How much honey bees need to build combs

[Finsky]

Bees need 8 kg honey to make 1 kg comb wax. 
10 langstroth foundations are equal 1 kg wax. When you melt combs, you get 2 kg wax.
To draw 10 foundations to combs bees need about 1 kg wax more.

When you produce comb honey bees need almost double amount honey to produce cell wax too.

These calculations are pretty same as this reseach have got on field:

http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/articles/fdnvsdrawn.htm

You may also see how much natural amount of dronecombs (20%) affects on honey yield 
http://www.edpsciences.org/articles/apido/abs/2002/01/Seeley/Seeley.html

When you give free space for bees, they draw normally 20% drone combs.
Those combs do not pdure compared with foragers.

To bees wax comb making is hard job. It better to hive foundations to hive when hiney flow is at it's best.
Comb builders are at the age of  2 -3 week. It it period between brood nursing and foraging.
Bees draw combs only if they need them. If honey frow stops, they stops drawing.

[Kirk-o]

wow looks like a lot of work for bees to have own comb
kirko

[Brian D. Bray]

The proportioan of nectar gathered to wax manufactured along with the honey needed for subsistance is why I say that to expect a honey crop from a 1st year hive is not realistic.  In my case, by the time the bees drawn out 32 frames (4 8 frame mediums) of comb and fill it with stores it takes a lot of nectar.  I've had hives that have produced excess honey the 1st year and I've had hive that couldn't build up to my basic 4 medium hive in one summer. Finky's data pretty much matches with what I had been taught, that it takes about 64 lbs of nectar to make 1 lb of wax.  That's a lot of work.  It takes about 1.5 lbs of wax to draw out 8 medium frames.

[TwT]

Bees need 8 kg honey to make 1 kg comb wax. 
10 langstroth foundations are equal 1 kg wax. When you melt combs, you get 2 kg wax.
To draw 10 foundations to combs bees need about 1 kg wax more.

When you produce comb honey bees need almost double amount honey to produce cell wax too.

These calculations are pretty same as this reseach have got on field:

http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/articles/fdnvsdrawn.htm

You may also see how much natural amount of dronecombs (20%) affects on honey yield 
http://www.edpsciences.org/articles/apido/abs/2002/01/Seeley/Seeley.html

When you give free space for bees, they draw normally 20% drone combs.
Those combs do not pdure compared with foragers.

To bees wax comb making is hard job. It better to hive foundations to hive when hiney flow is at it's best.
Comb builders are at the age of  2 -3 week. It it period between brood nursing and foraging.
Bees draw combs only if they need them. If honey frow stops, they stops drawing.

Professor, very good post, this will help the beginners understand why not to inspect honey the first year!!!!!! YOU THE BEE PROFESSOR IN MY BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Finsky]

In my beekeeping I get so much capping wax that I may by with them new foundations. When I bring my melted waxes to delivered he  give me foundations with price 3$/kg.   If you bye foundations without own wax, price is 10 $/kg.

This way recycled waxes value is 7 $/kg. From old combs I get quite little wax.  Work is huge. Now I bought a 2000 W steam apparatus with which I melt old combs. When you make candles from bee wax, you notice that they are really expencive compared to honey consumption.

[wff]

Bees need 8 kg honey to make 1 kg comb wax. 
10 langstroth foundations are equal 1 kg wax. When you melt combs, you get 2 kg wax.
To draw 10 foundations to combs bees need about 1 kg wax more.

When you produce comb honey bees need almost double amount honey to produce cell wax too.

These calculations are pretty same as this reseach have got on field:

http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/articles/fdnvsdrawn.htm

You may also see how much natural amount of dronecombs (20%) affects on honey yield 
http://www.edpsciences.org/articles/apido/abs/2002/01/Seeley/Seeley.html

When you give free space for bees, they draw normally 20% drone combs.
Those combs do not pdure compared with foragers.

To bees wax comb making is hard job. It better to hive foundations to hive when hiney flow is at it's best.
Comb builders are at the age of  2 -3 week. It it period between brood nursing and foraging.
Bees draw combs only if they need them. If honey frow stops, they stops drawing.

I don't doubt that drawing comb costs honey, and it makes perfect sense that starting a colony on drawn comb will yeild more honey than starting a colony without drawn comb, no matter whether they have foundation or not. 

What I questioned before was whether drawing foundationless comb costs twice as much honey as drawing comb on foundation, and I still doubt that.  I have two equal size pieces of comb here at my desk.  One was drawn on foundation and one was drawn in a TBH with no foundation.  The TBH comb has only a paper thin wall between the two sides of the comb, no where near as thick as foundation.  It's clear that the bees in the TBH did not produce enough wax to compensate for the mass of the foundation.  I don't have a balance to weigh them with, but just holding them in my hand I'd say the foundationless comb is at least one third lighter than the comb on foundation.  If that's correct, then:

10 frames foundation = 1 kg wax
10 frames drawn foundation = 2 kg wax
10 equivalent foundationless combs = 2/3 * 2 = 1.33 kg

If 1 kg wax costs 8 kg honey then 1.33 kg wax costs 10.64 kg honey.

If starting on foundation costs 8 kg honey then starting with no foundation doesn't necessarily cost 16 kg honey.  That's my only point.

I'm guessing at the difference in mass, so if someone has a balance and can actually compare the mass of foundationless comb vs. comb on foundation, they may prove that I'm way off.  If I'm close, though, the cost in honey of drawing foundationless comb is much less than twice the cost of drawing comb on foundation, even though the cost of either is more than starting on drawn comb.

[Finsky]

If starting on foundation costs 8 kg honey then starting with no foundation doesn't necessarily cost 16 kg honey.  That's my only point.

We may wonder what is the cost per something.  Neither of us have researcher issue truly. I just tell what others have revieled out. The final cost depends how much you actually get honey from hive and what is fixed cost per hive or per frame.

If your calculation is 30% smaller it is not perhaps important. When you put hives on different pastures, the difference may be 3-5 fold =300-500%.

If combs are thin, they will go into pieces when extracting. So thin combs are not an advantage.

If you put hives so that bees carry yield on mile distance to hive, you loose 50% of your yield.

If you winter your bees with honey, you loose 50% of your yield. Michael says that it is not true because his winter is 1/3 that of ours.

Dick Allen from Anhorage have done many tricks with his bees in Alaska.  I have understood that Alaska beekeeping is not very advanced because it is so easy to import every year new bees from south and beekeepers use southern knowledge. Allen Dick is a Canadian person.

The truth is difficult reviele out. Year's weather and yield varies and it takes time to see what is really important.

It is said that excluder is a gate for honey. In reseaches it has rivieled out that yield is the same when you use exluced or not. But how to use there are differencies.