Does foundation cause disease ?

[Little_John]

Well - that's the short version. The title should perhaps have read: "Has the continued use of foundation for the last 150 years contributed to an increase in the honey-bees' susceptibility to disease ?" But I thought that was too long ...

I managed to do a brief inspection in-between showers a few days ago, and for some reason I began focussing on the copious number of drones in one of my more flourishing hives. There's no secret behind such numbers: I don't use, and have never used foundation - so the bees decide for themselves what they need, and build accordingly.

But - I then started to wonder whether anyone has researched this possibility: that the use of foundation, by decreasing the 'natural' percentage of the hive drone population, has then reduced the amount of 'genes in the sky' to a point where diseases have become more common ?

Any takers for this one ?

LJ

[prakel]

But - I then started to wonder whether anyone has researched this possibility: that the use of foundation, by decreasing the 'natural' percentage of the hive drone population, has then reduced the amount of 'genes in the sky' to a point where diseases have become more common ?

Any takers for this one ?

LJ

While I can't answer from a research perspective I do tend to feel that there's quite possibly something in your idea. We bought the last of our foundation about eight years ago since when (+/-7 years) we've been using gradually increasing amounts of natural comb as the old stock has run out (for several years we were cutting the sheets down to get two 'squares' and sometimes (when fitting BS frames) a starter strip out of each sheet.

There is without question an increase in drones over what I previously classed as 'normal'. Another aspect which may be totally unrelated is that I've noticed a substantial decrease in swarming during the last five years (famous last words prior to my next inspection I expect!). Fascinating subject, comb building.

edit: I also feel that natural comb allows for more natural placement of drone cells -I know they rework foundation but I see very definite patterns of placement now. I wrote about this before on another thread.

[brothermoo]

I know your thought is more towards drones but I wonder if the use of foundation (recycled wax) may have been allowing chemicals to build up to levels that have now started to effect the colony. Apistan, baverol and other treatments (not mentioning America's liberal use of antibiotics for foulbrood) are lipophilic [spelling?] so they latch onto the wax and they degrade very slowly, especially in dark humid conditions in a hive.

I like as much natural comb and ratio of workers to drones as the bees want ...not just for the point of natural comb but also with being involved in local queen rearing you want ad many of the required drones in the air as possible!
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[Jon]

I think a lot of the regulars here let their bees draw a percentage of natural comb.
I like to have 2 or 3 naturally drawn drone combs in every brood box.

[drumgerry]

It's certainly something I've done in the past but maybe I've got a bit lazy and have come to rely on foundation. I think the advantages of naturally drawn comb are clear and it's something I'm going to re-try. Are most of you giving them starter strips or just a blank frame with wire/fishing line stretched across? And another question while I'm at it - can you get away with not using eyelets if it's fishing line rather than wire?

[Jon]

I don't use starter strips.
I don't use eyelets.
All you need to do is put the new frame between two frames which are already drawn out.
I drill two holes in each side bar with a 2mm bit and hold the line taut with 2 drawing pins.

[Rosie]

I don't use eyelets either and I use 6mm starter strip and 2 strands of fishing line. I use 3 such frames and the rest of the box is made up of foundation that I cast myself. It's quite an established idea (and I believe fact) that commercial wax is laced with chemicals as it's almost all imported from places where the rules are less stringent. I would guess that even British wax would be suspect unless it's your own and you are careful what chemicals you put into the hive. As for old wax containing disease organisms I think standard thinking is that only spores would stand up to the processing treatment and they end up safely encapsulated. I don't know whether that's true or not.

[prakel]

Now that our foundation has been used up starter strips are currently out for me too -same system as Jon re frame placement. If placing between two frames there's no need for a comb guide but they're pretty much a necessity if you're trying to get multiple combs drawn side by side. Lots of people are using wooden guides or shaped top-bars (I expect our Irish friends would probably up-date to correx strips!) which is pretty much the traditional standard that Langstroth was familiar with but Wyatt Mangum (http://www.tbhsbywam.com/)refers to foundation strips as the 'gold standard' and I reckon he might well be right (I'd certainly prefer to listen to him rather than some of the other natural comb gurus but that's just personal choice). We may start using starters again for getting multiples combs drawn.

I sometimes let them work BS deeps without wires but always use stainless wire in the md deeps; a little trick here if they don't pull the comb right to the bottom bar you can cut an inch or so off the bottom of the comb, turn it upside down and lie it on the bottom bar, no need to stick it in place, put the frame back in position (carefully!) they'll make short work of fixing it to the bar and infilling the gap with new comb. That's one I cribbed from CC Miller's '40 years Among the Bees'. Works a treat.

I use the stainless wire because we've always wired frames long before I ever heard of fishing line being used. The cheap wire is just that, stainless will outlive quite a few combs, just needing periodic tightening and NO we don't use those ridiculous wire crimpers that the supply firms will tell you are necessary (I've even heard of people being allowed to believe that they're for use when you first wire the frame...) but in fact are nothing but a beekeeping toy for those who don't know better.

[Bumble]

I'm moving all my colonies over to their own comb in both brood boxes and supers, using fishing line and starter strips. I use tacks to attach the fishing line, but will try drawing pins because they might be quicker.

This year one colony built itself a whole frame of drone cells, zero on any of the other frames. I wasn't sure if it was weird or not.

I'm not entirely convinced that processing removes nasties, because beeswax melts at a relatively low temperature and has a low flash point. (I don't know the science, don't know how high a temperature is needed to kill pathogens or if heat can destroy miticides. It's just a gut feeling I have, having seen some of the foul-looking slabs of wax that are exchanged.) If processing is meant to trap disease permanently in the wax what happens when the bees chew it to soften it? Aren't they likely to ingest a proportion of whatever it contains?

I've seen some of the cheaper wax from one of the major suppliers, bought by a cash-strapped new beekeeper who thought they'd been sent the wrong stuff. It was a deep coffee colour, didn't smell too good and was too wide and too shallow for the frames it was meant to fit. It was returned.

[drumgerry]

It's probably been asked and answered elsewhere but what is a good breaking strain of nylon and are we just talking monofilament? Not braid or fluorocarbon?

[Rosie]

I started with 20lb line and moved in stages to 30lb to try to eliminate the few that are bitten through. The strength did not make a huge difference so this year I am trying 40lb line. Fortunately, once a generation of brood has been raised in the comb it seems strong enough to survive with broken lines.

If you use multifilament line you end up with felt. I am not familiar with fluorocarbon line. It might be worth a try if it's monogfilament.

[drumgerry]

I asked about fluorocarbon (monofilament) as it's low stretch - might be an advantage I don't know!

[Rosie]

I imagine it would be better if it's stronger and hence thinner.

[fatshark]

I use the cheapest 15kg monofilament I can get my hands on. A bit of stretch is good. I asked Jon about how tight in an earlier thread and he helpfully pointed out it doesn't need to be so taught you can play a tune on it. I use second quality frames for this and have about 5 hives at the moment with multiple foundationless frames next to each other. I've had no brace comb and they're all being drawn out beautifully (we have a shed-load of OSR in range). I've just collected a few packets of unwired foundation to make the starter strips … using second quality frames and a thin strip of unwired starter I reckon I can make frames for about 55-60p. I should probably cast my own but have a job and a family etc ;-)

All my bait hives have 9 foundationless frames and one manky old black comb.

I can't comment on the OP re. foundation and disease. What I will comment on is Varroa and virus levels in colonies with large numbers of drones. The colonies I had overt DWV disease in last year were drone raisers for my queen rearing. They got through the winter OK, but have been really slow to start this year. In the same apiary I have hives with 4 full(ish) supers. The drone raisers are still on their first.

I'm very interested to see if the colonies with foundationless frames have similar problems later this season.

[mbc]

I changed all my queen rearing and drone rearing hives to home made foundation years ago having read about fluvalinate residues adversely affecting queen rearing success and drone fertility. I do think it makes a difference, so I've not bought any foundation for a couple of years and will have phased out any bought in stuff in my hives over the next season or two (my comb replacement isnt as regular as current "best practice" suggests is necessary - pathogen build up my arse!). As Jon says about many of the regulars here, I also like to leave an area for the bees to build their own drone comb, this isnt so much as a disease preventative measure but as a diagnostic tool, its handy to have a slab of solid drone to fork a few out, also to cut out if riddled with varroa, and also what the bees do with the space left is a quick indicator of what the colony's presently up to,(if theres plenty of bees yet they're not comb building in the space they're either hungry, or more likely in the right season, thinking of swarming).

[Jimbo]

A number of years ago I sent a chunk of comb plus larvae to a University (Can't remember which one) who were interested in looking at pesticide and chemical residues in the wax and larvae. The result I got back showed no residues detected even though I was using all the usual varroa treatments at the time eg Apistan strips and commercial wired foundation.

[wee willy]

Does not the propensity for the varroa to produce more offspring in drone brood effect colony health also?


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