Hi Jim, Chris and all others in this thread

I live roughly halfway between Murray and Chris and have a set of local 
conditions that reflects this to some extent, but in the main I get less 
sunshine that either of them.

As far as brood comb rotation is concerned, I started out believing that 
renewing two combs per box per year was 'right' (because that was the 
message being propagated by those that I learned from).

I gradually modified my view over a twenty five year period until I now 
consider 3 or 4 combs per year to be 'right' (British hives have 11 
combs) giving a nominal 3 year rotation like Trevor.

Super comb has always been different for me, I do not worry too much 
about the age of honey storage combs, so long as they look clean and 
have not been bred in.

I have used foundation and starter strips in about equal measure and 
have found very little to choose between the two as far as productivity 
is concerned, which could be a reflection of being halfway between 
Murray and Chris.

If I were starting all over again I would probably use 5.3 mm plasticell 
foundation for honey combs and would also use it in mating nucs, 
providing that the bees would draw it properly.

As my 'outfit' was geared to breeding and selection, I have another type 
of comb... That in mating nucs and in my case that amounted to about 45% 
or 50% of the comb in the operation, this comb spent part of the year in 
mating nucs and in the winter is was occupied by full sized colonies, it 
was used for brood and was also filled with honey for re-populating the 
nucs. This comb was replaced less frequently, probably less frequently 
than its lower breeding use might indicate at something between five and 
ten years rotation (often difficult to find them empty).

Any scruffy of damaged comb would be pulled as soon as possible, 
regardless of age, some drone cells were transplanted in circular chunks 
into brood combs for raising early drones and some of the patches were 
much older than the comb they were spliced into.

I cannot say that the bees showed any preference for any type of comb, 
although some experiments that I made with plastic foundation in brood 
frames were a failure (the bees appeared not to like it), however since 
conducting the tests I have found out that the cell size of this plastic 
foundation was 5.9 mm or even 6.0 mm, which is a bit large even for 
British bees, which prefer and usually get 5.4 mm or 5.45 mm foundation.


Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://melliferabees.net Email: [log in to unmask]
Short FallBack M/c, Build 7.21/2.01
Son of ORAC M/c, Build 5.o1/2.o1

****************************************************
* General Information About BEE-L is available at: *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm   *
****************************************************