Does foundation cause disease ?

[Rosie]

I started with 20lb line and moved in stages to 30lb to try to eliminate the few that are bitten through. The strength did not make a huge difference so this year I am trying 40lb line. Fortunately, once a generation of brood has been raised in the comb it seems strong enough to survive with broken lines.

If you use multifilament line you end up with felt. I am not familiar with fluorocarbon line. It might be worth a try if it's monogfilament.

[drumgerry]

I asked about fluorocarbon (monofilament) as it's low stretch - might be an advantage I don't know!

[Rosie]

I imagine it would be better if it's stronger and hence thinner.

[fatshark]

I use the cheapest 15kg monofilament I can get my hands on. A bit of stretch is good. I asked Jon about how tight in an earlier thread and he helpfully pointed out it doesn't need to be so taught you can play a tune on it. I use second quality frames for this and have about 5 hives at the moment with multiple foundationless frames next to each other. I've had no brace comb and they're all being drawn out beautifully (we have a shed-load of OSR in range). I've just collected a few packets of unwired foundation to make the starter strips … using second quality frames and a thin strip of unwired starter I reckon I can make frames for about 55-60p. I should probably cast my own but have a job and a family etc ;-)

All my bait hives have 9 foundationless frames and one manky old black comb.

I can't comment on the OP re. foundation and disease. What I will comment on is Varroa and virus levels in colonies with large numbers of drones. The colonies I had overt DWV disease in last year were drone raisers for my queen rearing. They got through the winter OK, but have been really slow to start this year. In the same apiary I have hives with 4 full(ish) supers. The drone raisers are still on their first.

I'm very interested to see if the colonies with foundationless frames have similar problems later this season.

[mbc]

I changed all my queen rearing and drone rearing hives to home made foundation years ago having read about fluvalinate residues adversely affecting queen rearing success and drone fertility. I do think it makes a difference, so I've not bought any foundation for a couple of years and will have phased out any bought in stuff in my hives over the next season or two (my comb replacement isnt as regular as current "best practice" suggests is necessary - pathogen build up my arse!). As Jon says about many of the regulars here, I also like to leave an area for the bees to build their own drone comb, this isnt so much as a disease preventative measure but as a diagnostic tool, its handy to have a slab of solid drone to fork a few out, also to cut out if riddled with varroa, and also what the bees do with the space left is a quick indicator of what the colony's presently up to,(if theres plenty of bees yet they're not comb building in the space they're either hungry, or more likely in the right season, thinking of swarming).

[Jimbo]

A number of years ago I sent a chunk of comb plus larvae to a University (Can't remember which one) who were interested in looking at pesticide and chemical residues in the wax and larvae. The result I got back showed no residues detected even though I was using all the usual varroa treatments at the time eg Apistan strips and commercial wired foundation.

[wee willy]

Does not the propensity for the varroa to produce more offspring in drone brood effect colony health also?


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