Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => EQUIPMENT USAGE, EXPERIMENTATION, HIVE PLANS, CONSTRUCTION TIPS AND TOOLS => Topic started by: ronwhite3030 on August 03, 2010, 04:35:52 am
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so I got out of the beekeeping game for about 7 years and I am going through my equipment repairing and getting stuff straightened out. I have a few supers that I had put foundation in and a mouse got into them and ate alot of the foundation out of them, some of the foundations got ate half way up and all the way across my question is should I replace all of the foundations or just let the bees repair them themselves, or should I use these for the brood chamber and what are peoples thoughts on using "brood" foundation for the brood chamber or just using regular foundation? The information would be appreciated thanks.
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If the bees have an area to start, they will draw comb the rest of the way down without a problem. I wouldn't worry about that.
As far as using "brood" vs. regular foundation...I'm not sure what you mean. Do they have different size cell imprints on them? As far as I know most of the foundations use roughly the same size cell imprints, and shouldn't matter.
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yes "brood" have larger cells but dont bees manipulate the foundation as they like? it is also a thicker foundation as well.
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can you put your location in your profile.
after much reading about foundationless, i have stopped using foundation except at times as a guide at the top of the frames. i allow them to draw their own, which has some perils, but also lets them make exactly what they need.
saves me some money too :-D
as for your chewed foundation, if it is still secure in the frames, i'd let them rebuild it. if it's sagging or broken to the point where the bees will mess up the comb trying to draw it out, you might want to save yourself the mess and replace it.
if foundationless sounds at all appealing to you, you can do a search on here and you'll find lots of info/debate about it.
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I would not worry about changing it out. Save your money and time, and let the bees clean it up.
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Ron,
For the most part, brood and honey foundation is pretty much the same size. If anything, brood has a smaller cell. It can have thicker wax than say the "thin surplus", since the thin surplus is intended for comb honey, but the bees will build it as thick as they need it and fortify it with cocoons and such anyway. I too say leave it, the bees will be able to handle it just fine.
I asked because there have been different "fad" type foundations, one of which is a honey cell size that is actually bigger than brood size. All the stuff I've used is pretty much uniform.
Rick