# Flat, smooth foundation?



## kspitze (Apr 13, 2012)

What happens when flat, smooth foundation is used? Does it work, or do the bees really need the hexagonal indentations to build upon?


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## beeware10 (Jul 25, 2010)

not sure where these ideas come from?


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## NeilV (Nov 18, 2006)

Not sure what they would do with a flat sheet of wax. I suspect they need the indentions to get started drawing it out at all. 

If you want to let them draw out the comb with the sizes they want to build, you can just use a starter strip of foundation. That is a topic all to itself, and there are many threads about that on Beesource, if you are interested.

If you are just starting out, my personal opinion is that you should start with wax foundation.


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## kspitze (Apr 13, 2012)

It would be cheap and easy to make - just curious what would happen.


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## kspitze (Apr 13, 2012)

I'm in my second year, and just did my first harvest. So, I have some wax. I like the idea of foundationless frames and will explore that, but I figured that if I could easily make flat foundation, and it would work, then it would save the girls some work!


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## gkervitsky (Nov 20, 2008)

Through 120 Million years of evolution the bees have been getting along just fine, the last 100 years humans have come along wanting to fix what is not broken, and lend Nature a hand. I am not sure this will play out well in the end.


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## Grant (Jun 12, 2004)

kspitze said:


> It would be cheap and easy to make - just curious what would happen.


Having tried to make my own foundation...unsuccessfully...it was neither cheap nor easy. Foundationless frames with popsicle sticks or tongue depressers really is cheap, and easy! And I don't have to re-invent the wheel!

Grant
Jackson, MO


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## jrbbees (Apr 4, 2010)

I believe M Bush tried that. I believe that his conclusion was bee preference was. foundationless, embossed foundation. smooth foundation then the plastics at the lower end. I have also considered it but will not go with it for that reason.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

They will work it, but slowly. It is much faster to let them build foundationless. You are doing them no favors.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Try it and find out. Learn thru doing. Then let us know. I have no idea. But I can't imagine the work it took to come up w/ foundation mills and the milling process if there weren't some great advantage over a flat sheet of wax or no fouyndation at all.


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## kspitze (Apr 13, 2012)

Michael Bush said:


> They will work it, but slowly. It is much faster to let them build foundationless. You are doing them no favors.


Thanks, Michael. Is there any way to get them to reuse the wax? I read somewhere they will rework it if it is put out in front of the hive, but when I have tried it with small chunks, they don't. I am definitely going to try foundationless, but I'd like to reuse the wax if possible.


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## kspitze (Apr 13, 2012)

sqkcrk said:


> Try it and find out. Learn thru doing. Then let us know. I have no idea. But I can't imagine the work it took to come up w/ foundation mills and the milling process if there weren't some great advantage over a flat sheet of wax or no fouyndation at all.


Thanks, sqkcrk. I think I will try it - my curiosity usually makes me explore widely!


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Boldly go where others have gone before to rediscover old knowledge lost to modern man.

I used to do that myself sorta. When I worked at Colonial Williamsburg as an 18th Century Pit Sawyer and Carpenter. Using the tools of the times teaches one something which books just don't quite get across. The feel for something, the experiencing of it. I applaud your initiative. Don't forget to report your findings. So others can learn too.


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## brendantm130 (Jan 23, 2010)

Cheaper and easier to let them do all the work. Reuse your wax as candles.


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## Oldbee (Sep 25, 2006)

> _"Try it and find out. Learn thru doing. Then let us know."
> "Thanks, sqkcrk. I think I will try it - my curiosity usually makes me explore widely!"

_You will probably have to set up an observation hive to come to an accurate conclusion that bees "reuse wax" in any form. So far I haven't read anything that they do; at least not to build fresh new comb in any useful amount.

> _"If the bees are watched closely during the height of the honey harvest, or if at other times a colony of bees is fed heavily on sugar syrup for three days during warm weather, there will be found toward the end of the second or the third day little pearly discs of wax, somewhat resembling fish scales, protruding from between the rings of the under side of the body of the bee. These when examined with a magnifier reveal little wax scales of rare beauty. Sometimes these scales come so fast that they fall on the bottom-board and may be scraped up in considerable quantities, seeming for some reason not to have been wanted."<
> http://www.beesource.com/resources/elements-of-beekeeping/all-about-beeswax/ _But that was published in 1923.
> http://www.beesource.com/point-of-v...ence-of-cell-size/the-building-of-honey-comb/

The whole process of wax secretion, collecting the scales with their legs, transferring it to their mouthparts, masticating it and forming it to make comb is instinctive. As far as flat foundation, I think the base of the cells is the most important crucial step for comb building because it provides for building cells on both sides. They will build burr comb for drone brood and honey on the flat surface of the top bars and other places, but the cells are always aligned horizontal with the plane of the surface; never vertical to it.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

Using a slim bit on the top of the frame would provide an excellent starter for foundationless drawing. 

If they will draw off the junk plastic they can do it on the flat wax sheet.


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## Box (Jul 30, 2010)

I made this experiment last season ,very easy to make the sheets ,and the bees did use them ,but very slow even compared vith store bourght foundation.
I suspeckt they simply vere to smooth, maybe scatching up the surface would help.
I never made further investigations in this, because i "discovered" that a frame with a paintstick or just the frame ,was so much easyer and my bees fill out a frame very fast (12"*10" framesize).


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I think if you had a roller that would work the wax it would make the wax softer and that I think is why they don't like the sheets so well, but it also may be other issues. I don't see any reason to use them since they draw comb perfectly well and much faster without them...


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

The main issue I've seen with flat sheets (from pics and vids) is bees start working in different spots and with no guide it just creates a mess when they try to come together and they've always been uneven or just clumps of random cells started here and there.


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## Beregondo (Jun 21, 2011)

sqkcrk said:


> Try it and find out. Learn thru doing. Then let us know. I have no idea. But I can't imagine the work it took to come up w/ foundation mills and the milling process if there weren't some great advantage over a flat sheet of wax or no fouyndation at all.


There is an adntage, Mark, but it is to the one selling the foundation.
It's hard to get an extra buck or two.upsell on frames without foundation...


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

When Mehring first made foundation in 1857 it was a flat, dipped sheet with indentions of the cell bottoms, and no cell walls as we have on foundation today. Being dipped it was thick at the bottom of the sheet and thinner at the top. The angle of the cell bottoms was wrong so the bees had to rework all the foundation before making cells on it. In 1895 E. B. Weed made a machine to make foundation in a continuous sheet of uniform thickness, and roller mills were made to form the cell pattern with the 120 degree angle in the base and beginning cell walls. These improvements made foundations that the bees preferred, and trying to re-think the process today is not a profitable use of time. 

The older issues of the American Bee Journal and the Bee Culture magazine tell the story of the 1800s beekeepers developing the management techniques we use today, and anyone can read and see the evolution in thought and management practices. They argue over many of the same subjects that we do today. One thing stands out, the beekeepers of that period were tight with a dollar. They were interested in profit. They were in search of the most efficient techniques. If comb foundation was not a benefit to them they would not have used it.

Hobby beekeepers like myself can piddle and play with keeping bees, we can try new things (at least things that are new to us, almost everything has been tried by someone before) but as a group, we seem to have become very gullible. A statement is made, and then is repeated until it becomes truth. How often do we try a procedure for ourselves before we accept it as fact? I see statements about management techniques made on Beesource that contrary to my experience, but that can be explained because of differences in location and the strain of bees being used. I also see statements made about historical beekeeping practices that are half-truths, and that is harder to explain. We should make an effort to study our beekeeping history so that we can give as accurate information as possible, and we should not repeat what we read on the net until we have tried it several time and found it accurate. If we do pass along information/recommendations that we have not checked ourselves, we should say that we have not tried it and let the reader beware.

When anyone reads my posts, be assured I will do my best to be accurate, but don't believe it as though it is carved in stone. Try everything for yourselves in your area with your bees and prove or disprove it, then you can pass along to others what you have learned with confidence that it will work for them.


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