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Author Topic: Question on foundations.  (Read 13608 times)

Offline Royall

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Question on foundations.
« on: October 28, 2013, 04:24:20 pm »
I've got to buy foundations for the first time. I've been building hives and components for a Beek but now have two hives of my own and have been given the foundations for the hives that I now have. I was given "PermaDent" foundations and find that it is 76 bucks to ship 100 to me in Hawai'i. That said, I find that Mann Lake sells a box of 100 Rite-Cell on Amazon for 99 bucks with free shipping.

My Beek friend says that he only uses the PermaDent because of delamination problems with repeated use of the Rite-Cell foundation.

What are your experiences? My Beek has only had bees for about 20 months and was wondering if he could just be repeating something that he heard rather than having experienced any problems himself.

Offline danno

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2013, 04:57:39 pm »
Most of my 70 double deep colonies have rite-cell plus most of my honey supers and I have never had a problem with it.   It has a good even coating of wax that the bee's work easily.   

Offline T Beek

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2013, 05:36:51 pm »
Study up on FOUNDATIONLESS systems before the $ are handed over, you may decide that route instead.

Go with no foundation, let your bees decide the size of their cells, they're the ones living there  :-D
"Trust those who seek the truth, doubt those who say they've found it."

Offline RHBee

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2013, 07:39:26 pm »
Study up on FOUNDATIONLESS systems before the $ are handed over, you may decide that route instead.

Go with no foundation, let your bees decide the size of their cells, they're the ones living there  :-D

Agreed,

Do you already have drawn comb? If you do it works to guide the foundationless drawn frames.
Do some searching it could save the shipping.
Later,
Ray

Offline OldMech

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #4 on: October 28, 2013, 07:57:45 pm »
I have to agree as well.. I build my own frames for foundation less and often get the wood for free..  2x4's to 2x12's are cheap when you only need them to be 19 inches long at the most. You can also often get really good prices on boards that are split etc..  but you prob know most of that if you have been building boxes...   sorry.
  I make my top bars pointed on the bottom, and then rub, or paint melted beeswax on the point.. I know other fellas who dont put anything on their foundation.. I just like to put it on there to sort of "point" out to the bees where its supposed to go.
   I also use all mediums, which makes things easier to swap around, as well as lending a certain amount of strength to the foundation less wax.
  The hives I first started with had rite cell, and it worked perfectly fine. Its still in the garage gathering dust and looks useable to this day.
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

Offline danno

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #5 on: October 28, 2013, 08:51:47 pm »
and I will disagree.  I hate foundationless.  I have tried it.     When a colony dies which seems to always happen sooner or later the frames are to fragile and often collapse.   

Offline OldMech

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #6 on: October 28, 2013, 10:32:44 pm »
and I will disagree.  I hate foundationless.  I have tried it.     When a colony dies which seems to always happen sooner or later the frames are to fragile and often collapse.   
   ?   "Frames" are too fragile? My frames are heavier than anything you will buy that HAS foundation in them.. not too sure HOW a frame collapses...    I have seen NEW wax collapse when it was hot and it was mishandled.. but in my mediums I can extract honey by spinning them without blowing them out, so a "frame" collapsing sounds like something wasnt done right???
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

Offline Joe D

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #7 on: October 29, 2013, 02:52:10 am »
I would agree with RH and Old Mech, you have some drawn comb.  Put a foundationless frame in between each drawn this will help them draw it straight.  You will still need to keep a check on them, if you have a frame that's not correct fix it then.  Press it gently to get it straight.  When extracting new foundationless frames you will start and run a little slower.  After they get it anchored good it works fine.  Good luck to you and your bees.

I bought some foundation this year, my first foundation, I got rite cell had a little problem on a couple of hives.  They didn't want to draw it, the other hives did fine and after a while they all drew it out.

Joe

Offline Royall

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #8 on: October 29, 2013, 03:46:31 am »
Now I've got another question. What are you all talking about? What is foundationless or drawn comb?

Really feeling like the beginner now!! LOL

Offline RHBee

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #9 on: October 29, 2013, 05:39:44 am »
I've got to buy foundations for the first time. I've been building hives and components for a Beek but now have two hives of my own and have been given the foundations for the hives that I now have. I was given "PermaDent" foundations and find that it is 76 bucks to ship 100 to me in Hawai'i. That said, I find that Mann Lake sells a box of 100 Rite-Cell on Amazon for 99 bucks with free shipping.

My Beek friend says that he only uses the PermaDent because of delamination problems with repeated use of the Rite-Cell foundation.

What are your experiences? My Beek has only had bees for about 20 months and was wondering if he could just be repeating something that he heard rather than having experienced any problems himself.
Now I've got another question. What are you all talking about? What is foundationless or drawn comb?

Really feeling like the beginner now!! LOL

Well alrightty then, Simply put "drawn comb" is comb that has been fully worked and is ready for use. Working with your friend, the beekeeper, have you seen frames with brood or honey? Those are drawn comb.

Foundationless systems allow bees to produce their own drawn comb without the use of foundation as a guide. This is what the bees do when they don't have us to bother them. In our hives we direct the bees to make comb on frames so that they can be removed. The difficult trick to getting natural comb is to get the bees to put the comb where we want it, on the frames in such a way that the frames can be removed. Without foundation and left on their own bees will produce comb that can cross from frame to frame. Removing frames from a hive like this requires the use of a good sized sharp knife (ask me how I know). There are different methods to guide the bees to draw comb in a foundationless system but it is easier to guide them if you have drawn frames to place on either side of the empty (foundationless) frames.

There is a lot of information contained on this forum about this subject. Search and read, I'm just trying to define the terms. I hope this kinda clears it up for you.

I'm not familiar with permadent but it sounds like another form of plastic foundation. That is a whole other subject.
Later,
Ray

Offline iddee

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #10 on: October 29, 2013, 06:46:57 am »
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*

Moots

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #11 on: October 29, 2013, 08:39:06 am »
Royall,
I think you may be confusing or merging the term Frames with "Foundations"...Often, if not always?...Plastic frames come with plastic foundation as an all in one unit.  However, many people (including me) use wooden frames.  At that point you have basically three options, insert plastic foundation into that frame, or wax foundation, or no foundation (foundationless).

The bees will use either the plastic or wax foundation as a starting point/guide to draw comb...Or, simply the top, or starter strip of an empty frame in the case of foundationless to draw the comb.

Hope this helps!  :)

« Last Edit: October 29, 2013, 09:57:43 am by Moots »

Offline danno

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #12 on: October 29, 2013, 09:40:34 am »
and I will disagree.  I hate foundationless.  I have tried it.     When a colony dies which seems to always happen sooner or later the frames are to fragile and often collapse.   
   ?   "Frames" are too fragile? My frames are heavier than anything you will buy that HAS foundation in them.. not too sure HOW a frame collapses...    I have seen NEW wax collapse when it was hot and it was mishandled.. but in my mediums I can extract honey by spinning them without blowing them out, so a "frame" collapsing sounds like something wasnt done right???
I didn't say frames collapes.  We are talking about foundation here not frames

Offline T Beek

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #13 on: October 29, 2013, 10:26:08 am »
I've not had any fragility issues with foundationless frames or comb since 2007.  I use all mediums.

If a Beek wants to run such a system, using some frames with foundation (as guides to be removed later) until enough frames are naturally drawn out can get a good start on the endeavor.  I pretty much converted to 90+% foundationless over the course of two seasons.  Now I just keep some foundation around, placed temporally to keep things straight, mostly whenever establishing new colonies, while the bees make their own drawn comb with cell sizes of their choosing.............

They know best IMHO, who am I to dictate cell size to a honeybee?  :)
"Trust those who seek the truth, doubt those who say they've found it."

Offline danno

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #14 on: October 29, 2013, 11:07:16 am »
I bought a farm about 9 years ago and in the back of the barn was a giant pile of old shallow frames.  Hundreds of them.  A couple of years ago I decided to make some use of them but not as shallows.  They were only nailed so I took about 100 of them apart. tossed the end bars, built new deep end bars and reassembled them as deeps.  I gave each one a starter strip of thin surplus and put them to work.  The bee's drew them all out quickly.  Winter always bring some deadout so while pulling these  out of the field.  These foundationless frames not being maintained by bee's and heavy with honey collapsed.  What a waste.  I still have a bunch of these in the field.   I guess if I had only a few colonies kept at home this could have been avoided but my operation is spread out in 4 townships.  A sheet of rite cell is under a buck and can standup to some abuse. 

Offline iddee

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #15 on: October 29, 2013, 11:47:06 am »
If you had wired the frames, they would have built right over the wires and the comb would have held up.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*

Offline T Beek

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #16 on: October 29, 2013, 02:20:23 pm »
I would have just used the shallows as is, putting them in shallow supers and keeping complete colonies in them.  Three shallows is about one deep in volume.  Nothing would be wrong with keeping bees in shallows (some Beeks do), they'd be lighter that's for sure and at this stage of my own game....lighter is better  :)

Deeps used for honey, especially w/ unsecured foundationless frames equals a potential mess IMO.
"Trust those who seek the truth, doubt those who say they've found it."

Offline RHBee

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #17 on: October 29, 2013, 02:57:49 pm »
Royall,

Hang in there. Your thread hasn't been hijacked. This is how much information is distributed here. You just have to sift through and glean what you want to use. If something is not understood or you need clarification, simply jump in there and ask.
Later,
Ray

Offline T Beek

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #18 on: October 29, 2013, 05:16:27 pm »
Royall,

Hang in there. Your thread hasn't been hijacked. This is how much information is distributed here. You just have to sift through and glean what you want to use. If something is not understood or you need clarification, simply jump in there and ask.

 X:X  Right on!  Its easy to forget that there as many ways to keep bees as there are keepers (many more than there are ways to skin a cat... :-D) and we are all capable of redirecting most any topic.  Take what you need, leave what you don't.

NOTE; re, Mann Lake.  I love their FREE shipping!  I buy ALL my sugar from them........
"Trust those who seek the truth, doubt those who say they've found it."

Moots

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Re: Question on foundations.
« Reply #19 on: October 29, 2013, 06:05:46 pm »

 X:X  Right on!  Its easy to forget that there as many ways to keep bees as there are keepers (many more than there are ways to skin a cat... :-D) and we are all capable of redirecting most any topic.  Take what you need, leave what you don't.


This my friend is as good of Forum/Beekeeping advice as I've ever seen.  :-D

 

anything