Drawing comb

[alancooper]

I know that drawing comb is mainly an early season process but there is a terrific heather flow on at present and I need super frames drawn for next season. Is it worth trying to do it now (or even feasible)?

[greengumbo]

I know that drawing comb is mainly an early season process but there is a terrific heather flow on at present and I need super frames drawn for next season. Is it worth trying to do it now (or even feasible)?

I think Calluna4U is a big advocate of late season comb drawing ? Or am I getting my experts mixed up.

[Calluna4u]

Experts??? lol....I cringe when I hear that term ...............especially used by some bee people to describe themselves.

The story about late foundation drawing and my system you might be alluding to is our practice of inserting variable amounts of foundation into the broodnest in September, and even October in poly hives, at the time of winter feeding, as they draw it perfectly without drone cells.

However, bees WILL draw brilliant comb on a good ling flow, and some of our experiences over the last two weeks underline that.

Groups of colonies up the A9 got full Langstroth deeps of foundation on 14th August......and of the colony under that box was already close to full then by Tuesday 23rd these boxes were already fully drawn (and perfectly) and already sealing on all 10 combs, so very close to full, and new boxes yet again added on top of that, and yesterday some of those were again drawing on all 10 combs and underneath seemed sealed right across (did not take time to pull frames out). Smith hives in the same area have drawn and filled one to two shallows in the same period. Bear in mind there is a lot more woodwork than that on the hives and to be filling foundation at the top of the hive like that then the rest of the hive is pretty well full.

Your issue with new comb at the heather is extracting it, as it is relatively flimsy and the cut comb market, though lucrative in modest quantities, quickly reaches saturation and thus even on new wax we need to extract most of it. However, even if the comb needs to be destroyed and crushed for honey recovery it is still very worthwhile. 10 BS shallow sheets only costs us about 1.20, plus about 2 pounds for extra labour (cleaning up frames and rewaxing), so the waste of 3.20 results in an average return of about 60 pounds.

I suspect with the increasingly autumn like feel to the weather this few days and the forecast for next week, that unless your colony is more or less full, and bee power still very good (wall to wall bees in the top box) you might be wasting your time with foundation. A week ago this would have been different. We have now stopped adding foundation and will be having a last run round some hives not seen for over a fortnight this weekend. After that we leave them alone unless they are groups getting association visits next weekend. We will start stripping the earliest places around the 7th Sept and be into full swing on that by the following Monday. Have a couple of hundred boxes of foundation deeps being prepared over the next few days to do the swapping out of the old, defective or overfull combs from the nest area.

[alancooper]

Experts??? our practice of inserting variable amounts of foundation into the broodnest in September, and even October in poly hives, at the time of winter feeding, as they draw it perfectly without drone cells. However, bees WILL draw brilliant comb on a good ling flow.

I suspect with the increasingly autumn like feel to the weather this few days and the forecast for next week, that unless your colony is more or less full, and bee power still very good (wall to wall bees in the top box) you might be wasting your time with foundation. A week ago this would have been different.

Thanks for you advice. I will try drawing brood frames when I feed after the heather flow. This year id=s my first on the heather. Until a week ago the bees were using rose-bay willow herb (fireweed) rather than Calluna but once the heather opened, coinciding with a moist, calm period of 17-19C, they switched to Calluna - such a difference in flowering time in the west!

I put an undrawn super onto a full hive two days ago. Fingers crossed.
Alan.

[Mellifera Crofter]

... to do the swapping out of the old, defective or overfull combs from the nest area.

What do you mean with an 'overfull comb', C4U? Filled with what, and why do you want to move a full comb out of the brood box?
Kitta