Plastic Drone Comb Frame

ivashka · November 19, 2010, 02:56:16 AM

Hi.
Have any of you used green plastic drone comb frames and if so, how are they used? Is there anything special about them that I need to know? Does it really help to conrol/manage mite. If most of the drones end up dead, will queen have enough drones to mate?
Thanks.

Finski · November 19, 2010, 03:24:42 AM

.
The best way is to put medium foundation into langstroth frame. Bees do drone combs quickly and when brood are capped, you cut the zone away and dig into soil.

Drone zone is good because however bees make drones somewhere.

Surely plactic drone combs help nothing or wax either.

Drones are enough without your aid.

The whole frame of drones is too much to catch varroa.

Hemlock · November 19, 2010, 01:06:46 PM

Used them and didn't like them. Got rid of them. They make better honey frames, less wax.

They say to use one per hive. Well, you need two per hive because as you pull one out something has to take its place.

You are forced into the hive every 20 days regardless. So i hope your weather is stable.

The bees don't decide when to make drones, you do. So I hope you know better than the bees.

The queen never fully fills the frame with brood. I saw frames a quarter filled at most.

My bees liked to bur comb the plastic frame.

The drone frame was in the 7th position. The bees seemed reluctant to cross it at first to get to frames 8, 9, & 10.

Consider how many worker bees will be made by a single frame each season. That's how many LESS worker bees you'll have in your hive because it had the drone frame instead.

KD4MOJ · November 19, 2010, 03:52:48 PM

Interesting observations Hemlock. I've wondered about this drone frames myself. Now I don't have to think about them anymore!

...DOUG
KD4MOJ

latebee · November 19, 2010, 09:56:27 PM

I have just attended a meeting where the speaker was a notable beekeeper with a doctorate
in entomology. He has given me food for thought---remember--half of the genetics of your bees are from drones.The more drones a queen mates with the better she will be accepted and a much greater percentage of her eggs will grow to maturity.Drones also add to the biomass of the colony.
Maybe we should treat for mites without sacrificing the drones.

AllenF · November 19, 2010, 10:23:31 PM

I bought a few and was going to give them a try. It became a little to much work once I started stacking supers and never put them back in after that.

Finski · November 20, 2010, 02:21:07 AM

Quote from: AllenF on November 19, 2010, 10:23:31 PM
I bought a few and was going to give them a try. It became a little to much work once I started stacking supers and never put them back in after that.

you may use them in supers for honey. They need excluder.

ivashka · November 20, 2010, 03:13:37 AM

Thank you all for your responses.

Finski · November 20, 2010, 10:32:43 AM

Quote from: latebee on November 19, 2010, 09:56:27 PM

Maybe we should treat for mites without sacrificing the drones.

even if I cut drone zones away, there are hundreds of drones in every hive.
Drones are never a limiting factor in mating. There are other beekeepers' drones flying too out there. How do I get carniolan like bees even if I have mere Italian queens?

fish_stix · November 20, 2010, 11:55:56 AM

As Finski says, the number of drones available for mating doesn't depend on whether you cut out some sacrificial comb for Varroa control. The bees determine the number of drones they want and make comb accordingly. We use the drone combs and have never found a shortage of drones no matter how often you remove them. They still make drone cells in burr comb and on other brood frames while the queen is using part of the supplied drone comb. We need to quit worrying about how the bees are going to do something they've been very successful at for millions of years.

saskbeeman · November 24, 2010, 07:17:34 PM

I've used both the Pierco green drone frame as well as Randy Oliver's design with 1/3 worker comb on top, bar in between, and open space for bottom 2/3. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. For drone breeding where the drones hatch out of the combs I prefer the one piece frame, as they are consistent sized drones that are produced. On an open space bees will typically start building combs in more then one place and the drone cells where they meet are not consistent in size. For trapping mites however I prefer the open space design. One huge advantage with this is that the egg laying is staggered as the bees build the comb so you are catching mights out of a wider period of brood hatching. The comb is also cut out in the field a replaced into the hive immediately. The disadvantage with the one piece is that if you don't get it back onto the hives after it thaws from the freezer, it makes a disgusting mess and the bees are reluctant to reuse the frame. They are however very nice for extracting honey. I've been told that removing all the drone brood 6 times during the season will get the same varroa control as strips do when applied correctly with no resistance.

As for raising drones for breeding, there are plenty of drones for mating flying around as well as minimal risk of inbreeding due to the genetic makeup of the bee. However, an heavy influence on the drone population in the neighborhood helps increase the odds of your bees breeding to the drones you want.

BjornBee · November 25, 2010, 08:58:13 AM

ivashka,

Drone trapping does work. Although I have inspected many other beekeepers hives who simply forget to rotate out the comb in a timely manner to actually make it work. Of course many do not want to lift off heavy honey supers every three weeks all summer long.

You may want to consider a two queen tower system that facilitates easy removal of drone comb, and actually increases honey production.

You can read the following link, then click on another link for a study on the two queen system.

http://www.bjornapiaries.com/uniquebeekeeping.html

Hope this helps.

bee-nuts · November 26, 2010, 04:15:53 AM

BJORNBEE

Thats a fantastic idea you have with the side by side two queen system which makes incorporating drone removal for mite control much easier. I poke around in my hive at least once every three weeks so that would work great for me. I might just give it a try.

D Coates · November 27, 2010, 11:25:41 PM

Personally I use them until I start putting supers on (June 1) then I let them do their thing. It knocks down the spring numbers nicely. Once the supers are off (Sept 1) I start it again until no more drones are laid (mid-October). I find them to be easy and work well to screw up the Varroa growth curve cycle.

Sparky · November 28, 2010, 08:26:58 PM

Quote from: BjornBee on November 25, 2010, 08:58:13 AM
ivashka,

Drone trapping does work. Although I have inspected many other beekeepers hives who simply forget to rotate out the comb in a timely manner to actually make it work. Of course many do not want to lift off heavy honey supers every three weeks all summer long.

You may want to consider a two queen tower system that facilitates easy removal of drone comb, and actually increases honey production.

You can read the following link, then click on another link for a study on the two queen system.

http://www.bjornapiaries.com/uniquebeekeeping.html
Ok Mike you really have my wheels turning now to new thinking. I may have to give the tower hive a go next season. What type of arrangement do you use for them for the winter, do you just leave them a medium filled with stores or pull them and put a feeder on for them to backfill the deeps ?