Hello everyone,
I'm trying to buy some foundation for my first beehive, and on Dadant's I keep seeing sizes, but I can't get a cooresponding size on the boxes so I don't know what size I need to get.
My hive has two deeps and two mediums.
I'm ASSUMING that I need to buy THIS (https://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=72) for the deeps, and THIS (https://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=110) for the mediums.
Can someone put me along the right path? By the by, my frames are wedge frames.
Yes, that appears right. Crimped wire works well with wedge top frames.
Walter T. Kelley has the best advice on exactly which foundation was made for exactly what frame. But, unfortunately, they don't have small cell foundation. One confusion is that the term "Medium Brood" is applied to any brood foundation that I now know of on the market and has nothing to do with the SIZE of the foundation, but rather the thickness (sheets per pound). Basically about a 5 1/4" foundation is what fits in a medium and 8 1/4" (or something close to that) fits a deep frame. Slight variations exist to handle things like split bottom bars and split top bars as well as wedge top bars and grooved bottom bars etc.
Michael,
If you could give me a link to somewhere where I can get specific small cell foundation that would be great.
The only thing I'm curious about is that like I was saying earlier that bees build sizes to suit their needs and I know that drone cells are larger than worker cells. If I get small cell foundation and they only draw out small cells, am I doing any harm to my drone brood?
Nevermind. I found them.
On Dadant's website they say very plainly "suggested only for experienced beekeepers".
Why is that? Why would this be a poor starter option for me?
>If you could give me a link to somewhere where I can get specific small cell foundation that would be great.
You found it on Dadant and they are the manufacturers. You can also get it from Bruhsy Mt, Betterbee and others.
>The only thing I'm curious about is that like I was saying earlier that bees build sizes to suit their needs and I know that drone cells are larger than worker cells.
The issue is no different than with standard brood foundation and less so than with plastic foundation. They will rebuild to suit their needs.
> If I get small cell foundation and they only draw out small cells, am I doing any harm to my drone brood?
No. But if you want you can put in some empty frames to get some frames of just drone.
>On Dadant's website they say very plainly "suggested only for experienced beekeepers".
Yes they do.
>Why is that?
I wish I knew. I can only speculate. I assume they don't want to explain regression and don't want you to call and complain if you don't bother to measure cells size, and don't treat and your bees die.
> Why would this be a poor starter option for me?
I would be a good starter option for you.
you might want to really research small cell before you spend the extra money.
Kathy,
Any periodicals or books you'd recommend?
the problem with small cell is that there are very few real studies done. just a lot of beekeepers who swear by it...
there was one study done fairly recently and someone posted it here. you might be able to find it with a search or maybe someone remembers who did it. it did not come out in favor of small cell.
it's up to you. won't hurt, i'm sure. it's just an added expense for something that seems mostly wishful thinking.
All I know is I kept losing them to Varroa until I went to small cell and natural cell and have not lost a hive to Varroa since. Pretty dramatic difference from my point of view.
you have done other things though. you raise your own queens, and have kept only hives that could survive without treatment. perhaps your overall approach is more the reason than small cell?
>you have done other things though. you raise your own queens, and have kept only hives that could survive without treatment.
I didn't lose any to Varroa from when I regressed. I was not raising my own queens at that time.
> perhaps your overall approach is more the reason than small cell?
I'm sure the overall approach is important in the long run. It was not what I did before my Varroa problem was resolved. All I did before that was regress. I'm sure raising acclimatize bees greatly increases survival, but not from Varroa, from climate, and seasons and flows and dearths and cold spells.