14 x 12 foundationless frames without wires!!

[hailtryfan]

Is this madness?

Mike

 

[the naked beekeeper]

Yes.

 

[Tom Bick]

Not exactly but you will have to be careful when inspecting and perhaps require you keep the frames vertical.

If I were you I would wire the frames and then let the bees get on with it.

 

[Nellie]

No. I used them successfully in several hives last year (though I might go back to foundation).

Obviously the combs are more fragile than using wired foundation and in my experience the frames don't tend to be fully drawn out, they stop at about 75% drawn.

The first frame in a colony that has had foundation up until that point tends to end up being 100% drone brood then things settle down a bit but you do tend to end up with drone brood wherever they feel like it. You might not regard that as a downside though.

Here's how the majority of my frames ended up (minus queen cells), not in terms of the brood spread, this was one of the first frames in an existing hive with foundation so there's a lot of drone brood.
(Click for larger version)

I made up my frames with wires 1/3 and 2/3 down the frame:



I also syringed a line of cappings wax along the top bars but, to be honest, they mostly ignored that anyway.

I'm leaning towards going back to using foundation, but I really want to see the results of that chemical analysis study that took place last year before I make a final decision.

 

[Beeline]

Just observing your photos Nellie and sorry, off topic BUT,

Are those two queen cells at the bottom of the frame? The reason I ask is because I saw a number of these last year but was unsure whether they were drone or QC, as the supercedure cells I had seen were almost an inch long.
So if they were QC should they have been destroyed because queen would have been barely larger than a drone?
Feedback from the forum would be appreciated as I didn't know whether to destroy them or leave. Thanks.

 

[Adam]

No. I used them successfully in several hives last year (though I might go back to foundation)

The questions was frames without wires? Yes, I think it's madness. They may hold for a few (or many) inspections but eventualy they become difficult when it's hot and sag. If just one frame disintegrates, it will upset the bees, cause a lot of mess, and squash quite a few. I'd say it would be worth wiring them if in doubt.

As a complete aside, I've taken to moving wires from 1/3 and 2/3 to 50% and 75% of the way down, as I believe the frames need more support at the bottom. The one at 1/3 didn't seem to add much as they have the benefit of proximity to the top bar.

Regards,

Adam

 

[RoofTops]

Are those two queen cells at the bottom of the frame? The reason I ask is because I saw a number of these last year but was unsure whether they were drone or QC, as the supercedure cells I had seen were almost an inch long.
So if they were QC should they have been destroyed because queen would have been barely larger than a drone?

They are classic swarm cells in my view. I would not use them to rear a queen but remove them and look for a better cell which hopefully will be found somewhere else. However, never remove queen cells until you know you still have a queen! BTDTGTTS, as the saying goes.

The protruding cells at the top and bottom of the frame are drone cells. Queen cells always point downwards except when they are still young emergency cells, which have not yet been enlarged. It is just possible the slightly larger open cell you can see just above the two queen cells is another queen cell just being started. Otherwise it is a drone cell in the making. For an emergency queen cell the workers float the larva out on a bed of royal jelly and enlarge and draw down the cell - so it looks a bit like a hooked nose.

The capped cells which look like ginger biscuits are normal worker cells.

 

[Nellie]

They are classic swarm cells in my view.

They were supersedure. The colony was a recently arrived swarm, they were the only queen cells in the colony and having popped the queen into a Nuc when I found them the Nuc, once it had built up a bit, did exactly the same.

@Adam
Whoops, without wires? Yes I think that's an accident waiting to happen. (see how little of the comb is attached to the bottom bar on my photo. I did have one hive that drew them fully, but that was an exception.

I'll bee keeping drone brood frames foundation less regardless but I'll be wiring them, I'll give some a go wiring at 50 and 75%

 

[Beeline]

Thanks RT. I thought all QCs were hook nose shaped to accomodate the length of her abdomen. So just to be clear - are you saying those QCs were not the finished product but still growing?

Yikes - I had a number of those last year (1st year).

 

[Nellie]

Yes,

At the time that photo was taken each had a few day old larvae in them.

I've got a photo kicking around somewhere which shows queen "cups" on the left going up to still uncapped queen cells as you move to the right.

 

[Finman]

.
It is stupid, but life teaches.

You think that others make it for fun?

 

[Nellie]

Thanks RT. I thought all QCs were hook nose shaped to accomodate the length of her abdomen. So just to be clear - are you saying those QCs were not the finished product but still growing?

Found it (click for large version)



You tend to get the ones on the left frequently and when you look in them you'll see they're empty. At that point they're often referred to as "play cups". You can remove those if you really want to but they'll probably just build them back again so I tend to leave them and maybe just mark the frames with a drawing pin.

if you look in them and see an egg or especially a larvae then they're intending to either swarm or supersede the existing queen. Conventional wisdom holds that if there's only a couple and they're towards them middle rather than on the bottom of the frames then it's supersedure but if there's lots (I've removed 20 from a hive before now) and on the bottom of the combs like the picture above then it's an intention to swarm. From my experience so far, they'll put Queen cells for swarming anywhere there's a gap in the comb and find them between the side bar of a frame and the comb halfway up from time to time. Rooftops reckoned that those cells in the previous photo were swarm preparation, I know they were superseding the queen so it's often not as clear cut as made out.

The cells on the right of the picture almost certainly have larvae in them and aren't too far off being sealed, they're a few days off but I wouldn't leave them a week to decide what to do. Annoyingly I don't have a (decent) photo of a sealed queen cell to hand but I dare say Google images will turn something up without too much trouble.

 

[RoofTops]

I thought all QCs were hook nose shaped to accomodate the length of her abdomen.

A "proper" queen cell is started from an inverted cup and the cell is then drawn downwards. What are usually termed emergency queen cells start with a normal worker cell, which is more or less horizontal. The bees extend the cell outwards and then downwards, giving it the impression to me of a hooked nose.

I take Nellie's word for it the cells in the picture were supercedure cells. They looked like emergency cells to me.

Although not a great example, the longer cell below, from which the queen has already emerged is what I would call a proper queen cell - i.e. it did not start life as a worker. The little cell with the bee on it is another "proper" queen cell just starting to be made. Both of these are swarm cells.

These cells, in the picture below, are in the middle of the comb, but are still swarm cells, and they started life as worker cells. These are emergency cells. The problem with emergency cells like this is the larva were not fed as queens for the first part of their life so they will not be as fully nourished, and therefore will not develop as well as a queen larva fed from the start as a queen.

 

[Skyhook]

Thanks RT. I thought all QCs were hook nose shaped to accomodate the length of her abdomen. So just to be clear - are you saying those QCs were not the finished product but still growing?

Yikes - I had a number of those last year (1st year).

OK lets see if I get this the right way round. Some cells eg swarm cells tend to be started vertical Like icicles), and will therefore appear longer. Cells started on the face of the comb (eg emergency cells) may incorporate the original cell into their space calculations and therefore have less showing, which is what I think is happening here. I doubt if they will get much bigger as they are rounded at the end. The queens inside can sometimes form bent around the hooked-nose shape, but seem to emerge OK.

.

 

[RoofTops]

The pictures are not great but have a look at this: http://www.wbka.com/pdf/a012queencells.pdf

 

[Nellie]

I take Nellie's word for it the cells in the picture were supercedure cells. They looked like emergency cells to me.

The shape of the comb isn't that clear in that photo, there's an "overhang" where those cells are so although they're up the comb, so to speak, they're on the bottom of that particular comb. The queen was still in situ and continued to build up a Nuc until the Nuc decided they also wanted to supersede her, I guess it's possible they were just really swarmy but that's not what I'm seeing If you look closely at the photo you'll see the comb underneath the queen cells is behind the wire while the comb to the left has the wire running right through it creating that overhang where the queen cells are.

To get back to the original question, that confusion does perhaps highlight an issue of not using foundation, you don't always get a "perfect", single comb in the frame. That frame was drawn out to a point and then as they filled up the other frames as well they drew out more comb along the bottom. That frame was particularly wobbly as a result and without the wires I'm pretty sure I'd have had a disaster with it.

 

[davemacdon]

Back to the original question (and please forgive any appearance of stupidity - you are probably right - I am!) Why would you want to put a 14x12 frame in without wired foundation? or even for the bees to build with out wire? They will never be spun in an extractor and surely (not Shirley) the foundation will be quicker and easier for the bees to build comb onto???

And , as has been pointed out, you can dictate that the foundation would be worker size, not drone foundation. I agree that any failure of bee built comb would make a mess and squash a few.

Am I missing something here?

Many thanks,

Dave.

 

[Nellie]

From my point of view I was largely experimenting I stopped used foundation in supers 3 years ago with no problems at all so I wanted to see if the same held true in the brood boxes. What's in wax is of concern to me, making a point to try and keep rubbish like pyrethoids etc out of my hives it seems to defeat the object if it's getting in through the foundation.

I was also interested to see what the bees did if they were left to their own devices. I'm largely of the opinion that if bees want to raise drones, let them raise drones, why try and force them not to?

in terms of time to build, I can't say that I noticed any difference in the time it takes to draw out a comb from foundation compared to just leaving them to get on with it. If they need it they build it.

I don't extract from 14x12 frames so that wasn't a concern but I wouldn't not use wires. So far they've held up well. the frame in the photo being the notable exception as they built it in stages so the bottom comb below the queen cells keeps trying to escape.

Foundation concerns not withstanding I'm far more inclined to go back to foundation but stick in an empty frame to keep all the drone brood in one place for IPM/Queen rearing purposes. (and possibly put that frame on plastic spacers to increase to 38mm from the 35mm imposed by the hoffman frames).

 

[Gardenbees]

It's not madness! Both my 14x12 boxes have foundationless frames in there. I just put one or two in with foundation (which was wired) just to keep the others straight. Most just have a strip along the top as a guide. The bees filled all the "empty" frames very rapidly, and very strongly. Obviously they can't be spun, but they are easily strong enough to inspect. If you believe that bees like to vary their own cell size in quite subtle, and potentially beneficial, ways, then this is one way to let them. However, it does come with caveats:

Firstly: new comb in foundationless frames needs very gentle handling, if any - very much like the comb in top bar hives. It soon firms up, but obviously there's the potential for a mess if you don't take care with it. Otherwise it's fine, even in hot weather. The bees seem to know how strong their combs need to be, and really weld them into place.

Secondly: bees need to have a good flow on (or added food) to produce a lot of wax. Not a problem for me and mine, but then I'm not in it for commercial honey production.

I haven't noticed any problems with drone brood placement; I usually put a couple of BS frames in anyway, near the entrance, which they concentrate drone comb onto; to cull potential mite reservoirs I just break the drone comb off the bottom of these.

I'm not fanatical about avoiding foundation but I'm not particularly keen either: the bees dislike the metal wires and I dislike the recycling of wax which may contain residues. I opt for a halfway measure, I suppose. I haven't had any problems at all with it.

 

[hedgerow pete]

yes you are