# Newbee questions from KY



## Ky Speedracer (Feb 10, 2015)

Hello all!

I am located in the outskirts of Louisville, KY and I am a new hobby beekeeper. Primarily for gardening purposes.

I'm looking for some feedback regarding "narrow frames" and possibly regressing bee size to small cell bees.
The following is an explanation of my setup - or soon to be setup. 
I am going to start 2 new lang hives. 10 frame deeps. Shallow supers. Screened bottom boards. This equipment I have already acquired from someone and it is new.
I have purchased 2 Italian nucs from Kelley bees. They will be picked up in early April. They are not small cell bees. I could have purchased packaged small cell bees locally but no luck at the time of finding small cell nucs. And I really wanted to start with nucs.

I am also installing a package of small cell bees in a top-bar hive that has small cell drawn comb in it from a failed attempt last year. I accidentally killed the queen it seems in a July hive inspection. But that's another story. 

So he goes my question/s;

I have read a lot about narrow frames and their pros and cons...they seem to make some sense to me (of course I'm very new at this). I have time and don't mind making the modifications to the frames so that they are 1 1/4". I will probably cut down the topbars before I assemble.
I'm also inclined to start with foundation-less frames. Making a comb guide of course and then feeding them into and around the nuc frames. 
Everything that I read indicates that it is best to make these modifications at the beginning of starting hives...that's why I'm looking to do this now. 
My concerns are; Keeping in mind that these are not small cell bees in the nucs. 
1. is it okay to narrow the frames to 1 1/4" with out having small cell bees in the begining?
2. am I better off to use small cell foundation in the frames to start their regression or just use foundation-less and let them regress at their own pace? (i'm leaning towards foundation-less but feel like I don't know enough to make this decision with confidence).
3. do i start off day one when I install my 5 frame nucs by putting an empty frame right in the middle of the 5 frames of brood or is that to soon in a new colony?

I know in a perfect world I should have purchased nucs with small cell bees...but that ship has sailed...

Thanks in advance for any feedback. I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time on this site.

Steve


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## Beregondo (Jun 21, 2011)

I narrowed an awful lot of frames my first couple years.

I noticed no advantage in disease or mite resistance, nor in winter survivability.
I think that in the harsh upstate New York winters I was keeping bees in, any advantages would have stood out.

The logic behind the idea of using them is good... they just didn't make any difference for me and aren't worth my trouble.

In regressing to small cell (which I also did) , a couple things happen:

1 You get all new, clean wax when you go foundationless, and if you use palstic foundation (ML PF 1oo series) there is a lot less wax on them to get contaminated than if wax foundation is used.

2 you get a shorter development time before emergence from the cell.

Of the two, I suspect clean comb is the more important.

That being said, up to 2014 I only used small cell, sourced my bees only form treatment free producers or cutouts that had been continually occupied for 2+years and had strong populations, never treated, and never had mite problems.

I used a combination of foundationless frames and small cell foundation.

_>>Not all of the comb the small bees drew in foundationless frames in the brood chamber were "small"4.9mm.

They naturally drew brood cells (other than drone brood) larger than this, though *most* were small.<<_

This was with fully "regressed" bees.

Summary:

I think narrowing frames is a waste of time.

I suspect the _primary_reason for better bee health in foundationless hives is freedom form miticide residues, though brood emerging a day or two earlier than from 5.3mm cells can't hurt.

3. Even small cell bees will naturally draw some larger cells when you just "let bees be bees."

By the way.. be sure to fishline your foundationless frames, as soft new wax will fallout the first time you go to turn it incorrectly with honey around the edge, until it is anchored on all 4 sides.

I lost a few combs that way first year. Even though I was consicously trying to "be careful" I still turned them incorrectly a few times and lost some.


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## Kenww (Apr 14, 2013)

One of my hives didn't connect to the bottom bar at all on most of my frameless mediums. Is that a common problem? I think I'm just using the Mann Lake all plastic from now on. Really like them so far, but this is only my second year with bees.


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## Ky Speedracer (Feb 10, 2015)

Thank for the feedback Beregondo.
Regarding the narrow frames; I understand that you didn't see any advantages for "disease or mite resistance, nor in winter survivability" but what about improved consistency in straight comb? That has been reported to be one advantage. With the smaller bee space I have read where they don't seem to vary the thickness as much...
Are you using 10 frame deeps with 11 frames?

Thanks for the advice on wiring the frames. I have been debating that in my head. Honestly it won't take any time to throw some mono-filament line in there so that's what I will do.


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

Welcome Steve!


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

Welcome........be careful, this site is addicting!


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## Ky Speedracer (Feb 10, 2015)

snl said:


> Welcome........be careful, this site is addicting!


Addicting for sure. I have already spent several hours on this site that last several days. The passion here for processes and theories is amazing...and sometimes entertaining...
But with that said, it's all very informative.


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## jaycollett (Jan 13, 2016)

Ky Speedracer,

I'm in KY as well, new bee keeper, actually got 2 packages coming this April from Kelly's. My situation is exactly like yours in that I want to go foundationless and wanted to use the narrow frame spacing. I was worried, however, that using the more narrow spacing would be an issue for my new bees that are not SC bees...did you try this, I didn't see any answers to your question regarding that...


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

Welcome to BeeSource! Good luck in 2016. If you go foundationless, be sure your hives are level from side to side and keep an eye on the bees. If they get started with crooked comb, you have to straighten it out early or you get a big mess.


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## ToeOfDog (Sep 25, 2013)

There is a difference in small cell and natural cell. Dee Lusby drew a map that i saw several years ago but dont remember where. The main point was the further north you went and the higher the altitude the larger the natural worker brood cell size. 4.7 to 4.9mm is natural where i live. Stretching my memory beyond its limits<GGG>,around 5.1 or so is natural in upper US and southern Canada.

I believe evolution is a hard taskmaster. There is a reason bees naturally draw 1.25" on center brood comb and not 1.375" I just dont know the reason. 

I have regressed 5.4mm bees on narrow frames and 4.9 mm foundation. The comb is not picture perfect as there are defects where they are correcting for the cells being larger than the cell imprints. Ever once in a while there will be a clump of "3mm" wide cells. If you want perfect combs, have them pull the foundation a second time the next year. 

You may wish to use 4.9mm foundation in the beginning as you can regress faster. Dadant's 4.9mm foundation is supposed to be filtered and cleaner than other 4.9mm. With foundationless it will be a multi step process. You will let them pull it one year, the next year you will cut that out and let them pull it again. Rinse and repeat til the cell sizes dont shrink any more. If you want foundationless start slipping some in the next year between the drawn foundation combs.

The advantage of small cell is the worker bees emerge about 2 days earlier than 5.4mm bees. According to a USDA report, immature varroa die the day the bee emerges. The varroa laying cycle is 30 hours. 48 hours divided by 30 hours = less varroa.

The second advantage is there is very little varroa in the small cell worker comb until winter when they are doing anything to survive. I check mite drop twice a week. This makes drone culling in early spring and effective mite control. 

Regressing bees is stressfull. You have a higher chance of them dieing during the process.

Pay attention to what GaryG74 says about keeping foundationless hive level. 

Conclusion: If you are going to regress do it from the beginning with narrow frames and foundation. There is an article on the Bush Farms website on how to shift the large cell comb out of the hive.


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## Ky Speedracer (Feb 10, 2015)

jaycollett said:


> Ky Speedracer,
> 
> I'm in KY as well, new bee keeper, actually got 2 packages coming this April from Kelly's. My situation is exactly like yours in that I want to go foundationless and wanted to use the narrow frame spacing. I was worried, however, that using the more narrow spacing would be an issue for my new bees that are not SC bees...did you try this, I didn't see any answers to your question regarding that...


Hello Jay,

In my opinion, if you are completely new to bee keeping, start it simple. Use foundation. Use standard Lang hives. If your in KY go to Kelleys and buy a couple of their complete hive kits with foundation (small cell if you like). I would cancel the packages and buy nucs. I have not personally had much luck with packages. On the other hand, nucs are almost fool-proof. They are more expensive but you get an actual established colony with a laying queen.
There are so many things for you to learn when you are starting out. Keep it simple. Don't spend your first couple of years doing anything but observing and learning.
Even when it comes to varroa treatment. Buy an oxalic vaporizer and treat. Look for varroa and learn to recognize it but do not decide whether to treat or not based on what you think you've seen. Treat anyway. It's easy and it takes the guess out of it. 
Don't sweat small cell, large cell, foundation, foundation less, etc thinking you're doing anything to "help out" the bees. The best way to help out the bees is to learn how to be a beekeeper. You can only do that through experience. You'll screw things up...I promise. But when you do it with a nuc their chance of surviving are much better.
Concentrate on when bees are flying, swarm prevention, expanding your hives, manipulating frames, finding the queen, learn when to add boxes and when to take them away etc.
Bee keeping is fun but there is a LOT to learn...keep it simple to start!

Good luck...Steve


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## rookie2531 (Jul 28, 2014)

Welcome Steve, like you there was a couple reasons why I started keeping bees, my garden was one of them. Don't be surprised if you don't see one bee on the garden flowers. I do see the girls trying to get in the green beans from time to time, but the bumblebees seem to do the best in my garden. My honeybees don't have time for those peanuts. Lol


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## laketrout (Mar 5, 2013)

There has been alot of talk about using fishing line , some make out fine with it ,I on the other hand had trouble with it , the bee's cut one end off and tried to get it out of the hive , it was hanging all over the place , if you do decide to use it go with line in the 20lb test range they seem less likely to cut it .I agree with speedracer keep it simple for awhile until you get a handle on things .


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