Plastic Fully Drawn Comb opinions

[john moran]

Hi, Wondering about 2 products and if anyone has had experience using them (mostly because I inherited some).

1) Honey Super Cell : Small cell size(4.9mm) fully drawn plastic comb. Promoted to give you a smaller size bee supposedly more resistant to mites due to shorter life-in-cell time. I'm sure there is plenty of opinion on both sides of this but mostly interested in hearing from anyone who has actually used it.

2) Plastic Drone Comb: I guess meant to attract the most mites for subsequent 2 day vacation in the freezer. Sounds good on paper, wonder if anyone has actually used it. Seems pretty inexpensive.

I'm starting 4 packages from scratch and thought I'd use one for experimenting with this stuff since I have it. I'm not in this for gobs of honey this year. This is just a hobby with the goal of keeping the bees alive.

Cheers.
jb

[Marker Ramsey]

!Hi John,
I have used green plastic drone comb….and it does work exactly as you describe. 2 days in freezer then back into the hive for bees to clean.
I can't think if any downsides to it's use except maybe a slew of drones if you don't remove it in time, or a mite explosion if the hive is infected.

beehappy
m

Marker Ramsey
marker...@me.com

[jeanne hansen]

Dear John,

I'm re-reading on of my beekeeping books by Michael Bush.  He loves small cells.  He also has a unique idea that these smaller bees need smaller spacing between the brood combs.  He puts 11 frames in a standard 10-frame hive body, shaving down the self-spacing ears on the ends of the frames so they all fit.  He says less bees can keep more brood warm this way because there is less space between combs that must be filled up, meaning the bees can build up faster.

He also claims to have mite-free bees with no treatments.  Could this be part of the reason??

 

Thanks!

Jeanne Hansen

824 Jacobson Ave

Madison, WI 53714

608-244-5094

---

From: john moran <barabo...@gmail.com>
To: mad...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, April 5, 2012 9:36 AM
Subject: [madbees] Plastic Fully Drawn Comb opinions

[Alex Jokela]

I too have used/experimented with the green plastic drone frames. They work well enough. Gets the 2 day "spa treatment" in the freezer and then a one day stay over in the chicken yard for clean up (and its a treat for the chickens), then back into the hive.

-acj

[john moran]

I'll have to go back to his book(s) that I bought. So if you started a hive with a full deep box of nothing but HSC, wouldn't it be void of drones other than those that came in the package? I recall reading that the bees will still draw the HSC out a little.

I also think I read (maybe in the Bush book) was that you started with the HSC and then converted over to regular foundation.

[Dan Curran]

John--

1) All of the controlled studies have shown that small cell comb makes no difference for mite populations. Some claim otherwise, but so far the evidence is anecdotal.

2) You can also buy drone comb foundation. I've got frames with this in my hive for the first time this spring.

Dan

[Marker Ramsey]

!Agreed. 

Ed and Dee Lusby are considered the gurus of moving bees to small cell for better health. Going so far as to say cell size well vary with latitude, with the bees picking whats best for them. There outcomes are great and they have develop a program to teach others about small cell.

However most of there findings have NOT  been duplicated at other apiaries, so the official scientific answer is small cell does not affect mite load. Randy Oliver believes it may affect bee health which may in turn make bees better at handling the mite load.

Marker Ramsey

marker...@me.com

[Ginny Bormann]

Sorry Marker, but your info is a bit off. Dee and Ed (who died a few years ago) Lusby are indeed considered the doyens of small cell beekeeping, but their findings *have* been duplicated at many other apiaries. Michael Bush in Nebraska has been successfully using small cell/no treatment methods for years, as have many others, including Erik Osterland, the editor of the Swedish beekeeping journal. Dee has a yahoo group where you can hear from beekeepers from all over the US, Alaska to Puerto Rico and points beyond, who are doing it. I read the posts to the group religiously for a few years, but it's an extremely high volume list, so as I've become more comfortable with the concepts, I've gradually dropped away.

There are other options to explore and for those who are interested, I'd suggest reading Michael Bush's book or website, or The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping, which was written by two successful beekeepers in Massachusetts who learned Dee's methods by working with her at her Arizona apiaries.

The amount of scientific study done on small cell is paltry and my opinion is that the methodology was sloppy and the results far from conclusive. None of us have all the answers about anything (especially not me) and my nature is to be constitutionally wary of anything promoted as the one true way. I'm a small cell/ no treatment beekeeper who learned a lot from Dee; I've also read stuff she has written that strikes me as a bunch of hooey. I consider Michael Bush to be my mentor, but I don't always agree with him either. My way is to learn as much as I can about the different points of view and then make up my own mind.

-Ginny Bormann
Town of Bristol

[Marker Ramsey]

Ginny once again, there has been no reproducible  reduction of mite load, not if the bees are healthy. As a top bar beekeeper I have been 'small cell or no human intervention cell/ no treatment for 3 years as my many post professing the virtues of non treatment, non intervention, pro swarming, attest.  I tried to note that Randy Oliver who couldn't reproduce a reduction in might load was still able to have healthier hives. He just couldn't attribute it to 'small cell reducing the the mite infestation'.

So I apologize if you thought I was saying small cell was not successful, I was trying to limit my comment to the does 'small cell reduce mite load' part.

I have meet Micheal Bush and Les who's Cowder fortheloveofbees web site is dedicated to 'natural top bar beekeeping at TBHive workshop and am a avid reader of both there websites. For natural beekeeping I suggest the Barefoot Beekeeper by Phil Chandler, Natural Beekeeping by Ross Conrad (Organic Langs, the others are Topbar hive proponents), and finally for a totally funny, compelling manifesto on why low intervention is the only way to keep bees read "Fear and Loathing in the City of Bees" which can be found at Anarchy Apiary http://anarchyapiaries.org/hivetools/.

The amount of scientific study done on small cell is paltry and my opinion is that the methodology was sloppy and the results far from conclusive. 

That's the point, no one has conclusively been able to prove this. Who knows maybe it's true. I don't use 'manmade' cells in my top bar and the comb comes in all kinds of sizes and even shapes!! Since my bees over wintered without mite treatments that might be proof that 'small cell or natural cell' size reduces mite load or that the breeder who breed them to resist mites did his job.

My way is to learn as much as I can about the different points of view and then make up my own mind. 

Thats a cool way to bee, in addition sometimes you just have to try something based on your best information and then examine the results which my defer from what I've decided in my own mind;)

beelearnin'

m

Marker Ramsey

marker...@me.com