining the truth. Misinterpretations of data abound and when asked for supporting evidence or faced with suggestions that there may be a flaw in their interpretations or logic, they resort to petty personal attacks…the “he who talks the loudest is right” method. This really serves no purpose in a scientific discussion, other than for that particular person to somehow make himself feel better about himself. 

As a research scientist, I’m sure you have seen this before, and it has been the downfall of many researchers who have resorted to fudging data in order to be right about their theories. As you pointed out, anyone can find a link that supports their view and ignore all other evidence that does not. I appreciate your open-mindedness and applaud your taking the time to actually “do the math” instead of just making bold claims with no evidence to support it and stating that “it’s in the literature” with no actual reference or knowledge of fact. One learns much more by being open to other opinions and looking at a problem from all angles, being able to admit when they are wrong or have made a mistake, and not shouting down anyone who might disagree or resorting to petty personal attacks. 

Intelligence is much more apparent when one argues and critically examines the facts instead of assuming that they know all and trying to bully others into accepting their interpretations as fact.


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## Solomon Parker

So what's the conclusion? 

It seems to me that y'all are arguing over things that don't matter. I've been keeping bees on commercially available small cell foundation for nine years and on wax coated plastic frames for two. I've done this all without chemicals or other treatments including manipulations, drone comb freezing, frequent requeening, brood breaks, screened bottom boards, or any other. It is either the case that levels of pesticides (including those put in hives by beekeepers and transferred to me through commercially available wax) are so low that they are either not affecting my bees or that my bees have adapted to the correspondingly low levels contamination. In either case, I am satisfied with my results.

It seems to me that these problems are similar to the situation of the lead I have still in my body from childhood when I scrapped old cars that had lead used as a body filler and the mercury still in my body from every fluorescent bulb or thermometer that I've ever broken or has been broken in my presence. I'm not still putting these harmful chemicals in my body and what's there isn't causing any problems that my heavy metals addled brain can comprehend though I have made it through engineering school and nearly through grad school with no major issues.

I've been arguing for years that the reason when people go treatment-free cold turkey that their bees die is that there is still a high concentration of the chemicals they put in the hive still in the hive and that those chemicals are still causing problems. I still hold to that belief. There is nothing in this thread (and I've followed it closely) that convinces me that what I've believed all along is not still true; that there are [harmful at certain concentrations] chemicals in hives, that chemicals most common in hives are those that beekeepers put there, and that by starting over with new foundationless, foundation, or even plastic frames you can limit the concentration of those chemicals to levels able to be tolerated by bees which given the correct genetic characteristics can survive and even thrive without treatments whatsoever.

I base these points on the aforementioned factors, that what I'm doing is available for all to see and so are the results. The variables, process, and the results agree with my conclusions.


----------



## deknow

I'm happy to assume that sergey's math is correct...but he is still basing everything on an assumption of a complete.layer of wax of a given thickness.....for a.product that I don't believe.he has ever seen.
I know.from.experience that comb is.made.up.of.much less.wax.than it seems.like it should be (try melting a.full foundationless.comb and see how little wax.is.in the puddle at the end, but even knowing this, I don't find it believable tha if there is 40g of wax in the cell walls (measured by sol) , that there is 11g (more than 25% of the total weight of the drawn out cell walls) coated on the frame.
people, this.is.a.very thin spray....a spattering. There is not 11g of wax in the coating, and it really doesn't matterhow many phds you hav e or how muchur math you do....if you base your work on made up numbers, the results.are.made up.
Deknow


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## SantaFeBeek

My conclusion is that much more study has to be done in order to make any real conclusions. 

I think it is premature to make conclusions about whether these chemicals are affecting the bees or whether heavy metal bioaccumulation in your body will have any long term affect. When you develop some horrible disease later in life, which I truly hope that you don't, it may be directly attibutable to heavy metals. CCD has risen in direct correlation to usage of a variety of chemicals in agriculture. To assume that directly putting wax with these chemicals into hives is not affecting bees based on your particular situation is a bit of a reach. It's akin to the 100-year old smoker saying, "Smoking doesn't hurt anyone. I've been smoking for 80-years and look at me." The effects of many of these chemicals is "sub-lethal" and not easily detected by the standard observer.

Has anyone seen any studies regarding transfer coefficients of these chemicals from wax into honey? That would be interesting!

By all means, do what works for you, but there ought to be some consideration by a community for long-term effects to the community (the earth and all that inhabit it) in general of continuing usage of these toxic chemicals. 

My conclusion, as usual, is that we don't know as much as we assume that we do.


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## AJ Boss

SantaFeBeek said:


> Has anyone seen any studies regarding transfer coefficients of these chemicals from wax into honey? That would be interesting!


This is what i want to know?


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## Solomon Parker

deknow said:


> there is 40g of wax in the cell walls (measured by sol)


I should clarify, I did actually measure this yesterday right before I posted it. I measured a brand new empty frame and one that had been recently extracted after being filled with honey. The wax is brand new and white, no cocoons. I have two others being babysat in a hive, maybe this evening, I will weigh those as well to get an average. Hopefully there isn't any honey in them. inch:


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## SantaFeBeek

Deknow, by adamantly stating that "[t]here is not 11 g of wax in the coating" without the actual data, you are doing the same thing you are railing at Sergey about. You are stating your opinion as fact.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with some of your arguments and I agree that these calculations are not accurate without the actual data, but in lieu of actual data, assumptions must be made and I think sergey's line of developing his assumption is on target and is probably within reason. The only way to actually know is to get real data from the manufacturer. Arguing back and forth about something that can't be proved one way or the other is a bit futile until the real data is acquired.


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## Solomon Parker

Does somebody want to test my wax? I'd be happy to scrape this beautiful new comb off and send it somewhere.


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## SantaFeBeek

Solomon Parker said:


> I should clarify, I did actually measure this yesterday right before I posted it. I measured a brand new empty frame and one that had been recently extracted after being filled with honey. The wax is brand new and white, no cocoons. I have two others being babysat in a hive, maybe this evening, I will weigh those as well to get an average. Hopefully there isn't any honey in them. inch:


Just curious if there was any honey residue left after extraction that might have contributed to the weight. Doesn't take much to make a gram or two or more.


----------



## SantaFeBeek

Solomon Parker said:


> Does somebody want to test my wax? I'd be happy to scrape this beautiful new comb off and send it somewhere.


Anybody got a spare $1500 or so???


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## Solomon Parker

The comb had no honey left in it, it had been left out to be scavenged by the bees. The comb is approximately the depth of a brood cell minus the capping. Small cell of course.


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## SantaFeBeek

Solomon Parker said:


> The comb had no honey left in it, it had been left out to be scavenged by the bees. The comb is approximately the depth of a brood cell minus the capping. Small cell of course.


Interesting! Thanks for making the measurement.

My thinking is that the bees would be more efficient with wax than human/mechanical application could be, so I'm not sure that there could be any direct correlation of the mass of drawn comb to the mass of sprayed on wax coating. I think that Sergey's estimate of 0.1 mm is a decent guess.


----------



## Solomon Parker

Even if it were that much, that's still about one sixth the weight of a sheet of foundation which is what I've actually been using. There were only a handful of plastic frames in use before this year. Now there are well more than a hundred.


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## SantaFeBeek

Solomon Parker said:


> Even if it were that much, that's still about one sixth the weight of a sheet of foundation which is what I've actually been using. There were only a handful of plastic frames in use before this year. Now there are well more than a hundred.


There is no doubt that there is less wax on a coated plastic foundation than on pure wax foundation. I agree with you 100% on that.


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## Solomon Parker

What I'm saying is that if the spray on a PF-120 is what y'all are arguing over, you're missing the whole sheet of foundation I've been using this whole time. Surely if this were a problem it would have cropped up by now. I have probably four or five hundred sheets of it in use as we speak.

If the sky is falling, why isn't it even raining here?


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## SantaFeBeek

I'm not arguing about one or the other. I just think that introducing anything more than nothing (whether it is pure wax foundation or coated plastic) that contains possibly toxic chemicals in it into a hive that doesn't necessarily need it is probably not the best thing to do for the bees. It may be better for the humans who are managing the bees, but it is a choice, not a necessity.


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## Solomon Parker

Fair enough, but it's not you that has the loudest voice, it's the other guy.

At what point is perfect the enemy of more than adequate? In this case, we cannot achieve perfect.


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## SantaFeBeek

I agree. There are very few absolutes in this world.


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## Barry

Solomon Parker said:


> In this case, we cannot achieve perfect.


I bet you could. Call the manufacturer and ask for the number.


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## Solomon Parker

Dee Lusby claimed reductions in pesticide using sunlight to photo-degrade the chemicals. What does she sell wax for?


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## WLC

Dean:

I scraped off the 'wax sputter' from a strip along the edges of a plastic foundation sheet (1 side only). It came in at about 0.02 grams. I'd estimate that it's a 20th the area of 1 side of plastic foundation sheet.

So say about 0.4 grams of wax per side or between .5 and 1 gram per sheet of plastic foundation.

So, at 12.4ug mixed pesticide per gram of wax...

You can take it from there.

My point in using ranges is that the research itself has shown that the LD50s for specific pesticides form ranges due to synergistic effects with other contaminants (or even pathogens).

By the way, I have seen LD50s reported in the 1 ng/bee range and below, although the listed LD50 is orders of magnitude higher. That's the issue, the LD50s form a range at different orders of magnitude depending on who is doing the testing.

So, let's say 5 to 10 ug mixed pesticide per sheet of waxed plastic foundation. We can always estimate how many bees live on a frame, right?

Sol:

Now you're thinking outside the box. How does one decontaminate wax?


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## SantaFeBeek

"So, let's say 5 to 10 ug mixed pesticide per sheet of waxed plastic foundation. We can always estimate how many bees live on a frame, right?"

The number that we don't know is the availability of the contaminants in the wax to the bees. We need a study on the bioavailability of these contaminants to the bees. If the contaminants are highly sorbed to the wax, the bees can likely only access a small portion of them. The LD50 range for oral intake would only be comparable if you know that ratio. 

Anyone seen partitioning coefficients for contaminants between wax and air, or wax and honey, wax and pollen, etc??


----------



## Solomon Parker

WLC said:


> ...synergistic effects with other contaminants (or even pathogens)... I have seen LD50s reported in the 1 ng/bee range and below, although the listed LD50 is orders of magnitude higher.


Show actual effects or sit down and be quiet please. Demonstrate how much of any given contaminant or combination of contaminants and pathogens will kill my bees or sit down and be quiet please. 



WLC said:


> That's the issue, the LD50s form a range at different orders of magnitude depending on who is doing the testing.


For the uninitiated, 'order of magnitude' means 'multiple of ten.' For instance, 100 is two orders of magnitude higher than 1. I'm coming to the conclusion based on this math that WLC is anywhere from 10 to 100% wrong at any given time, and the number may be closer to 1000% or even 10,000%.

Hokum meter still in the red.

For a possible correlation between levels in wax and levels in bees and honey etc. this might shed some light.
http://entomology.unl.edu/faculty/ellispubs/Pesticides.pdf


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## SantaFeBeek

"I'm coming to the conclusion based on this math that WLC is anywhere from 10 to 100% wrong at any given time, and the number may be closer to 1000% or even 10,000%."

:lpf:


----------



## WLC

Am I 'Rocking-the-Boat' again Sol?

If you had read through the scientific literature, you would have already had the information in hand.

In short, it's already in the scientific literature, and it's been there for years.

Both the Wu and Mullin paper are good places to start.


----------



## cerezha

deknow said:


> I'm happy to assume that sergey's math is correct...but he is still basing everything on an assumption of a complete.layer of wax of a given thickness.....for a.product that I don't believe.he has ever seen.


 I just take medium size frame with foundation and measure the dimensions of the foundation. Than I assume VERY thin thickness, 0.1 mm. It takes 11 g of wax to cover the whole surface assuming that foundation is flat. In reality, foundation is not flat - it has indention (hexagon pattern), which increases the surface area - it means even more wax per foundation. As for "scraping" or melting wax to measure how much was on the foundation - when you scrape it - you could not remove all wax from hexagon pattern; when you melt it - it stick to the plastic because of surface tension. Probably the best way to measure actual amount is to weight two identical plastic foundation plates, one with and another without wax coating. Alternatively, one could weight the plastic foundation with wax than remove wax by dissolving in hexane (a few changes of hexane) and weight it again. I could do it if somebody sent to me a plate. This assumed that hexane do not dissolve the plastic. Sergey


----------



## WLC

Sergey:

It's definitely sputterred wax on the plastic foundation. So I would drop it down an order of magnitude.


----------



## Solomon Parker

According to the Johnson paper, the level of cuomophos (Checkmite) in the bees is about 40 times lower than that of the wax.

DDT, more than ten times higher in honey than wax.

Fluvalinate (Apistan), 35 times higher in wax than in bees.

Permethrin (Gardstar), 52 times higher in the bee than wax.

Dichlorobenzene (Paramoth) 535 times higher in wax than honey.

I think we could develop some crude partitioning coefficients from these kinds of numbers.


----------



## Rick 1456

First off, I apologize for my comment "when do you guys find time to have fun with beekeeping." or remarks similar. Un called for and un warranted. I go off my meds sometimes
At the risk of just stirring the pot, at what point are the larvae not exposed to the wax during pupation? They spin a silken barrier. How, or does that even enter into this over all equation?


----------



## SantaFeBeek

"I think we could develop some crude partitioning coefficients from these kinds of numbers. "

Thanks for the link to that article, by the way.

I haven't gotten totally through it, but I think that the bees were exposed directly to the miticides, etc, so they wouldn't have specifically gotten their concentrations directly from the wax, so I don't think we could actually derive partitioning coefficients from that, at least not the ones I was referring to, which would allow us to determine how much of the chemical a bee would have access to only from wax foundation or wax coated foundation.


----------



## WLC

Someone probablyalready studied pesticides in royal jelly. I don't know if anyone has ever looked at the contamination level of silk cocoons.


----------



## SantaFeBeek

Makes me wish I was back in grad school studying bees!!


----------



## Rick 1456

Not so much the silk, if I read the post right, but more to the insulation of the silk from the wax, and there by the larvae. (if that makes sense?) (speculation)


----------



## Solomon Parker

SantaFeBeek said:


> I haven't gotten totally through it, but I think that the bees were exposed directly to the miticides, etc, so they wouldn't have specifically gotten their concentrations directly from the wax, so I don't think we could actually derive partitioning coefficients from that, at least not the ones I was referring to, which would allow us to determine how much of the chemical a bee would have access to only from wax foundation or wax coated foundation.


Good point, that would assume something more like a treated hive which for the most part, foundationless hives would not be, mine either. A worst case scenario if you will.


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## Solomon Parker

I wish I could _be _in grad school studying bees, but no, gotta study something that will make money.


----------



## Rick 1456

SantaFeBeek said:


> Makes me wish I was back in grad school studying bees!!


I would bet,,,,,,,,,you would not get the education/experience/ and real time info you are getting here aaahhhh But it would be nice to be back in college. If I had hair, it would be long, I can play the guitar better now. (those guys got the chicks) Huummm would I have to do drugs,,,,Naaahh just have a 4g phone


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## Solomon Parker

4g phone way better than drugs. Not that I have any first hand knowledge.


----------



## WLC

Bees bring contaminants into the hive all the time.

It could easily go from nectar or pollen into the wax, etc. .

Fellas, it's not a one way street.


----------



## SantaFeBeek

WLC said:


> Bees bring contaminants into the hive all the time.
> 
> It could easily go from nectar or pollen into the wax, etc. .
> 
> Fellas, it's not a one way street.


No one denied that, but what we are discussing is how much contamination bees are exposed to from wax, not how much contamination wax is exposed to from bees.


----------



## WLC

So, where's the estimates?


----------



## Solomon Parker

WLC said:


> So, where's the estimates?


That's usually your specialty.


----------



## SantaFeBeek

I assumed you would have already determined that "from the literature".


----------



## WLC

How about a demo of your grad school smarts?

Pick a pesticide, and estimate (based on the Johnson study) how much would partition into royal jelly from contaminated wax (using the Wu or Mullin study as a source for pesticide data).

Then, give an analysis of the effects on brood, etc., based on that.


----------



## SantaFeBeek

WLC said:


> How about a demo of your grad school smarts?
> 
> Pick a pesticide, and estimate (based on the Johnson study) how much would partition into royal jelly from contaminated wax (using the Wu or Mullin study as a source for pesticide data).
> 
> Then, give an analysis of the effects on brood, etc., based on that.


Not enough info. You're the one who claims to know everything around here, so you go for it. I have a job.


----------



## Rick 1456

SantaFeBeek said:


> No one denied that, but what we are discussing is how much contamination bees are exposed to from wax, not how much contamination wax is exposed to from bees.


Is that symantics???


----------



## WLC

SF:

You're still in grad school? I meant Sol. There's enough information in each of the studies to do an estimate for the fractions in wax and honey (no royal jelly, but it will do).


----------



## Solomon Parker

Semantics are how humans communicate. To criticize their use is unwise.


----------



## Solomon Parker

WLC said:


> I meant Sol.


I'm not going to be your bicycle riding bear. Do it yourself.


----------



## WLC

I bet you take good notes. 

Application of knowledge is the key.


----------



## AJ Boss

Solomon Parker said:


> I wish I could _be _in grad school studying bees, but no, gotta study something that will make money.


Bees won't make money??? was that a joke? I thought the demand was wayyyyy pass the supply?????

I know that my country is only producing 8% of the demand here!

sorry to go a bit of topic! but would hate to think I just jumped into somthing that's not going to turn a profit, though i am enjoying it none the less.


----------



## sqkcrk

SantaFeBeek said:


> Has anyone seen any studies regarding transfer coefficients of these chemicals from wax into honey? That would be interesting!
> 
> My conclusion, as usual, is that we don't know as much as we assume that we do.


Such studies have been done. Dr. Maryanne Frazier of Penn State is probably a good person to search for such studies. What I recall from talks at Bee Meetings is that the Pesticides are found in higher concentrations in beeswax than they are in honey, since most pesticides are oil based. Which doesn't mean they don't show up in Honey, just in lower trace amounts.

I don't know as much as I think I do and no where near as much as I wish I did. Not that I am going to work very hard to remedy the deficite.


----------



## Solomon Parker

I believe  means joke.


----------



## Rick 1456

I think everyone needs to go and indulge in their fav adult beverage, copiously, and lick their wounds JMHO
Must be the summer solstice,


----------



## WLC

Then try getting an egg to stand on end.


----------



## sqkcrk

WLC said:


> So, let's say 5 to 10 ug mixed pesticide per sheet of waxed plastic foundation. We can always estimate how many bees live on a frame, right?


Well, no, I don't think we can estimate how many bees live on a frame. What would be the point. It's the larvae and pupae which are effected by the chemical residue found nin the comb. These chemicals are numerous, not simply one on it's own, but a mixture. That mixture is what Maryanne Frazier feels is most detrimental to the bee's development, because of the unknown interaction of the different chemicals.


----------



## Rick 1456

WLC said:


> Then try getting an egg to stand on end.


A Popeye laugh is heard  aaakkkakakakakka,, something like that


----------



## sqkcrk

WLC said:


> Bees bring contaminants into the hive all the time.
> 
> It could easily go from nectar or pollen into the wax, etc. .
> 
> Fellas, it's not a one way street.


More like a tree or a web I would say. By what means are bees bringing in the chemical residues which come from pesticides not put in beehives by beekeepers? Is it in the nectyar? Is it in the pollen? Does it get on the bees body while foraging and gets transfered to the wax? Does contaminated nectar get made into wax, which is made into comb? All of the above?


----------



## sqkcrk

WLC said:


> Then try getting an egg to stand on end.


Queens do it all the time.


----------



## deknow

I agree that metirc is best for doing the math (especially the way I do math). But 0.1mm is about 0.004" (which is a number I understand)...quite thick.

This is a bit OT, but....It has been suggested to me (and based on my experience in manufacturing I tend to believe it) that there is one area in which metric falls short of the english system...and that is in machining/manufacturing. Because of the physical properties and the processes of manufacture (turning, milling), it turns out that 0.001" is a very useful increment. With decently made machine tools, 0.001" tolerance is easily achievable...with excellent tools, 0.0005" is not a problem. Most machined fittings work happily with 0.001" tolerance (some applications require honing or grinding which are capable of tighter tolerances).

Not so much with metric. 0.1mm is about .004" (when I used to make handmade piccolos for a living, we used #71 and #73 drills for different operations...these are 0.026" and 0.23" in diameter...with some experience I could tell just by looking which one it was). ...but 0.01mm is 0.0004" ...a hard increment to machine accurately without the best of tooling. .1mm is too big to be a useful base measurement, and .01mm is too small. Yes, this is OT, but I can't let an opportunity go by without sticking it to the metric system 

deknow


----------



## deknow

sqkcrk said:


> Queens do it all the time.


Yeah...but try asking her to make it stand on end for 3 days and see what happens!

deknow


----------



## BayHighlandBees

cerezha said:


> *exactly* this is what says in link you provided:
> Environmental impact
> Main article: *Imidacloprid effects on bees *...
> ...Neonicotinoid use has been strictly limited in France since the 1990s...
> In 2008 Germany revoked the registration of clothianidin for use on seed corn after an incident that resulted in the death of hundreds of nearby honey bees....


The German incident was well documented to be caused by improper application / handling of the pesticide causing it to go airborne as dust and it was literally blown into the hives. 

That said that incident was an anomolly and much different than the standard contact bees will have with the chemical and how it accumulates in the comb (which is the topic of this thread).


----------



## Barry

WLC said:


> How about a demo of your grad school smarts?


Knock off the snide remarks.


----------



## BayHighlandBees

WLC said:


> Now if someone could find a viable way to decontaminate beeswax, then the debate would be over (and maybe small cell would have better chance).


Actually since we're on the topic of neonics I realized after my post yesterday that there is an easy way to remove / reduce it from the wax in your comb. The half life of most neonics can be up to three years when its not exposed to sunlight (since it has to hydrolyze to breakdown). However, when exposed to sun light, it photodegrades significantly (15 days in soil) and photodegrades extremely fast in water exposed to light (half life of only 4 hours)! 

Based on that it would seem to me that the best way to reduce/remove the toxin from the wax is to regularly cycle out your comb using a solar wax melter to melt the wax (since it will rapidly photodegrade the neonic chemicals). The wax reintroduced to the hive would have significantly less neonic in it.

For those who are worried about the chemicals in the plastic wax coating, you could leave your new frames in a sunny window a week or two before putting it in your hive for the same effect.

here's the link (provided by the california dept of pesticide regulation)
http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/risk/rcd/imidacloprid.pdf


----------



## WLC

Good thinking BHB.

There was a wax proccessing outfit that claimed non chemical decontamination of beeswax a few years ago.

I haven't been able to determine if they're still around however.

Does anyone know if such an operation still exists?

Barry,

The 'grad school smarts' remark isn't snide.

I was looking for the 'roll eyes' smiley but couldn't find it.


----------



## sqkcrk

BayHighlandBees said:


> Based on that it would seem to me that the best way to reduce/remove the toxin from the wax is to regularly cycle out your comb using a solar wax melter to melt the wax (since it will rapidly photodegrade the neonic chemicals). The wax reintroduced to the hive would have significantly less neonic in it.
> 
> you could leave your new frames in a sunny window a week or two before putting it in your hive for the same effect.


So, one would need to solar melt combs and then make their own foundation? 

You aren't really serious about that last statement, are you? Brainstorming maybe? I do that all the time, hoping some wild idea will find merit.


----------



## sqkcrk

WLC said:


> There was a wax proccessing outfit that claimed non chemical decontamination of beeswax a few years ago.
> 
> Does anyone know if such an operation still exists?


I don't know if they are, but imagine the cost/benefit analysis. What would it cost and who would be able to afford the expensive wax after the decontamination? Being the variety of chemicals showing up in wax, wouldn't one have troubles removing all of them w/out degrading the wax into some other thing other than wax? Whatever that would be.


----------



## SantaFeBeek

"There's enough information in each of the studies to do an estimate for the fractions in wax and honey (no royal jelly, but it will do)."

No way to determine any type of transfer coefficient from wax to any other substance or to bees from these studies. If you think there is, then prove it. Otherwise, hokum!


----------



## deknow

One of the most surprising things to come out of the Penn state.work is the pollen.
They started trapping pollen because they thought they might find.neonocs (they tended not to find them except in extreme conditions)....instead they found high levels.of fluvalinate and.coumaphos in the trapped.pollen ...pollen that had never seen the inside of.a.hive. presumably this has to do.with the wetting of the pollen during collection.

Deknow


----------



## Solomon Parker

BayHighlandBees said:


> Based on that it would seem to me that the best way to reduce/remove the toxin from the wax is to regularly cycle out your comb using a solar wax melter to melt the wax


That's exactly what I've been doing for years. But I just sell it. Anybody want to buy? I'm sure I can sufficiently jack up the price. I've been on the soap and candle market, but selling to nervous beekeepers could be far more lucrative.


----------



## Rick 1456

OMG,
Burning and washing! Another thread maybe


----------



## WLC

sqkcrk:

If I remember correctly, they never got to the 99% contaminant free mark. Just wondering if the outfit 'survived' the beeswax market.

SFB:

The max concentration data might be enough to determine fractions in wax and honey. It won't be a proper coefficient without plotting the full distribution for each fraction over time however.

Sol:

Buy a small cell foundation mill. You'll clean up.


----------



## SantaFeBeek

"The max concentration data might be enough to determine fractions in wax and honey. It won't be a proper coefficient without plotting the full distribution for each fraction over time however."

Not looking for fractions in wax and honey...that is simple. Those were treated colonies...no way to attibute concentrations in honey directly from wax vs. from direct treatment.


----------



## BayHighlandBees

sqkcrk said:


> So, one would need to solar melt combs and then make their own foundation?
> 
> You aren't really serious about that last statement, are you? Brainstorming maybe? I do that all the time, hoping some wild idea will find merit.


I'm suggesting putting your frames on a rotation (perhaps a 3 - 4 years) after which you melt the wax in a solar melter and give it back to the bees to use. Doesn't seem that far fetched or different than what a lot of beekeepers already do.


----------



## Solomon Parker

If I had gone with a foundation mill at the beginning, that's what I'd be doing. Now that I've gone with plastic I doubt I'll ever get one unless it's pretty near free.


----------



## sqkcrk

deknow said:


> One of the most surprising things to come out of the Penn state.work is the pollen.
> They started trapping pollen because they thought they might find.neonocs (they tended not to find them except in extreme conditions)....instead they found high levels.of fluvalinate and.coumaphos in the trapped.pollen ...pollen that had never seen the inside of.a.hive. presumably this has to do.with the wetting of the pollen during collection.
> 
> Deknow


How soon after getting the bees did they trap pollen? Maryanne Frazier did speculate that some of the contamination of wax originated from the use of miticides in the hives which produced the package bees.


----------



## sqkcrk

BayHighlandBees said:


> after which you melt the wax in a solar melter and give it back to the bees to use. Doesn't seem that far fetched or different than what a lot of beekeepers already do.


How would you do that? In what form? Are you saying that a lot of beekeepers give their bees wax to build comb with?


----------



## SantaFeBeek

sqkcrk said:


> How would you do that? In what form? Are you saying that a lot of beekeepers give their bees wax to build comb with?


I think they were previously talking about creating their own foundation with a mill after the solar melter, not just putting the melted wax in the hive.


----------



## delber

WOW!!! After taking about 3 or 4 working days worth of breaks I'm finally through this thread. I must say first off that I haven't read or even looked at the research papers. I honestly don't have the mind for it. I have a hard time following all of the charts that I have looked at in the past so I don't waste my time or frustration trying. I am however using foundationless frames. Why? When I started my wife wanted a "coupon". Well not needing wax foundation was a coupon, but before that I researched and found that there was chemicals in wax and the other issues with bees of the same size. Looking at trachial mites a larger bee would be suspect, however a smaller bee wouldn't. I thought this was interesting. I put God in the equation. If he designed it a certain way then I want to run with that. So I figure that foundationless is the most "natural" way that I could come up with. I haven't done any treatments other than brood breaks, and powdered sugar last year and my few hives are doing well. I like going to my hives and watching one big bee come in and land on a bee that's about 1/3 of the size that is her sister. I find that very cool. If one size takes 1/2 of a day or more longer in the cell that gives varroa that much more time IMO. What's up with the foundationless hype? That's what IMO. It's cheaper, cleaner, and more natural. Is it the best? Well that's what has been discussed at GREAT length by many of you that are much better equipped than I. It seems to be best for ME, but I can't speak for you or anyone else. Commercial is a whole other ball of wax.


----------



## Paul McCarty

Very well said Delber. It works for me too. May be a little messy at times and take more effort, but I also don't run 6000 hives like a factory.


----------



## cerezha

BayHighlandBees said:


> For those who are worried about the chemicals in the plastic wax coating, you could leave your new frames in a sunny window a week or two before putting it in your hive for the same effect.


 It is an interesting idea. Couple of things:
You were talked about *"hydrolysis"*. Well, it requires water and some energy to break the chemical bond (refer to organic chemistry course). Water is water, energy usually comes from UV light - it splits H2O and creates aggressive species which attacked the chemical bond and eventually breaks it. So, you need water and UV *at* the chemical you want to break. Wax is not a water at all! It actually, prevents water from entering (it is called _hydrophobic_). Similarly, wax works as a shield for UV light. 

The bottom line is that this approach may work on VERY thin films of wax at the surface (water from the air and some UV). I would imagine that plastic foundation with VERY thin film of wax (0.2-0.5 g per frame or less) may benefit from the direct sunlight. Not on the "window" - regular glass removes *ALL* UV - bake frame 10 days on direct sun on one side and than - another 10 days on another side. It would probably decompose 10-20% of bad chemicals (potentially creating new bad species). It would also breaks weaker bonds in your plastic - you sort of will artificially age your frame.

Solar melter probably would not work for the reasons explained above - no water inside the body of wax and possible no UV if ordinary glass used. Remember that you need both - water and UV in the same place at the same time and chemical needs to be here as well.


Good luck with backing frames, looks like a new business is coming - naturally treated foundations! 

*Note - all above would not work for frames with drawn comb for numerous reasons!*
Sergey


----------



## BayHighlandBees

neonic chemicals degrade in two ways hydrolysis (takes up to 3 years per half life) and also via photolysis (half live of 4 hours to a handful of weeks). I was advocating for beeks to harness the power of the sun (not the water) to reduce the concentration of neonics in their hive wax or in the wax coating new plastic frames. My point here is that it's within the grasp of most or all hive keepers to do this themselves if they feel they are concerned about the levels of neonic pesticides in their hive.

When we are talking about new frames, the coating is very tiny so I wouldn't see it being an penatration issue for sunlight. With the solar melter as long as you melt all the wax, I don't see UV penatration being an issue here either.

If you are wanting to photodegrade chemicals, you are correct. I wouldn't recommend using a low-e glass. I've got plenty of evidence in my house that regular glass emits UV rays (faded curtains, furnature, etc). Plastic does work beter than glass in transmitting the full spectrum of UV light. Again, it's nothing that prevents beeks from taking steps on their own here.

http://www.efficientwindows.org/fading.cfm - link on UV transmission of glass




cerezha said:


> It is an interesting idea. Couple of things:
> You were talked about *"hydrolysis"*.
> 
> Solar melter probably would not work for the reasons explained above - no water inside the body of wax and possible no UV if ordinary glass used. Remember that you need both - water and UV in the same place at the same time and chemical needs to be here as well.


----------



## Solomon Parker

Aha, but if you leave plastic frames in the sun, they may warp. [Hornet's nest kicking smilie]


----------



## BayHighlandBees

Solomon Parker said:


> Aha, but if you leave plastic frames in the sun, they may warp. [Hornet's nest kicking smilie]


yea, that would rule out leaving them under the car dash


----------



## Solomon Parker

I'm serious. I never leave them out where the sun can get to them. They do warp. That's one of the complaints against the PF series frames specifically. I've seen it said over time that as many as 10% become near unusable. Personally, I've not owned them long enough to see such a large proportion have problems, but I have begun to see warping.


----------



## cerezha

BayHighlandBees said:


> neonic chemicals degrade in two ways hydrolysis (takes up to 3 years per half life) and also via photolysis (half live of 4 hours to a handful of weeks).


 Photolysis in many cases creates active oxygen species from water and then these species will attack the chemical. But, anyway, all these reactions would require wavelength of 280 nm or less. 300 nm and above does not participate much in such type of chemical reactions since it is too long for chemical bond, photon just pass it. "Fading colors" in the house (from your link) is a different story since "color" itself adsorbs the light. Red color - adsorbs everything but red; blue - everything but blue and so on. Adsorption of light will deteriorate the color. These colors are in the visual part of the spectrum and would deteriorate even from visual light filtered through normal window glass. near-UV even in small amounts would accelerate this process. Chemistry of pigments are entirely different story - it normally involves the oxygen from the air - most materials lost/change color if oxidized. This reaction is less possible in wax. 
As for plastic foundation - plastic itself will deteriorate as well as bad chemicals in the wax coat. First, plastificators will be attacked - they will deteriorate mostly by UV and once wax coat broken, by oxygen in the air. It will make plastic brittle. You could not promote one chemical reaction and stop by power of your will another. Good luck with backing frames and cooked wax. I like the idea of sun-treated foundation - nice business solution! It sounds very innocent. Sergey


----------



## BayHighlandBees

Sergey, 
so instead of keeping the window closed, use an open window. I'm sure the thin layer of wax will be cleansed of neonic pesticide well before the integrity of the frame is compromised (the frame is much thicker and has way much more mass than the wax coating).
If you are not satisfied with that, then place the frames under a black light inside your house.
There's a number of ways that this could feasibly be handled.

Seems like you are fine with the solution of using a solar wax melter on the hive wax harvested from the frames (so long as the melter uses a plexiglass top). Thats the main solution here. I really don't believe that pesticides found on the plastic foundation thin wax coating is really going to cause any consequences with hive health whatsoever. I was throwing that solution out to help satisfy the concerns of the 'tin foil' crowd.


----------



## rweakley

Or and I know this is just crazy talk, you could just go foundationless and not have to worry about it. Besides I think the wax would melt and drain down to the bottom if left in direct sunlight on a hot enough day.


----------



## cerezha

BayHighlandBees said:


> Sergey,
> so instead of keeping the window closed, use an open window.


 I am foundationless.



BayHighlandBees said:


> Seems like you are fine with the solution of using a solar wax melter on the hive wax harvested from the frames (so long as the melter uses a plexiglass top).


 Not true. Read my post carefully - I stated that UV will penetrate only short distance in the wax, so even Plexiglas will not help if you have a massive thickness of the wax, more than 1 mm, I guess. Also - no water, no chemical reaction(s) you proposed. The best solution would be to dip somebody into solarly melted wax bath, put in direct sunlight for 10 days, periodically lightly spray with water. After 10 days change the sides. At the end collect very naturally treated wax and sell it as an "essence of ..._name here_..." - I am sure, it would be much more profitable business that what you have now.
Another option comes to mind - chocolate fountain (fondue) - instead chocolate, use recycled wax with chemicals; place fountain in direct sunlight and run for 10 days. Collect treated wax. 

I personally think - fountain is the best. If decided to try - keep us posted. Sergey


----------



## BayHighlandBees

Sergey,
if the wax melts down to nothing, why is thickness a problem? I'm not sure why you are resistent to neonics photodegrading in wax when there have been studies that prove it photodegrades in plant waxes.

http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:18690690


----------



## sqkcrk

Photodegrade doesn't mean change into something better or inert. The indesired chemicals could degrade into something just as bad or worse, right?


----------



## BayHighlandBees

I can't talk to whether or not the intermediate neonic degraded chemicals would be safe, but they'd be smaller. I believe it takes a small chain of chemical breakdowns before you reach the end result of CO2.


----------



## Barry

I've enjoyed WLC's (almost put your name here!) negative comments on the PF120's so much that I went and ordered some. Too late to get them in the hive this year (unless I get another swarm call), but I must say, they're a fine looking product and I can see why people have such good success with them. It looks like the cell walls are 3/32" high. One reason my bees don't draw out my 4.9 wax very well is the lack of any cell wall. Since I'm not a big fan of plastic, I plan to cut the foundation out from the frame and install it into wooden frames.

BTW, I took a good whiff of the wax and I didn't smell any contaminates, just the faint smell of plastic.


----------



## SantaFeBeek

Barry said:


> BTW, I took a good whiff of the wax and I didn't smell any contaminates, just the faint smell of plastic.


I love the smell of off-gassing plastic in the morning!


----------



## cerezha

sqkcrk said:


> Photodegrade doesn't mean change into something better or inert. The indesired chemicals could degrade into something just as bad or worse, right?


"Raw imidacloprid samples presented significant acute toxicity to Daphnia magna and genotoxic effects on Bacillus subtilis sp. Such toxic effects remained detectable even after significant pesticide removal had been achieved, due to the presence of toxic by-products". J Hazard Mater. 2008 Feb 11;150(3):679-86. 
Imidacloprid oxidation by photo-Fenton reaction.
Segura C, Zaror C, Mansilla HD, Mondaca MA.


----------



## cerezha

Barry said:


> ... PF120's ...I went and ordered some. Too late to get them in the hive this year


 Now you have time to put them on open window under direct sunlight as BayHighlandBees suggested! I hope, as a moderator and owner, you enjoyed this very informative thread. Many thanks for not closing/relocating this thread and be patient with us. Sergey


----------



## BayHighlandBees

Daphnia? Aren't those microscopic bacteria? That isn't exactly apples to apples with bees


----------



## julysun

Simple, "Foundationless Hype" is a type of Hype that is Foundationless. :scratch:


----------



## cerezha

BayHighlandBees said:


> In California, even Starbucks has to post a sign in their store about the (unproven) cancerous effect of roasting coffee.





BayHighlandBees said:


> That said that incident was an *anomolly *





BayHighlandBees said:


> Sergey,
> so instead of keeping the window closed, use an open window.





BayHighlandBees said:


> Daphnia? Aren't those microscopic bacteria? That isn't exactly apples to apples with bees


In Internet slang, a *troll* is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)


----------



## Solomon Parker

Don't think so Sergey. The daphnia point is valid, except for the part about them being bacteria.

You can't compare bees, insects who live in the open air, to daphnia, near microscopic crustaceans which live submersed in water.

If you're not using the term correctly, it's name-calling and it's not okay.


----------



## BayHighlandBees

I'm familiar with the definition of a troll. Why is it that you think that I am one? I'm only replying to your posts. How is that extraneous? From your citing I am getting the idea that you don't think the german incident was an anomaly. If it was caused by a non-standard application what would you call it? 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid

"In 2008 Germany revoked the registration of clothianidin for use on seed corn after an incident that resulted in the death of hundreds of nearby honey bees.[19] Investigation of the incident revealed that it was caused by a combination of factors, among which were the failure to use a polymer seed coating known as a "sticker"; weather conditions that resulted in late planting when nearby canola crops were in bloom; a particular type of air-driven equipment used to sow the seeds which apparently blew clothianidin-laden dust off the seeds and into the air as the seeds were ejected from the machine into the ground; dry and windy conditions at the time of planting that blew the dust into the nearby canola fields where honey bees were foraging."





cerezha said:


> In Internet slang, a *troll* is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)


----------



## WLC

"I've enjoyed WLC's (almost put your name here!) negative comments on the PF120's so much that I went and ordered some."

I also enjoy giving the small cell crowd the occassional 'goose'. 

I've mixed PF 120s into my foundationless hives to examine how it influences comb cell size.

While perfection is impossible, is it wrong to demand excellence from small cell gurus?

I think not.

The bees are doing fine.

The problem remains one of a contaminated beeswax supply.

That's still the 'hype'.


----------



## sqkcrk

BayHighlandBees said:


> I'm familiar with the definition of a troll. Why is it that you think that I am one?


A troll is in the eye of the betroller.


----------



## max2

"The problem remains one of a contaminated beeswax supply."

You may need to import wax from Australia. Very few chemicals are permitted here in Beekeping. We have no Varroa ( so far!) and thus the need to use chemicals is much reduced.

I don't produce a lot of wax and have all of it processed into foundations but there is wax for sale from time to time. I know that we can export honey ( and bees!) to the US but I'm not sure about wax.


----------



## bbrowncods

cerezha said:


> OK, I am too lazy to go to Internet and find a "proper" reference - everybody could easily do it by yourself. But I want to tell a small story, which may be an interest for this respectful meeting. Pesticides... there is a scientific expression - "a half life" (in the same line as LD50) - "half life" used to determine for how long chemical need to deteriorate that only half left? It is used for instance for radioactive contamination - how many decades to wait until half radioactivity left in Hiroshima? The same - for pesticides, after how many years it will be half from original amount. *DTT* was widely used in 60ex. If you old enough - you may remember the dust DTT sprayed from small aircraft over your backyard. So, for DTT, half life is 50 years (believe me or do your own reseach). It means that 50 years later, in year 2010 (approximately) there is still 50% of original amount DTT present and active. In year 2060 we shall have 25% of original amount of DTT contaminating our environment. In the year 2110 we shall have 12.5% of DTT from original amount. It is just simply science. WLC gave you VERY optimistic prognosis that pesticides from wax gone withing 50 years!


I am sorry. I just had to jump in here. This statement is so frought with error that I don't even know where to start. To compare the half-life (t1/2) of an isotope with the Median Lethal Dose (LD50) of a pesticide, and then submit that the two are in any way even remotely the same, is just wrong.

Do you even know what LD50 means? Based on what you wrote you have no clue. Pesticides do have a t1/2 but it has nothing to do with LD50.

DDT is very highly persistent in the environment, with a reported half life of between 2-15 years.
The reported half-life for DDT in the water environment is 56 days in lake water and approximately 28 days in river water.
http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/carbaryl-dicrotophos/ddt-ext.html

Neither are anywhere close to 50 years!


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## Daniel Y

Half life is the length of time it will require for half of the original amount to decay. So per the example above I will stay with 50 years. 50 years for the first half of a ton of some material to decay. But this is where the simple science does not fit. in fact that very term "simple Science" is a red flag for me. The decay rate of the first half says nothing about the decay rate of the second half.
Full decay is not often if ever half life times 2. 

Compost for example. I take a ton of leaves and other organic material and put it in a pile. it begins to decay from the center. It takes a month for the first half to compost for a half life of 30 days. since the outer half stays drier cooler and is less hospitable to the organisms that cause decay. it is a year before the second half of the pile decays. The pile still had a half life of 30 days even though it took a year for it to decay.

In another example, the evaporation of water. I take two cups of water. one is poured on a flat surface such as the top of a table. the other is poured into a narrow tall cylinder. 4 oz of water on the table will evaporate in 1 hour for a half life of 1 hour. half of the water in the cylinder will evaporate in 5 days for a half life of 5 days.

Obviously there is much more to half life than simplicity.


I believe it would be far more important to understand at what point the chemicals used in a have become inert. IN most cases I see evidence this happens within days.

For the purpose if this discussion I will add this.

In chemistry, the term inert is used to describe a substance that is not chemically reactive.

Society today seems to want to assume that any chemical remains a chemical forever. That is like saying any clothing that gets wet is wet forever.


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## jim lyon

Half life, of course, refers to half of the remainder. A half life of 50 would go 50-25-12.5 etc. though never actually reaching zero (at least in theory) it eventually becomes undetectable.


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## cerezha

bbrowncods said:


> ...Neither are anywhere close to 50 years!


 Well, different sources suggested DDT half-life from 2 to 150 years! American sources have a tendency to be more "liberal" to US citizens - usually, "american" numbers are smaller - 2-15 years. If you look for European sources, the numbers usually 10 times higher. As I stated in my original post, I did not do really serious search for more accurate data on DDT since the point of the topic was the ability of pesticides to accumulate in the beeswax and thus present danger to the bees. 

"As animals on the lower end of the food chain are eaten by those higher up, DDT becomes more and more concentrated the higher you go. This continues until the primary predator is reached, who will then receive the highest dose. DDT is highly persistent in the soil and can last from 2 - 15 years, not too bad some people might say, but when you look at the half-life in an aquatic environment, this *can be about 150 years*, one half-life being that time to degrade by 50%. DDT is highly acutely toxic to fish affecting membrane funtion and enzyme systems. Atlantic salmon fry were found to be affected at concentrations of 50 - 100 µg/L, suffering from balance problems and impaired behavioural development. At the same time aquatic invertabrates and amphibians are also affected allbeit to a very slighter extent." http://www.the-piedpiper.co.uk/th13(l).htm

Please, note that I used example with DDT just for illustration purpose to illustrate the dynamic of pesticide accumulation in the environment. Sergey


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