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Date: | Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:38:45 EDT |
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In a message dated 27/09/2009 17:05:59 GMT Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
very few who have seen our hives (between our county club, our conference
attendees, and various other beekeepers (in excess of 150 beekeepers) have
ever seen comb being built without foundation (the popularity of tbh's is
changing this slowly, but our bee inspector and the state apiarist can't
seem to grasp that a lang without foundation is not a tbh...remember,
langstroth's first frames were foundationless frames). fwiw, even at this time of
year with most drones having been expelled, our bees are still building
some comb. they seem not to be drawing out any of the foundation that is left
in the hives at this point.
If I'm putting in new frames into the brood box (British National, same
principle as Langstroth but square boxes) I fit them with starter strips of
thin foundation. Where I am re-using old combs from disease-free colonies I
cut out the centre part that has been bred in leaving a thick footprint
round the perimeter. The subsequent brood patterns have to be seen to be
believed - massive slabs of sealed brood with hardly any misses.
I measured cell sizes on my TBH and found there is a curve between front,
middle and back of the hive (smallest in the middle) with a similar curve
across each comb.
Chris
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