Hi  all

Allen brought in...

> I have taken to keeping an undrawn frame of plastic
> foundation on the outside of brood boxes.  It is like a follower board in
> that it is easy to pull, but if the bees get crowded, they can draw it
out.

I have never tried it with plastic foundation, but I suspect that in UK it
would happen much the same as happened with wax foundation.

I will start from the beginning...

I used to be in the habit of pulling the outermost frames in the 3rd or 4th
week in January and leaving empty spaces in the outer two positions (it is
too cold for the bees to build wild comb in these spaces at this time) a
fortnight or three weeks later I would place frames with foundation in these
flanking positions.

It was common for these frames to remain undrawn even when the space was
needed, what was common was that the face of the comb next to the
foundation frame was extended to within a bee space of the foundation and
just a few bridged across braces. This was a mess and a waste of foundation
and so the practice was discontinued.

This was done before I had discovered the benefits of insulated tops and the
empty spaces helped to keep the condensation to a minimum, part of the
objective was to get the expanding nest to use up the pollen stores that
were closest to the centre of the nest, but possibly not as fresh as some in
the outer combs which they would have used first if given the chance.

The pulled frames would be used in the formation of nucs later in the
season.


Best Regards & 73s, Dave Cushman... G8MZY
Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website
Email: [log in to unmask] or  [log in to unmask]
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman & http://www.dave-cushman.net

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