# foundationless management



## Timbo61 (May 19, 2004)

I have been introducing foundationless frames this year. Going well but won't be complete for a year or two yet.

AIUI one of the advantages of foundation is that you get uniform comb right through the brood chamber. The frames are then interchangeable and there isn't really any need to keep them in order. Without foundation the structure of the brood nest is much more apparent, and presumably messing with that structure needs a little more care. How do you go about spreading the brood, replacing frames etc.? Should I aim to get frames as far as possible worker brood and cull or cut out too much drone and honey comb? Should I aim to insert new frames into the centre of the nest and then leave it alone? What do you think?

Timbo


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I have been introducing foundationless frames this year. Going well but won't be complete for a year or two yet.

Cool.

>AIUI one of the advantages of foundation is that you get uniform comb right through the brood chamber.

If that IS an advantage. Yes.

>The frames are then interchangeable and there isn't really any need to keep them in order.

That is definitely an advantage.

>Without foundation the structure of the brood nest is much more apparent, and presumably messing with that structure needs a little more care.

I would agree.

>How do you go about spreading the brood, replacing frames etc.? Should I aim to get frames as far as possible worker brood and cull or cut out too much drone and honey comb?

I just try to get the drone brood on the EDGES of the brood nest. Sometimes they seem to build a whole frame of just drone in the middle. I don't mind too much but the queen seems to lay it full quite often. I don't try to cull it. They will make as many drones as they feel they need regardless, but I feel it's partly my fault they build whole combs like this because I keep inserting empty combs in the brood nest and if they feel they want some drones that's a place they can draw some. A more natural brood nest tends to have them more on the edges, USUALLY.

>Should I aim to insert new frames into the centre of the nest and then leave it alone? What do you think?

I try to end up with 4.9mm or smaller cells in the center of the brood nest with sizes going up on the outer edges. Mostly because this is what they tend to build. I end up inserting empty combs to free up a honey bound brood nest, to get straight comb, because it's between two nice straight brood combs, and to get smaler cells because it's in the center of the brood nest. So I feel I should try to reestablish what the bees seem to naturally do, which is smallest in the center and growing larger as you expand out from there, with drones on the edges.

The more I have had natural comb and watched the bees the more I think the diversity of size seems to help the overall health of the hive. An study recently showed that having genetic diversity in a hive adds to the health of the hive because of workers from different gene pools starting and stopping ventilation at different times. I wonder what all a diversity of size adds to the hive? Besides that perhaps a small bee is better for some things and a large bee is better for other things, it seems obvious that a small bee might be better at gathering one nectar source and a large bee might be better at a different one.

You will notice a variety of cell sizes and of bee sizes in a natural comb hive.


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Timbo and Mike,

I'm running one my top bar hives about the same way this year. Drone comb gets moved toward the rear of the hive and bars get inserted between good straight comb in the broodnest. 

The bees also tend to draw out drone comb, on each broodnest comb nearest the entrance. I have cut out the drone comb part and rotated the top bar so that the empty space is then between two worker sized combs. The bees will complete the comb with worker sized cells. 

In the other top bar hive, I have moved the broodnest toward the back of the hive a few bars every week while rotating drone comb to the rear of the nest and empty bars toward the front.

Both methods work. But it's a slow process. If too many bars are moved or cut too fast, the bees just adjust to the new broodnest configuration. 

I don't have any natural comb experience in a vertical hive but suspect the orientation would be like that of a tbh stood on end with the entrances at the bottom. The few vertical feral hive shots I've seen have the broodnest at the bottom of the cavity, even when the entrance is at the top.

Regards
Dennis 
Regards
Dennis


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