drawn comb
In prep for module 1, how do you get drawn comb.
I have done this in past years by putting a brood box with foundation on top of brood colony with 2 frames of brood inserted in middle. Is there other ways please? What about supers? How do you get the foundation drawn out?
The method you describe for getting brood foundation drawn is OK as is shook swarm, Bailey comb change, Demaree and the classic of giving a swarm frames of foundation (and feeding them). With supers add the super of foundation directly above BC + excluder during a heavy honey flow (with a super of drawn comb above it)
Welcome to the forum Susan!
I'm sure that these are all good answers for Module 1. However there are many ways of getting drawn comb. Much of my comb comes from adding a second brood box in mid or early spring to the top of strong colonies, rather like you but without splitting the brood nest across the boxes. The strong ones are keen to work upwards. On the rape I'm happy to get more bees and comb in preference to big honey crops. As simple as that. Also you can add single frames of foundation to the immediate outside of the spring brood nest, but do it too late and you can get drone brood rather than whole frames of worker. Murray McGregor adds frames of foundation in the early autumn to colonies on good forage or with feed on top, one at a time. At that time of year they will not be raising drones.
Gavin, I put frames with just starter strips in my brood boxes just to get drone comb but I am surprised that you would get drone comb on what I assume is worker foundation. Before I started using starter strips almost all my drone comb appeared on the underside of the frames. The rest appeared in damaged comb but almost never on worker foundation.
Rosie, I do it much the same as you but I don't even use starter strips, just a frame with a double strand of fishing line in between two previously drawn combs.
Certainly free-drawn comb when the colony is big enough in late spring tends to have a fair proportion of drone, but don't you often get some drone o the comb when they have only worker foundation at the same time? Get the same foundation drawn earlier, or in September, and it is all worker.
Half expecting now to be outed as a purveyor of myths in Jon's talk to the UKBA next weekend ....
G.
You can, if you run double brood, stick foundation/starter strips in a new box in the middle of the two boxes. They draw it out so quick that if it is very warm weather it can get messy if you try pulling frames
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Thank you all the comments are helpful. Why would you want starter strips in brood frames?
I thought they were only used in supers for selling honey comb, like Heather.
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I use starter strips or the witness mark of cut out frames on all my super frames. I haven't bought super foundation for years.Originally Posted by moteus
As others have said I use starter strips in brood frames in order to allow the colony to produce as many drones as they feel comfortable with. I like to put 3 in each colony and it usually works out at about one frame full of drone cells. The other starter strip frames usually end up with worker cells with very little mixing of the 2 sizes. Once the drone frame has been drawn I put wide spacers on that particular frame despite it being hoffman so that its spacing is a bit greater than normal to accommodate the deeper cells.
I support the starter comb in the brood box with fishing line as Jon does but I find I can extract unwired super combs without breakages so I have no need to use fishing line or wire. All this saves me time and money and I think the bees are happy to have work to do. I don't buy this claim that a pound of wax costs 8 pounds of honey. I think contented bees make honey and giving work to bees in every stage of development helps.
However, if you are taking an exam it's probably best not to mention anything that sounds unconventional in case the examiner happens to be unsympathetic.
Examiners are well aware of the unconventional & will give the candidate credit for their answers if they are workable and backed up with valid reasoning. Our marking schemes take into account that there are many ways of "skinning the proverbial cat". Also each paper is marked independently by two examiners and then moderated particularly if there is a significant difference between the marks awarded by the two examiners.
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