?>> a Danish beekeeper about it at Apimondia and he was happy that it did not 
reduce honey crops.

> Unless the foundation had a lot of extra wax in its composition.. Granted 
> that drawing out foundation doesn't require all that much wax per frame, but 
> the time to do that would take time away from other honey production 
> activities to my mind.

I think a lot of the variation in opinion and experience comes down to the 
breed of bee, timing of flows, climate, hive design, management, and consequent 
population demographics at flow time.  These all vary from region to region, 
hive type to hive type, and year to year.

Where flows are slow and steady, the weather is warm, populations of young bees 
are large, and the hive interior is continuously warm, comb building is 
probably least expensive to the bees. Where flows are sudden, heavy and short 
bees will be unable to exploit them fully.

Where short, heavy flows happen suddenly and the other conditions are not met, 
the bees find they have no place to store the nectar, which may take up ten 
times as much space as the honey that is ultimately made from it.  On 
foundation, they have no place to store it except in the bees themselves and 
foraging is slowed, although accelerated comb building is a reflex to this 
state.

Imagine what happens in a colony of bees on foundation on one of those days 
when a hive on comb brings in 30 pounds of nectar, as is not all that uncommon 
up this way.  Obviously the foundation hive is not going to be able to 
accommodate even a quarter of it.  Opportunity lost.

As for the cost of drawing foundation, the type of foundation used is 
important, too.  As mentioned, the bees the draw the extra wax which is 
designed into the thick wall bases of heavy wax foundation up into cell walls. 
Some foundation has more wax in the wall bases than others, and in some cases 
there is enough there to form a fairly deep cell without adding new wax.  A 
careful examination of various foundation brands will reveal the differences.

Plastic foundation bases obviously cannot be drawn up and the slight amount of 
beeswax sprayed on the sheets is just for attraction and cannot make much comb. 
Some beekeepers dip the plastic sheets or frames in hot wax or paint them with 
beeswax so the bees have more material available and claim good results.

So, my take on this question is that in some circumstances and some seasons 
drawing 100% of the comb from foundation can be a minor burden, but in others 
can cost most of the crop.

For a hobbyist, a year without a crop can be convenient and  even a 
marriage-saver.  It can provide a weekend without extracting and the associated 
mess.  For a commercial beekeeper, it can lead to bankruptcy.

Since comb drawing is chancy in many regions, prudence and an appreciation of 
the risk of going "all-in" is important for deciding a strategy.

Additionally, as I often mention, hives which have been on all-foundation do 
not winter well here in Alberta.  Bees here winter better on at least some dark 
comb in the brood boxes.

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