What serious risk could that be, PH?Originally Posted by Poly Hive
What serious risk could that be, PH?
All the combs on this thread show new drawn wax with at most a couple of generations of brood raised in it.
The combs have at best some 40 % of worker brood. They may be fine for a drone colony for mating purposes but not a comb I would want my brood nests to have in production colonies.
If all the brood combs were like that then the colony would be severely handicapped in my view.
PH
Is concern over residues in foundation warranted?
Bear in mind that for my photos at least they were foundationless frames going into colonies previously on foundation and there seems to be an initial tendency for the bees to concentrate on drone cells when you do a piecemeal replacement of foundation based comb.
They did eventually settle into maybe 20% drone cells, not uncommonly packed with stores.
I have ultimately gone back to using 10 frames of foundation to 1 frame of foundationless to keep the drone brood in one place which from an ipm point of view makes life much easier than trying to carve out drone brood from wherever the bees decided to put it.
I like all my colonies to have at least 2 or 3 drone combs as queen rearing is my main beekeeping interest.
I add comb like this to colonies which don't have drone comb in April.
A bee colony likes to have several thousand drones per colony at mid summer.
The other thing is, if you don't give bees somewhere to make drones they will try and modify worker cells or will make wild comb anywhere they can in order to create a few cells to rear drones.
You can stress out a colony by trying to shoehorn it into a very unnatural configuration.
I have seen older beekeepers removing drone comb accompanied by the commentary that 'drones eat honey'
This ignores the fact that drones generate heat and help to keep brood warm.
You never get all the brood combs in a colony drawn as drone comb.
If a colony has 100% worker comb and you remove a couple of frames they will draw out drone comb, especially early in the season.
later on in the season they use the drone comb for honey storage.
Last edited by Jon; 07-12-2012 at 10:12 PM.
I read some research somewhere (and I'm terribly sorry - I don't know where) that the the colony adjust drone-laying according to circumstances and need - and that the queen has a say in this decision-making. Remove the drone cells, and they'd want to make up the lost numbers. If you saw a lot of drone cells on those combs, then it probably means that they needed that space and made use of the opportunity to raise drones. The ratio of drone to worker cells might be different on subsequent frames.
I wonder if you're right in thinking it will adversely affect production. Do you know?
Kitta
If you mean know in the sense of producing research links then my answer is no.
If however you mean do I have knowledge then the answer is yes. I manage my drone brood, so as to have the most workers, and keep the hives happy with their drones. A happy hive produces honey.
PH
How exactly do you do that if you have a problem having drone comb in the hive as in the examples earlier in the thread?I manage my drone brood, so as to have the most workers, and keep the hives happy with their drones.
I use a deep floor so the bees can build drone comb along the bottom bars. Keeps the drone levels as the colony needs them and the brood frames for brood. Sorry if it upset anyone but combs like the pics with that level of drones is not a great example for a strong worker population. It may though be a misleading example, but it was put up as an example so that is what I am remarking on.
You must keep a very small drone population then unless the floors are several inches deep.
Would be interesting to see a couple of pics.
The figure I have seen quoted for a natural drone population in a colony is 15-20 percent which would be at least a couple of thousand.
I use shallows in the brood box as well and they invariably draw out drone come below, but I find it easier to have a couple of combs which are almost entirely drone comb.
Without wishing to sound like one of the right on 'natural' beekeeping evangelists, I do think there is something to be gained by letting the bees have a reasonable amount of control over the type of the brood they want to rear.
If they don't want to rear drones they use any spare drone comb for storing honey.
Any stressor in a colony tends to lead to increased levels of nosema and higher winter losses.
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