# Small Cell Foundation for Beginners (Why Not?)



## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

Have you done a search here and read some of the threads?

People will fill you in but my advice would be to start with Mannlake pf-120 4.9mm frames. 

I'm in the process of trimming down my frames to 1 1/4" width to fit a 9th brood frame in my 8 frame medium boxes. 

At this point I believe I would prefer to have all pf-120's and I wish I had trimmed them down from the beginnng. The narrow frame spacing is susposed to help to keep cell size smaller.

With pf-120's, if the bees have trouble drawing out the comb you can scrape off the misformed comb and give it back to the bees.


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## planitL (Jul 13, 2010)

I did do a search but was not able to find any threads or replies concerning WHY small cell foundations are not supposed to be for beginners. I don't get why it would be any harder than standard foundation.

BeeCurious, do you HAVE to trim down frames in order to use the smaller cells? What would happen if I used small cell frames with standard frames?


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

I don't think many use narrow frames. It isn't required, but if you are going to start from zero, you could have the setup that you may wish you had three years from now. 

The problem is getting bees regressed so they will draw out the foundation correctly. Some do fine from the beginning. Have you been to Michael Bush's web site? The answers to most of your questions can be found there.


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## NasalSponge (Jul 22, 2008)

Like Bee said....regression=getting the bees to change from a larger cell down to small cell. There are several techniques most all of which can be labor intensive.


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## olky (Apr 19, 2008)

i studied the whole small cell - natural cell thing last winter. wanted to see for myself. so this year i bought 2 packages. started one on fp-120, started one foundationless. i hived these 2 packages may 8th. the pf-120 hive has only 4 frames drawn and the queen has bees superceded. we'll see how she does, but will probly have to be combined to make it through winter. the foundatinless (natural cell hive) has 3 mediums all drawn and will get a super today for the fall flow. that's just my experience, other people have done well starting on small cell.


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## tnnewbe (Mar 21, 2010)

Can't say if the caution is for your area or what but I have not read anything about small cell being for advanced only. I'm in a mentoring course with the Tennessee Valley Beekeepers Assoc and we set up hives for 35 people in the course with 8 frame medium boxes. We used small cell foundation from Brushy Mountion and small cell bees from a vendor in Nashville. I set up a second hive here at home which is 30 miles from the mentored hive. I know some of the other people did the same so I would guess that we have between 40 and 45 hives setup within the mentoring group. We have had 2 hives that had to be requeened and one hive moved to a pecan tree but no other issues that I know of. We set these hives up on April 24 with 3 pound packages and a laying queen. We started out with 1 box and added boxes as needed. I just put on my 4th box at the mentoring location and getting ready to put on my 5th box here at home. I have tried to be real good about feeding my bees with a 1:1 sugar water but I am now stopping that feeding. I will be keeping a real close eye on them now that I have stopped feeding to see how they will do. I'm not counting on any honey this year but did want the top box to have honey, not sugar water, if the make any. My main interest is to see that my bees make it through the winter this year. I will be checking and will start feeding again if I see their winter supply getting low. I have no real experience to say that the small cell bees are better or worst than the larger cell bees but can say that my limited experience with the small cell bees has been pretty much trouble free.

Ken


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

olky said:


> snip
> 
> the pf-120 hive has only 4 frames drawn and the queen has bees superceded.
> 
> the foundatinless (natural cell hive) has 3 mediums all drawn and will get a super today for the fall flow. that's just my experience


olky,

I don't have strong feelings about small cell beekeeping... I "just do it".

I'm curious, the four frames of pf-120, are they drawn out correctly? Or are they a mess. 

I believe you experienced something besides the bees resistance to pf-120s. 

A lot of packaged bees absconded this year, and it seems that it's not rare to have package queens superceded. 

There are others who haven't had good results with pf-120s but I believe the majority like them.


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

In the bee school I help organize we don't talk about small cell (unless asked) because while there are tons of anecdotal reports about how well it works, there (has yet) to be any scientific evidence that it does. That and myself and the other instructors don't have any experience with it and thoughts/advice we might pass on would be hearsay.

The same thing goes with people who want top bar hives - "go for it" but we can't support you as we have no experience with them.

So small cell turns into a learning project for the newbee. My goal is to have them succeed at keeping bees alive over winter. To accomplish this we focus on the traditional basics - if people wish to go off in another direction on their own that's fine. Hopefully they are leaving the class with some understanding that will serve as a base for them to expand their knowledge upon.


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## MJuric (Jul 12, 2010)

Does anyone make a small cell foundation with a plastic core? I'd still like to use wooden frames, but would also like to use the small cell foundations AND stay away from having to wire if possible. I just can't seem to find anything like that.

~Matt


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## Oldbee (Sep 25, 2006)

_Does anyone make a small cell foundation with a plastic core?_

That is what is meant by *pf-120* [medium I believe] and *pf-100* [the deep] foundation from *Mann Lake,* that was 'discovered" to be close to 4.9 mm.**

_"People will fill you in but my advice would be to start with Mannlake pf-120 4.9mm frames."-_ BeeCurious.

**Ooops! sorry. For right now I guess the pf-120 and pf-100 is an all plastic frame.


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## olky (Apr 19, 2008)

beecurious i just stated my experience this year. i'm not against any of it. also these were both russian packages ( not regressed, i'm sure ). i assumed one queen did not like the small cell and they superceded her. we will see if the new queen does any better. enough people like the pf-120 that it has not detered me from trying again, i just stated what my first attempt was like. obviously based on my first attempt i am fond of foundationless. the frames were drawn nicely. i almost expect a package to supercede any more. i do agree, it seems like the majority like them. thats why i am not detered from trying it again.


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## planitL (Jul 13, 2010)

Thanks for the additional info, guys. Looks like opinions are very mixed, so I will have to really think it over before ordering my stuff.

Andrew, so glad that I don't have to worry about overwintering my bees here in Tucson - takes some of the risk out of beginning beekeeping!


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## MJuric (Jul 12, 2010)

Yes, the PF-100's and 120's are 100% plastic frames. 

I want to start out with wooden because...well they are just neat, and they offer more potential options than than the plastic. 

The only small cell foundation I've found is all wax. Can't even find some with wires. 

That means I'd have to wire them all.

I have looked at trying to use small cell as a starter strip that has been recommended...but going completely foundation less for some reason is scary to me as a complete newbie 

It does appeal to my tight wad side though.

~Matt


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

MJuric said:


> Does anyone make a small cell foundation with a plastic core? I'd still like to use wooden frames, but would also like to use the small cell foundations AND stay away from having to wire if possible. I just can't seem to find anything like that.
> 
> ~Matt


Someone on here cuts down the pf120's and then mounts the plasctic into wooden frames. The cost and work would deter me from doing that. 

I don't know of any plastic cored sc foundation.

Wiring:

Wiring isn't so bad... but I've pretty much decided to give up embedded the wires with a DC power source. I'm going to buy a short "old school" spur embedding tool to use. The others have grooves for non-crimped wire. I prefer having the cross wires crimped, and I believe a spur embedder will suit me just fine. I'll buy one next year, but as of yesterday, I'm using one of those pie crust gadgets. 

I recently posted how I wire my frames. In fact, I have no idea how most people do their's. 

Wood frames are nice... but so is opening a case of PF-120's.


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## MJuric (Jul 12, 2010)

BeeCurious said:


> Someone on here cuts down the pf120's and then mounts the plasctic into wooden frames. The cost and work would deter me from doing that.


Yes I'm too much of a tightwad to do that 



BeeCurious said:


> I don't know of any plastic cored sc foundation.


Does anyone make a simple no cell wax coated plastic core? Seems like that might be the next best thing to no cell at all. Then again maybe not, I'm pretty much clueless at this point.




BeeCurious said:


> Wood frames are nice... but so is opening a case of PF-120's.


I have a friend that has a couple hives with PF-100's and PF-120's. I'll admit that the low labor level is extremely appealing to me, but it going the old wood way just seems right to me. What can I say I prefer wood over plastic.

Maybe once I get going and do it for a while and "Experience" putting frames together etc I'll change my mind.

~Matt


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Dadant sells vertically wired 4.9mm small cell beeswax foundation -->
vertically wired small cell foundation


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

MJuric said:


> the old wood way just seems right to me.


I think you would prefer wax too. I use unwired deep 4.9mm foundation that I cut in half. This leaves about a 1" gap at the bottom that the bees can build-out as they like... 

On your shopping list, pencil in:

wire, eyelets, eyelet tool, crimping tool, spur embedding tool (non-grooved)

There's a few thousand people here to help you add things to your wish list.


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## MJuric (Jul 12, 2010)

Very nice. Missed that for some reason. 

Does one use small cell in the honey supers or does it matter? Just figuring it wouldn't matter since you're probably not going to have a whole bunch of laying going in the honey supers.

~Matt


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

BeeCurious said:


> On your shopping list, pencil in:
> 
> wire, eyelets, eyelet tool, crimping tool, spur embedding tool (non-grooved)


I would encourage just the opposite. Forget the spur embedder and heat those wires into the wax. It's really very easy with the right setup.


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## planitL (Jul 13, 2010)

BeeCurious said:


> I don't think many use narrow frames. It isn't required, but if you are going to start from zero, you could have the setup that you may wish you had three years from now.
> 
> The problem is getting bees regressed so they will draw out the foundation correctly. Some do fine from the beginning. Have you been to Michael Bush's web site? The answers to most of your questions can be found there.


It was Michael Bush's site that originally got me interested in small cell hives (that and Dee Lusby's research that indicates that bees are naturally smaller the closer they are to the equator). Since Michael Bush recommends putting new packages of bees directly on small cell foundation, it made me wonder why companies that sell small cell foundation warn against beginners using it.


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## NasalSponge (Jul 22, 2008)




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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

That's hooked isn't it?


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## NasalSponge (Jul 22, 2008)

Yes!!


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## planitL (Jul 13, 2010)

Thanks, NasalSponge! I think I may get my foundation from these people, it is a decent price...


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

When I first started I followed someone's suggestion to go with grooved top and bottom bars. Whatever regrets I may have towards any purchases, I'm pleased to have gone with the grooved frames. 

I don't have the patience to tack wedges in to hold hooked foundation. I did have some frames ( my blowouts) setup for foundationless but I learned that I don't have patience for that either. My popsicle sticks were glued in with Titebond III so I warmed the frames in the oven to soften the glue and removed them. 

To me, starter strips would easier with grooved top bars as well. Something else I don't have patience for...


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Why is this? Why is small cell foundation only for experienced beekeepers? 

It's not. It works fine for anyone. I think they are just wanting to not have to explain the concept of "regression". With the PF120s and PF100s I have had no regression issues. The bees draw them perfectly the first try.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm#whatisregression


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## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

Michael Bush said:


> >
> 
> It's not. It works fine for anyone.


Really? Now I do feel like a failure. I used a case and a half and didn't get any small cells that I could find.

I do still have a few frames out there mostly used for honey storage on the edge of the boxes and one for my Jenter box. I guess I should post pictures of them.


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## beekeeper1756 (Mar 20, 2010)

I have two deep nucs that I purchased and put on small cell foundation. One of the hives has yet to draw out all the frames in the first deep. I got the bees the first week of May. That seems very slow to me. The other deep has partially drawn out the second deep. I'm having to feed them constantly or the building of comb shuts down totally.

I did put small cell foundation on them. Could this be the reason for the slowness? The other two nucs that I bought were mediums and are going like gang-busters.


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## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

My hives drew them quickly enough. What I got was drone/honey sized cells around the top, corners and bottom of the frames. That part would be fine as that is what is frequently seen for the use of those cells.

The problem was the football shaped area in the center of the frames. I pretty much got 5.4 cells with areas of drone/weird cells within that area. They manipulated the foundation and when it didn't match up they would just put whatever they could make in the seams. So I got significantly less worker brood area per frame. The worker brood cells that I got were pretty much the same size that I got from normal foundation. But with normal foundation I got brood area without all of the odd cells within it.

I have gone back to normal size foundation. For whatever reason, I now only treat about 1/3 of my hives per year and I have been losing 10-20% over the winter. The ones that I lose seem to be equally divided between treated and untreated hives.

Back 5-10 years ago I almost lost all of my untreated hives, so either I am a better beekeeper or the bees that I have are better suited to survive the pests/diseases that are thrust on them. I suspect the latter.


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## dixiebooks (Jun 21, 2010)

BeeCurious said:


> I don't think many use narrow frames. It isn't required, but if you are going to start from zero, you could have the setup that you may wish you had three years from now.
> 
> The problem is getting bees regressed so they will draw out the foundation correctly. Some do fine from the beginning. Have you been to Michael Bush's web site? The answers to most of your questions can be found there.


I'd have to ditto this suggestion. I've been systematically going through Mike's website and it is better than any of the books I have read thus far. He seems to be kind of the Yoda of Natural Beekeeping.

-james


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## rweakley (Jul 2, 2004)

Well I don't know about small cell foundation specifically. The biggest draw back to any type of beekeeping is: What do I do when the bees don't do it the way I wanted them to? If it's foundationless and the bees have placed the comb 90 degrees from the way it SHOULD be, how is a newby going to deal with that. Same for any foundation that would get messed up. It can be intimidating to have to make changes to what the bees have done with thousands of them milling around, am I going to smash the queen, or kill the brood trying to fix this? All of that having been said I think foundationless is the way to go, but then agian I'm cheap. Most people getting into beekeeping probably don't have unlimited funds, and being able to buy more equipment because you aren't spending almost $10 more per box on foundation is a good thing.

Rod


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

At this point the most successful approaches have been the PF100 series (depending on the dept of your equipment PF120 or PF100 from Mann Lake) or foundationless. Wax foundation of any kind, smlal cell or otherwise, often buckles or is misdrawn and all the rest of the plastic I've used gets misdrawn often. Actually, although it's a lot of work, the wax dipped PermaComb has been the simplest for me once it's been dipped. The Honey Super Cell is a pretty sure thing, it's just getting past the intitial acceptance, but I have quite a bit of it in use as well.

As far as misdrawn combs, I've had as much from every other method as from foundationless or small cell wax, so blaming any one system is really just a lack of experience to compare it to. I've seen a lot of buckled wax foundation of every size which made a mess, and misdrawn plastic is so typical people aren't even surprised if they have any experience with it...

There is no foolproof system for anything, but I'd have to say the wax dipped PermaComb was the most foolproof system I used, followed by the PF120s.


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## mythomane (Feb 18, 2009)

The pf-100s, etc are 4.95mm. Most if not all of the wax foundation I have seen is 4.9...and it will buckle causing other issues. It is that .5 that seems to make the difernce, as they will draw out the pf's much cleaner than the wax 4.9, although no comb drawing is foolproof...


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## MJuric (Jul 12, 2010)

Someone correct me if I'm missing something here but the difference between 4.9 and 4.95 is .05...in millimeters. That translates to just under .002". That's roughly 1/2 the thickness of an average human head hair. 

Now most the cell size I'm seeing appears to range from large of 5.5 to small of 4.9 or so. That is .6mm total difference which is .023" Now you're getting into something you can start to see with a scale or tape measure with your typical tape measure having 1/32 markings, .03125 and a typical scale having 1/64 markings .015625. 

I'd be willing to bet that the manufacturing tolerances on the PF-100's and PF-120's are FAR greater than the difference between 4.9 and 4.95. IOW if you laid out a PF-100 or PF-120 you'd get a range of sizes that were much greater than .05mm.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm willing to accept that bees would prefer 4.9 over 5.4, I'm not sure sure I'm willing to accept that they will prefer 4.9 over 4.95 just because of size or that .05mm will matter to them to any significant degree.

~Matt


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## mythomane (Feb 18, 2009)

You might be right. I just know they accept it easier.


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## MJuric (Jul 12, 2010)

mythomane said:


> You might be right. I just know they accept it easier.


Yes, I'm not saying they don't accept it better...frankly I have no idea, I'm just saying from a purely mathematical sense and manufacturing sense that if they are accepting better it's probably for some other reason than size alone.

I'm also not saying they aren't accepting one over the other just because of size, I'm saying that it would be unlikely if for no other reason than the difference is so small that variance from cell to cell on the same plastic frame is probably larger. 

~Matt


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## rkereid (Dec 20, 2009)

What I have noticed this year using a variety of methods to get to 4.9, is similar to what others have said here. The 4.9 HSC is not accepted easily by the 2 colonies I have had on it. It takes them a long time to draw out. The PF120 is universally drawn out well by all my bees, the Russians, VSH, and locals. The small cell foundation is misdrawn by the VSH, and drawn perfectly by the Russians and locals. I am not sure why there is a difference in the different lines in their acceptance.

Richard


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## Allen Dick (Jan 10, 2009)

The original question was from Tucson. 

Inasmuch as the bees in that area are widely documented to be Africanized, and because AHB tend to be smaller than EHB, then a smaller cell size should be appropriate in that area and be a natural size for the bees found locally.

One of the first things I noticed in Phoenix years back is that the bees were smaller there than at home.


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## mythomane (Feb 18, 2009)

There are maps for this, but I do not have a link. It is 4.9 in Tucson and here in Dallas, and then rises as you head north. Even the 4.95 is supposedly too high, according to Dee Lusby, to get proper mite control with small cell down here, but I have very few problems. Probably because my stock is BWeaver/Feral.


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