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[prakel]

As a current enthusiast for wild comb, I'm intrigued - what's brought you back to using foundation, and are you going to give up wild comb completely?

A few things. There's a high cost involved in running colonies on natural comb. I've read plenty of clear cut statements about bees building natural comb quicker than they pull foundation out, well, I've got a real time comparison going on at the moment and there's absolutely no doubt that they're choosing the foundation in preference to the empty frames and, when they do get to working both together they complete the foundation sooner.

The Beekeeper's Quarterly reprinted an article by Murray McGreggor a few years ago (was originally a post on Bee-L I believe) where he went into some detail regards "Drawn Comb, Foundation or Starter Strips -which method gives the best honey yields?". BKQ No 94 Dec 2008. Good reading.

There's also a pdf Low Cost Foundation by by K S Aidoo and R J Paxton. which comes to a similar conclusion that's well worth reading:
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...t7udhSnQ5DKJlA

Another cost is that of keeping way too many drones on the wing. Once a colony is established on natural comb it seems to produce drones beyond it's needs. Why this is I really couldn't say. 20% drone comb in natural nests is the figure normally touted as 'right'. 20% allows for a lot of drones in a modified dadant hive. I've not measured the comb (edit: for drone cell percentage although I may now do so as I pull the old combs) or counted the bodies but I can see quite clearly that there are too many for my liking. There's a suggestion that quality surpasses quantity, again, I don't know if this is right but it makes a lot of sense to me.

My use of natural comb started as an enforced money saving strategy, I don't regret the experience one bit as it's certainly opened my eyes to a few things and yes, I will still use some natural comb although I doubt that it'll have a prominent place in our main hives. I do have a few ideas which I'd like to play around with, but that's for the future. What should be remembered though is that in my opinion I would be a lot further forward than I am if I'd had regular access to foundation.

None of this should be read to mean that I think natural comb colonies don't have a place in beekeeping it's just not the right way forward for myself.