# Micheal B



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>How long have your bees been on natural cell?

I started regressing in 2001. I pretty much finished by the end of 2002.

>How long has it been since you have used any type of treatment?

Some of the hives since 2002 (3 years).

>If you have treated what did you use,

Some of them have been treated with FGMO during the regression (2002) and some have been treated with Oxalic acid during the regression. Some I inherited this year have not been regressed yet but I have not treated them or any of the rest of the hives this year at all.

>When was the last time you lost a colony to v mites or anything you suspected related to the mites,

2001 when I used Apistan because I had just started trying to regress that summer and the mite loads were heavy. The Apistan failed and I lost all my hives that fall.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

BTW the FGMO was only FGMO (no thymol) and only fog (no cords).


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

Thanks of the reply,

It sounds like small cell or natural cell has turn out to be a success in keeping the v mite at bay for you,


I dont know how many hive you have, I only have two but if I am going to go small cell with my bees I would be best doing it next year when I want to make increases from splitting and buying queens from some one,

If small /natural cell is working why isnt very one doing it,

Tony

[ November 28, 2005, 03:16 PM: Message edited by: tony350i ]


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I dont know how many hive you have,

If you count mating nucs (which I usually don't) during the year it topped a hundred or so this year. If you count nucs I'm trying to overwinter, after consolidating the mating nucs, I now have, counting in my head, 32 nucs, 29 hives and 2 observation hives spread over three different yards.

Since about 2002 I try to have somewhere around fifty hives. That's probably what I'd have if I consolidated the nucs into viable hives.

>If small /natural cell is working

And it is for everyone I know of who is using it.

> why isnt (e)very one doing it,

I keep asking that question.


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## Aspera (Aug 1, 2005)

Well, for me the issue isn't whether it works or not. I'm still figuring out how small I want to go, and how much effort is it worth. Right now, I'm doing "natural sized" cells and Pierco foundation, but don't think that this is small enough to affect the mites (but it does have other advantages)


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

hello Aspera

>But don't think that this is small enough to affect the mites,

Do you still have to use treatments to keep the v mites at bay?


Tony


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I think Pierco is small enough to affect the mites, just not small enough to totally keep the problem under control. I haven't measured emergence times on 5.2mm, but from what I've seen the smaller the cell the shorter the time and that's got to make SOME difference if it's even a little shorter. If you slow down their reproduction at all, that's an improvement.


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## Aspera (Aug 1, 2005)

I have SBB open year round and slatted racks that seem to help, along with with known resistant bees. I treated for trach mites and nosema this year and used couphamos 2 years ago. The mites are still there, but cause minimal problems. Just now I'm at a point where I can cull all colonies with high mite loads (usually 25%). I have some apilife var (unopened) and will use it when it seems necessary. My varroa resistant bees don't produce as much honey as I would like, but they seem pretty healthy and I really don't have to do much for them. Next year I'm starting to focus on traits like hygienic behavior and queen color.


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## Aspera (Aug 1, 2005)

Oh yeah, the Pierco is great for me because I can just scrape the honeycomb into a big pot and not have to worry about replacing foundation. The bees rebuild sticky comb a bit better than they do dry Pierco.


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

Michael

I was talking to a bee keeper of 30 years hear In the uk about small / natural cell in the broad box and he said that he has heard of it but thinks the bees will draw out what size they want when they want it ,

Want do you think 


Tony


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I was talking to a bee keeper of 30 years hear In the uk about small / natural cell in the broad box and he said that he has heard of it but thinks the bees will draw out what size they want when they want it

If you let them. The problem is that ONE bee does not draw out comb. A group of bees do. You should watch them do it sometime in an observation hive. The way they do it is each bee takes up where the last bee left off. THOUSANDS of bees may be involved in the construction of just a few cells.

If you give them an outline of cells with walls and bottoms the tendancy is to assume that some other bee started this and this bee just adds on to the work. So if you give bees 5.4mm foundation you'll tend to get mostly 5.4mm cells. If you give them 5.2mm foundation they will tend to build mostly 5.2mm cells. If you give them 4.9mm foundation, they will try to build the 4.9mm but since the "normal" bees (raised in 5.4mm cells) are too big they tend to rework it and build more like 5.1mm. To some degree they will rework foundation, but only if there is a strong need in their instincts to do so. If you give them some 7/11 (5.7mm cells) they will buld some if that size to use for honey storage. But some they may rework it into about 6.0mm and the queen will lay drones in it. If they only have 5.4mm worker comb and no drone comb anywhere, they will rework some of the 5.4mm foundation into drone comb. But if you put an empty frame in you'll discover they really wanted a lot more drone. They will usually draw a whole frame of it. If you put an empty frame in the center of the brood nest of 5.4mm comb you'll find the bees will either draw drone comb (usually the first frame) or smaller worker comb, like 5.1mm or so.

The point is, although they will sometimes rework it to some degree, there is a lot of pressure to simply complete what they percieve as the work in progress, which with foundation, is a particular sized cell.

If you let them, (with foundationless frames or blank starter strips or just empty frames between two brood combs) they will draw what they want. And what they want is not the size that standard foundation is.

If you give them foundation they will draw most of it the size of the foundation.

This is an easy experiment to do. Just feed some empty frames into the middle of the brood nest and measure the results compared with the brood combs from the foundation. If the new combs on the empty frames aren't drone (somewhere around 6.6mm) they will be worker brood and probably somwhere in the 5.2mm to 5.1mm range. Since I've done this on thousands of frames, I'm quite confident of the outcome. You just need to try it and see for yourself.

I'm quite certain your beekeeper of 30 years had not tried it. I kept bees for 26 years and never paid any attention to cell size other than the observation that there were some different sizes and the difference between drone and worker. But I never measured a cell.


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

me again,

If I wired some empty brood frames, would this be a problem for the bees to incorporate the wire into the new wax, 


Tony

[ January 04, 2006, 02:08 PM: Message edited by: tony350i ]


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## PA Pete (Feb 2, 2005)

>If I wired some empty brood frames, would this be a problem for the bees to incorporate the wire into the new wax,

No problem for the bees - they build comb just fine as if the wires weren't even there. I used starter strips on the three pictured below:

Quarter Drawn Frame
Half Drawn Frame
Drawn Frame

-Pete


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

great pics,

Thanks


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

In regard to Pete's photos, a question for
all who use starter strips and/or wax foundation
as opposed to plastic foundation:

Are all the frames drawn completely out to the
edges, or are some/many/most frames left
unconnected along the majority of the bottom bar
and/or side bars well into the harvest season?

I ask because one often finds combs in the brood
nest "chewed out" along the bottom and/or side
edges when the frame was loaded with full sheets
of wax foundation, and if bees provided with
starter strips never completely connect the
comb to the wooden frame at the bottom and sides,
this would tend to support a pet theory of
mine about resonance, dance floors, and why
these "chewed out" combs are "a good thing"
rather than a bad thing.

Anyone else using wax foundation who has noticed
these chew outs? If so, how many frames at a
time (I've rarely seen more than one per hive
at any one time)? And was this frame "mostly
empty", "filled as normal with brood and
nearby brood raising stores", or "filled with
only stores"?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

They do seem to wait until last to connect the bottom. Usually the sides get connected by the time they've reached the bottom. A typical one during a flow looks like this:

http://www.bushfarms.com/images/FoundationlessDrawn.JPG

But when it's not a flow they don't fill it out to the bottom as quickly.

Maybe they chew the bottom out to have a dance ground so they can feel the vibrations. After all, it's dark and they can't see the dancer.


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

> Maybe they chew the bottom out to have a dance 
> ground so they can feel the vibrations.

Exactly. There was a paper where vibrations
where measured with lasers (very sensitive)
and actual bee legs were tested for their
ability to pick up the vibrations. I'll
post the citation when I find the paper.
(Its on one backup DVD out of a few hundred,
and my jukebox only holds 50 at a time.)


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## Dick Allen (Sep 4, 2004)

As I recall Tom Seeley looked into solid plastic foundatiion vs. wax foundation. He did mention vibrations as the reasons bees chew don't attach comb or chew holes. His conclusion was that there was no difference in honey storage, brood rearing, etc. 

(if I'm recalling correctly, that is, it's been a couple of years. But, now come to think of it wasn't there an article from him about that in a recent bee magazine? Seems to be one of those I was planning on reading.)


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

> As I recall Tom Seeley looked into solid plastic 
> foundatiion vs. wax foundation.

Yes, he recently wrote an article on a study
comparing plastic foundation with wax foundation
for Bee Culture, which found no difference in the
number of bees recruited. I saw the photos posted
by PA Pete, which reminded me that we have a
significant number of people still using wax
foundation, starter strips, and such here on
BeeSource, which give us both a larger sample
of hives, and a longer time period.

> His conclusion was that there was no difference 
> in honey storage, brood rearing, etc.

I have no doubt that honey storage and brood
rearing are unaffected by one's choice of
foundation, once the combs are drawn, but
there are some very strong opinions on the
whole issue of "acceptance" and relative rates
of comb drawing. (I'm a big fan of plastic
foundation in honey supers, as "blow outs"
are a thing of the past nowadays, even at
high rpms on the extractors. They used to
be very common back before we had plastic
foundation.)

His most recent study was too short to allow the
bees time to chew out any of the wax foundation
comb, so he was comparing recruitment with combs
where all were "solid wall-to-wall" combs. The
study thereby ignored the prior work that had been
done on the mechanics of vibration generated
during dances, which showed better transmission
of actual vibrations across the surface of "freed"
combs, with edges chewed out.

This kind of thing happens a lot when biology
types go about trying to measure something like
"recruitment" and ignore the basic physics of
the situation.

If one recycle combs on a strict schedule, one
notices that this chewing out is a consistent
thing that happens to even comb that was new
foundation only a season or two ago. This
tells me that the bees really WANT to chew out
the edges of at least one comb per hive, and
the use of 100% plastic will frustrate that
urge. When one then looks at the combs drawn
by colonies that have taken up residence in
non-hive structures, one sees yet more combs
that are not attached on all 4 sides.

That's why I'm asking.


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## Dick Allen (Sep 4, 2004)

>Anyone else using wax foundation who has noticed these chew outs? 

yes

>If so, how many frames at a time (I've rarely seen more than one per hive at any one time)? 

sometimes one or two, sometimes several. never really paid that much attention actually. usually id just mutter something about you %$**# bees when i saw that theyd not attached the comb.

>And was this frame "filled as normal with brood and nearby brood raising stores"

yes


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>> Maybe they chew the bottom out to have a dance 
>> ground so they can feel the vibrations.

>Exactly. There was a paper where vibrations
>where measured with lasers (very sensitive)
>and actual bee legs were tested for their
>ability to pick up the vibrations. 

Wow! Jim, I mentioned dancing and recruitment in the same sentence and you agreed! Not what I was expecting.


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## Dick Allen (Sep 4, 2004)

Michael Bush, was the picture you posted drawn from foundation or was it foundation-less?

Drawn comb on wax foundation in my hives will occasionally look like the picture PAPete posted, i.e., completely chewed away at the bottom except, of course, for the vertical wires.

[ January 05, 2006, 01:41 PM: Message edited by: Dick Allen ]


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Michael Bush, was the picture you posted drawn from foundation or was it foundation-less?

Foundationless. Just a beveled top bar.

>Drawn comb on wax foundation in my hives will occasionally look like the picture PAPete posted, i.e., completely chewed away at the bottom except, of course, for the vertical wires.

Sometimes one of the foundationless ones will be that way too, but not most of them. Usually if they are open at the bottom, it seems like the bottom is open all the way across and one side is lightly attached while the other side is solidly attached. I don't know if that's a pattern or they just aren't done with it yet. But since they chew out the foundation like that, it seems purposeful.


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

It's me again,


When I start putting empty frames in the brood box what ever I put in I would have to take the same amount out,

If the frames that I take out have brood in them I will put them in a second brood box above the (as you say honey excluder







would this be ok or would I have to fill the second brood box with empty drawn frames to fill it out to both sides,

I sugar feed 1:1 as early as I can and in doing this will it make them still draw worker cells or will they draw larger storage comb.

I would like to try and keep the queen in the lower brood boxes as long as I can while I am trying to get mostly s/cell a few weeks before my first honey flow then I let the queen have the second box to lay in. but the comb that will be in the second box wont have much small cell so would I be undoing what I am trying to achieve,

Will the bees be able to regress enough so I dont have to treat at the end off the year?

It would be a shame to contaminate what small cell they have drawn.

I know it sounds like have your cake and eat it but I still would like as much honey as I can steal for them.

This is something like I had planned for this year do you think this would be ok to do, or would you take a different approach and if so have you got the time to explain it










Whenever I ask beekeepers in the UK about small cell they dont have a lot to say about it, but if it does work for me like you and others then maybe I could pass the knowledge on what you and others from bee source have done for me.


Thank you 
Tony
Up and coming s/cell beekeeper

[ January 11, 2006, 04:44 PM: Message edited by: tony350i ]


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## louis1st (Oct 17, 2004)

Hi Tony,
I know you are using Buckfast queens, but the british national hive (that i am using too), is a small hive.
With the very prolific buckfast, you will need at least 2 brood chambers to keep the queen going 

Would you consider icing sugar or maybe also trapping the varroa mites in some drone combs?

not sure if you consider FGMO as a chemical treatment or not, but this could be a possibility for you too.

regarding sugar feeding, i would go slowly in the spring as if you feed them too fast, they will just store the food, without building...

another possibility would be to split your hive, get all the small cells combs in one hive and the rest in another one?...

I do recommend artificial swarming as this gives a long period without brood, and is ideal to treat!


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

Hi louis1st,

I lost my buckfast x cecropia when I went to see if she had started to lay, she flew up up and away, I think she flew back to Greece,

I had to combine with my parent hive, all wasnt lost coz I brought a nuc that is a sister queen to may parent hive so I will still have two hives for my spring flow.

I have ordered two more buckfast x cecropia queens for when I make up two small nucs, my main aim is to try and get my bees on to s/cell this year with a bit of honey for myself.

Are you on small cell louis1st


Tony


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>When I start putting empty frames in the brood box what ever I put in I would have to take the same amount out

Yes.

>If the frames that I take out have brood in them I will put them in a second brood box above the (as you say honey excluder would this be ok or would I have to fill the second brood box with empty drawn frames to fill it out to both sides

In my experience, you may put them anywhere adjacent to (including above or below) the brood nest with no ill effects IF there are plenty of bees and IF you put at least two frames of the there to draw enough nurse bees to care for them.

>I sugar feed 1:1 as early as I can and in doing this will it make them still draw worker cells or will they draw larger storage comb.

If it works to stimulate brood rearing they will draw brood comb. If they start needing somewhere to store it they will draw storage comb.

>I would like to try and keep the queen in the lower brood boxes as long as I can while I am trying to get mostly s/cell a few weeks before my first honey flow then I let the queen have the second box to lay in. but the comb that will be in the second box wont have much small cell so would I be undoing what I am trying to achieve

So why not wait for the brood above the excluder to emerge and pull those frames out and give them new frames.

>Will the bees be able to regress enough so I dont have to treat at the end off the year?

I would monitor the mite levels and make that decision based on the mite levels. It will depend a lot on how much small cell comb is in the core of the brood nest and how many mites are coming in from the outside as hitchhikers.

>It would be a shame to contaminate what small cell they have drawn.

Then don't. IF you need to do something, based on mite counts, then do drone trapping or powdered sugar or, at worst, Oxalic acid vapor.

>I know it sounds like have your cake and eat it but I still would like as much honey as I can steal for them.

Of course. It will cost you some honey to get comb drawn. No matter what size it is.

>This is something like I had planned for this year do you think this would be ok to do, or would you take a different approach and if so have you got the time to explain it 

That sounds fine.

>Whenever I ask beekeepers in the UK about small cell they dont have a lot to say about it, but if it does work for me like you and others then maybe I could pass the knowledge on what you and others from bee source have done for me.

I hope so.

>regarding sugar feeding, i would go slowly in the spring as if you feed them too fast, they will just store the food, without building...

Exactly.

>I do recommend artificial swarming as this gives a long period without brood, and is ideal to treat! 

A cutdown split two weeks before the main flow with the old queen in the split (or kill the queen and make both "halves" raise a queen) will make them brood less for at least one brood turnover (about 24 days) at a time to maximize the harvest while minimizing the Varroa.


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## kenpkr (Apr 6, 2004)

>regarding sugar feeding, i would go slowly in the spring as if you feed them too fast, they will just store the food, without building...<

Interesting; but how can I know if I'm feeding too fast? Sugar syrup and nectar look the same to me.


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## drobbins (Jun 1, 2005)

kenpkr

I'm a rookie so take what I say with a grain of salt
I think I fed to much last spring
I took this picture which I think shows the results

http://www.drobbins.net/bee's/inspection/Dsc00751.jpg

at first I thought that was perfect, but apon thinking about it, they don't need that much feed in the broodnest in spring
I think you want something like this

http://www.drobbins.net/bee's/inspection/Dsc00753.jpg

you want more brood not more stores in spring
presumably there is plenty of natural forage in spring, you shouldn't need to feed beyond the first week or 2 to get em going unless you have conditions with no natural forage

Dave


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## louis1st (Oct 17, 2004)

Tony,
I also intends to try small cells this year.

I bought some frames with small cell foundations, (2 National brood chambers worth from Thorne) and will give them to the bees this spring.

I intend to add them at the bottom so they can take their time to build and it won't disturb them too much too.

I have a hive made from a split, which completely rebuilt last year all the frames i gave it (not sure why it did though), so it's my first choice as I already suspect it has regressed when rebuilding the brood nest.

Not sure which other hive to choose for the remaining frames...

I think i will go for one of the hives with a queen I bought from Cyprus.


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## louis1st (Oct 17, 2004)

Dave,

Are you using 2 brood chambers or just one?

I would definitively use 2 to give more space to the queen.

Hopefully, the bees won't starve!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Try to find a happy medium. Don't let them starve. Don't feed them until they clog the brood nest and swarm.


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

louis1st,

Yes I was going to buy some from Thornes site it was the only place that I could find that sold it, and I think they said it was 4.9/5.0,do you think that will be small enough so you wont have to treat them for v mite anymore. 

I thought the price they were asking was a bit steep, about 2 times standard foundation, It will be nice if small cell foundation catches on and is made easier to obtain. 

I dont know if it would be quicker with regressing using foundation or using blank frames, I suppose we will find out at the end off the year.

Was it the buckfast x cecropia that reworked the foundation. 

What queens did you get from Cyprus?


Tony


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## drobbins (Jun 1, 2005)

louis1st 

at that point the hive was 2 deeps of plastic foundation. it was about 6 weeks old (from a package)
at that point I learned about small cell
I added 2 medium boxes of starter strips
the bee's drew them great, about 5.1 mm with some variation. (it's starter strips, not foundation)
then I used a queen exclude to let all the brood emerge in one of the deeps and removed it
so it's overwintering as a deep full of plastic with 2 mediums of natural comb above
hopefully in spring they will have moved up out of the deep and I can remove it and give them some more frames of starter strips to draw
I like the idea of letting them draw what they want in their brood nest and it save $ on foundations too

Dave


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## louis1st (Oct 17, 2004)

Tony,
i found a french company who sells small cells foundations, but not sure if they are actually cheaper than thorne (i would think they were as Thorne is in average very expensive).

Thorne has a sort of monopoly in the UK because of the National hive (you can't import cheap supplies from abroad that will fit this size), so i am also thinking of going for Langstroth or Dadant hives. 

this way, i could import some cheaper supplies from France.

I will have to buy a lot more small cells foundations to get some sort of result this year.
Will definitively try to get at least all my new nucs on them straight away to see... but will have to decide if I go Dadant or Langstroth before i spend more money!!

I got some frames with small cell foundations sheets, but to cut cost, i would definitively advise you to go for just a top strip of small cell foundation. You may be able to get 4 frames ready with just one normal foundation?

The hive that reworked all the frames was the daughter of one of my buckfast x cecropia queen.
(I find them very agressive now by the way)

regarding the queen from Cyprus, have a look at this link: (Roger White, Superbee Apiaries)
http://www.beesource.com/suppliers/smallcell.htm

can't really say if they are any good yet and be aware that if you decide to import some, you will have to declare them to the National bee unit.

You can get them very early in the year (april) and they seem to be very much like the buckfast bee. Roger White has been very helpful too


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## NW IN Beekeeper (Jun 29, 2005)

Jim - 

Can bottom bar attachment be the last ditch finishing touch on the frame? 

My thought is, if the bottom edge is the last space on the frame, and only a few bees are really needed to finish it, communication is of minimal necessity. Therefore, attaching it and making use of it as stores is more productive than maintaining it as a "tuning fork" for a dance.

Also, a winter frame is consumed, will bees chew out the bottoms to improve the "tuning fork" properties of the frame to communicate with the mass of bees working to fill the frame? 

Is attachment [(fall)/(flow)] and chew out [(spring)/(dearth)] a cycle? 

Can attachment be ignored if the stores are likely to be readily consumed (a strong hive on weak stores) and therefore readily in need to be restored?


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

Hi,

My pc comb should be on the boat on its way to me in the next couple of days, so I have some time to work out how I will wax them,

I am going to cut the width down so they will fit in side my brood frames before I wax them , my brood frames are 13 1/4 x 7 1/2
The off cuts I will glue to the gap I have on the bottom of the frame.


How much wax would I need to cover 30 pc frames,

I do under stand the use of the oven to warm the pc first but has any one used hot water to warm the pc before waxing,

When you melt the wax and dip the pc do you use water in with it or is it pure wax.

Thanks

Tony


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>How much wax would I need to cover 30 pc frames

It's been a while since I was waxing them. But it seems like I got about 60 combs out of about 10 pounds of wax. But I'm just going from vague memory. Of course it takes some extra to fill the container that won't actually get used but has to be there for the depth to get it dipped.

>I do under stand the use of the oven to warm the pc first but has any one used hot water to warm the pc before waxing

I never tried it. My concern was that the water would prevent the wax from adhering. It might work fine or not. I never tried it.

>When you melt the wax and dip the pc do you use water in with it or is it pure wax.

Mine was in a big double boiler (actually an electric roasting pan), so I suppose I could have left out the water, but I still kept a bit in the bottom of the wax container anyway just for insurance against getting it too hot.

I can't say what all will work. I only tried two methods. I tried dipping it cold (didn't work) and I tried dipping it after warming in the oven (worked well). There may be a simpler way, but simpler wasn't really my problem. The oven wasn't the hard part. The hard part was how messy it was and shaking all the wax back out of the comb.

I'd love to build a dipping tank and rack so I could dip ten or more at a time. Maybe if the tank was big enough I could dip one, and let it set until it warmed up in the wax, instead of having to heat it in the oven. I don't know how it would work. My theory was if the comb was as hot as the wax then the wax wouldn't clump and would shake back off easily I'm not sure how long it would have to remain in the wax to heat the clumped wax up enough to melt enough for the wax to get up into the cells and then warm up the comb enough that the wax will shake back off.


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

When you tall about 4.9m cells in the core area off the brood nest, 

Would 6 wax dipped pc comb in the core be enough for the control off the v mites?

I can get 12 brood frames to one box so the 6 other blank wooden frame would be the ones I would rotate out until they were down to the right size plus the queens would want some where for her drones,

The reason I am trying to get away with 6 pc combs is that I have pencil in some queens to increase from 2 to 5 hive by the end of this year,

I could only afford 30 pc comb because off the shipping cost (no fault off john) to the uk,


John Seets has been very good at keeping me up to speed with e-mails and I am looking forward to having chemical free bees.


Tony


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Would 6 wax dipped pc comb in the core be enough for the control off the v mites?

If the rest are 5.4mm? Maybe not. If the rest are 5.0mm or 5.1mm then I would expect the varroa to stay under control.

>The reason I am trying to get away with 6 pc combs is that I have pencil in some queens to increase from 2 to 5 hive by the end of this year,

The nice thing about the wax coated PC in the center is you get a lot of nice small bees very quickly and by the time they are building much of the rest of the comb you have small bees to do it.

>I could only afford 30 pc comb because off the shipping cost (no fault off john) to the uk,

The other nice thing is you can keep moving the pc to other hives that aren't regressed yet to give them the same advantage.


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## Blue.eyed.Wolf (Oct 3, 2005)

I just waxed some pc this weekend...what a pain. No wonder you still have multiple cases sitting on your porch Mike.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

It is a mess and a lot of work. But they sure take to it.







They treat it just like their own comb from day one.


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## Blue.eyed.Wolf (Oct 3, 2005)

Is the amount of hot wax that sticks to the hot PC enought to render it small cell? I am talking about a thin glaze of it. If not I am hoping that it will at least make a good onestep bridge to natural cell.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Is the amount of hot wax that sticks to the hot PC enought to render it small cell?

Yes it is. If you take into account the difference in cell wall thickness it comes to 4.95mm cells.

> I am talking about a thin glaze of it.

That's what I've been doing for several years now.

> If not I am hoping that it will at least make a good onestep bridge to natural cell.

It's pretty much instant acceptance (of the PC) and instant regression (of the bee size).

I heat the PC in a 200 F oven and dip it in 212 F beeswax and shake off the excess.

Very messy. Very effective.


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## kenpkr (Apr 6, 2004)

MB,
I've heard that you use a gas oven to warm your pc frames. Do you melt your wax in a pot on top of that stove/oven? And is this setup outside where you can dip and shake off the excess without getting it all over the kitchen or garage?! Do you use thick gloves and/or hot pads for handling?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I've heard that you use a gas oven to warm your pc frames.

Yes. The oven is outside. But I could probably get away with using the oven inside.

>Do you melt your wax in a pot on top of that stove/oven?

I have a "turkey roaster" that is a double boiler with an electric thermostat. It's outside on a table that is covered with besswax splatters from the process.

>And is this setup outside where you can dip and shake off the excess without getting it all over the kitchen or garage?!

Yes. But it gets all over you clothes anyway.

> Do you use thick gloves and/or hot pads for handling?

I wear the dishwashing gloves you buy at the grocery store and I use a frame grip.


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

MB, When melting the wax down to dip your p/comb you said you added a little water, was this water from the tap or was it rainwater, does it matter which I use.

Thanks 

Tony


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

It was just tap water. I suppose distilled would be nicer, but I don't bother.


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

MrBEE . . .

Add water to wax?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

The water goes to the bottom and simply helps to guarantee it doesn't get too hot and helps keep it clean. With water in it, if it's boiling it's pretty much guarenteed to be about 212 F. Unless you're in Laramie WY where it won't get over 199 F unless you use a pressure cooker.







Never could get dried beans to cook there without a pressure cooker.


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

i got my perma comb today, so you know what i will be doing this week end.

Tony


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Wear clothes you plan to throw away. And rubber boots might be wise.







And do it outside.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Duplicate

[ March 31, 2006, 03:26 PM: Message edited by: Michael Bush ]


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

Hi,

I have waxed the pc (what a mess), I have said perversely that I was going to use 
My wooden brood frames so it meant I was going to cut the pc down to fit the frames and the off cuts
I was going to stick in the 50mm or so gap at the bottom of the frame,

I was thinking could I leave the gap at the bottom and let the bees build what they want 
Down to the bottom bar or should I leave the gap at the top,

If you reckon I could leave the gap (lol), the off cuts which I have when stuck together
Would be enough for 10 more brood frames.

Tony


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

The problem is a 50mm gap is a lot of comb. The typical permacomb has about a 12mm gap and this breaks pretty straight. You could try some and see how it works for you.


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

[ April 02, 2006, 10:18 AM: Message edited by: tony350i ]


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

Why would I wont it to brake in a straight line , I was hoping the bees would fill in the gap with comb,

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h319/tony350i/Pic_0004.jpg 
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h319/tony350i/Pic_0005.jpg 


Tony


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

The problem is they will connect one box of frames to the next with the comb. So when you open it it will break the comb between the boxes.

In your pictures there are top and bottom bars, which, of course, eliminate the problem.


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

I was hoping the wooden bar might solve this problem,
Well I will screw the pc  to the frames and chuck some in the hives when the Weather is a bit warmer and see what happens,


Thanks for being patient 

Tony


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

So, Tony, how did this work out?


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

I am still about







, I visit the forms every day but dont give too much advice coz I dont have the experience yet.

Yes it works well I fixed the p/c to the top bar and the bees didnt burr to the frame above or below, I am up to 7 hives and 70% are on smaller cells. I had a look today and one is queen-less, I cant get any buckfast x cecropia queens till next year, so I will have to find some eggs from another hive when the queens start laying again I still have drones. 
I did give them a frame of sealed brood for now.

Most of the p/c is out off the hives and I will use it in swarm boxes next year and the wax moth has a hard time with it too.

The two swarms I was going to shake out I ended combing them and when I last looked the queen was laying nicely.

So over all things are going quite well.

Thanks
Tony


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