Frames and Foundation: Part 3 : 23


frames firmly in transit. Manley frames with side-bar width of


15/8 or 41 mm must give similar problems for drawing comb. We have never used them but obviously they must work well enough under ideal conditions.


Hoffman Converters


Recently we have been using plastic Hoffman converters, tacked onto SN1 frames using a single 9 mm gimp pin, as a method of spacing foundation in supers and this has proved to be a very reliable method of getting frames drawn evenly. At the end of the season, the spacer can be flipped off before extraction and next season the drawn frame can be used at any spacing you desire. This works really well and we intend to continue the practice in future.


When will a Colony Draw Comb?


A colony will only draw comb if it has an immediate need for more. Bees do not do speculative comb building, in case they may need it at some time in the future or just because the beekeeper has introduced a frame of foundation to the hive. Also, in order for the bees to make wax, there must be a continuous and generous nectar flow or the beekeeper must simulate (mimic) one by feeding. Bees do not normally use stores to draw comb, rather the wax-making bees obtain their raw material (sugars) from incoming nectar. The control mechanism for building comb in which to store honey is fairly well understood. Incoming foragers do not store the nectar they are carrying themselves but instead pass it on to receiver/storage bees that are lurking somewhere near the hive entrance. When the receiver bee is fully ’tanked-up’,


April 2015 Vol 97 No 4


she moves away into the hive to find somewhere to deposit her load. If there is plenty of empty drawn comb in the hive, this task will be quickly accomplished and the bee will return to the hive entrance to pick up another load. When there is plenty of empty comb the average turn-round time will be about ten minutes. However, as the available storage space is filled, it will become increasingly difficult for the bee to find a cell in which to deposit nectar – one that is not already full or being utilised by another bee.


When the storage bee has been unable to unload and has retained a full honey crop for around 30 minutes, this switches her on to wax-making and about 12 hours later she will have her first batch of eight wax scales ready to build comb. Once switched on, this bee will continue producing wax as long as there is a continuous nectar flow.


This is just a short summary of the way a colony regulates its comb building and if you want to read about it in more detail, then Thomas Seeley’s book, The Wisdom of the Hive, Chapter 7, is the place to go.


Comb Drawing in the Brood Area


The above description only


really applies to how bees produce comb when the demand is for honey storage. When bees are kept in a hive using a queen excluder, this is a departure from the situation in a natural nest where the queen would produce brood in a spire up the middle of the hive using already drawn combs, as and when required. Limiting the queen’s activity to the bottom of the hive means that the drawing of comb for brood production is subject to different rules. In this rather artificial situation, this activity seems to be regulated by the need to expand the brood nest – and the only way to do this is the production of new comb. This means that to get frames of foundation drawn below the queen excluder early in the season, they should be located at the edge of the current brood nest, where the colony must draw them quickly if the brood nest is to expand. Foundation placed next to the hive wall (an all too common practice) will only be drawn as a last resort – and then usually badly. Later


Figure 4. Positioning of foundation in a hive with brood-and-a-half


in the season, when the hive is crammed with bees, frames of foundation can be inter-leaved with those containing brood. We know this is contrary to what is recommended in many beekeeping books but it works – see Figure 4 for the details. Providing there are plenty of bees in the hive, there is no risk of chilling brood. Also, it does not seem to do what is often suggested; induce queen cells through bees being isolated from the queen and not getting sufficient queen substance. When the colony is in the right condition for this practice, the comb will be drawn and eggs laid in it in a matter of days and brood nest integrity will be restored.


Brood and a Half When keeping a colony on


a brood and a half (or double brood), the conditions for comb drawing in the upper box are enhanced by warmth coming up from below and the positioning of foundation is less critical. Here foundation should always be introduced within the existing brood nest because on the periphery, it will usually be drawn and immediately used for storage. ♠


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