Foundationless frames with wires

[Oldbeavo]

Hi Ben
Plastic foundation $1.10, unassembled full depth frame $1.70, glue and staples???, light wax $0.70
Thats $3.50 without time to assemble.
Full plastic frames at less than $3.00 is a steal.

Best i can find is $3.60 in Australai, unless you go to Alibaba for min 1000 order.

[Ben Framed]

Hi OldBeavo, I was thinking the same-thing.

Phillip

[Lesgold]

I agree. If you are keeping bees for a living, anything that saves you time, money and provides a durable product that works well should be considered. I really like the discussion and the points that are being raised. It?s great that there are so many options and approaches that can be used.

[Oldbeavo]

We have about 200 full plastic in the system, mainly in the brood boxes,
I think t have only broken the lugs off 2 in 12+ years.
The price of conventional frames and wax foundation have gone up where plastic has stayed about the some, and so are very competitive.

In a commercial operation when relatively new they slip sideways a bit in the uncapper until they accumulate some wax on the side bars.
The reason most of ours are in the brood  boxes is the when in the supers the bees tend to put more wax on top of the bars of plastic joining them to the above frame making the supers hard to split. bees tend to wax up plastic anything.
Its OK battling with a couple of stuck supers but after 50 or so the plastic went down to the brood.

We haven't got any more than the 200 but i honestly hadn't sat down and done the economics.
If you go down the full plastic road then make sure they are well waxed and draw them on a big flow or in Spring in the brood box.

[Lesgold]

Thanks again Oldbeavo. You continue to provide really interesting thoughts. That?s one of the main reasons I joined this forum. The information that you and other members have shared really does help. It makes you challenge your own thinking and often question some of the methods that are used. The reason that I started this thread on the foundationless frames was mostly as a learning experience. I am pleased that many of you have provided alternatives to what I?m experimenting with. This information not only provides me with options but it may also help others who are on this journey. I?ll continue to show how this frame progresses and will eventually pop one into the brood box as well. Keep those good thoughts and ideas coming in.

Cheers

Les

[Lesgold]

A bit of an update on the foundationless frame.



Fully drawn out including the corners.



It will be interesting to see how it holds up in the extractor at a later date. I will try one in the brood box to see what happens.

Cheers

Les

[Ben Framed]

Les the bees did a fine job of attaching comb all the way around the frame.. Was this your finding on most all frames that you introduced in this same method? 

Phillip

[Lesgold]

Hi Phillip. This was the first test comb introduced into a hive with the starter strip all the way around the inside perimeter of the frame. My test was to answer my initial questions in relation to the bees ignoring the wire and also building to the bottom of the frame. I was so pleased with the results. I will now have to try again with frames in the brood box.

[Ben Framed]

Hi Phillip. This was the first test comb introduced into a hive with the starter strip all the way around the inside perimeter of the frame. My test was to answer my initial questions in relation to the bees ignoring the wire and also building to the bottom of the frame. I was so pleased with the results. I will now have to try again with frames in the brood box.

I like it Les. The full deep frames with the partially unattached bottoms and edges (completely foundationless) that I extracted this year, which I did not place skewers or fishing line, where a pain to work with. I wasted a lot of time babying them through the extracting process. Using rubber bands for support.. Though it worked, it was a real bummer.

Phillip

[Lesgold]

That?s exactly what I want to avoid. If I can get the bees to draw good frames of wax in the brood box, I could move them slowly up into the supers after a couple of cycles of brood have been run through them. They would then be much stronger and handle the extractor quite well. (That?s my thinking at this point.)

[MideastHobbit]

Hey, i thought maybe i should post here rather than creating a new thread. I finally managed to get around to wiring up 40 frames last week, and placing them on my 4 currently living hives. It was a bit of a learning process since I've never wired up frames before - I just googled and scrolled this forum a bit before hand and i think it turned out mostly all right. I'm hopeful this will fix my cross-comb problem; it's very hard to work with bees when the frames are all glued together, and i've had more of a problem over the years as i've removed the plastic foundation from all my frames.

So, I'm finally getting around to wiring up my frames, and experimenting a little as I go: drilling holes for the eyelets in frames that don't have holes and getting creative with frames damaged by wax-moth larva and salvaging some of the lesser damaged frames from my bear attacks.
Here are some pictures:
(Note, i'm still conducting my image host experiment - sort of)

https://imgbox.com/g/njSsrY6oHj

https://postimg.cc/gallery/8fKjnZV
(this one had some trouble with the upload ordering)

Also, I tried to get the wire as taut as possible without breaking. I'm not sure how much a difference this makes, but it seemed like a good idea.
Here's a video(sound): https://imgur.com/a/aUCXhdA

Funny thing, a couple of my hives are a little aggressive, and i had a heck of a time getting my smoker to light(it was a cold morning) so the final placement of the boxes took a bit longer than expected(i need to fix my smoker).

I guess now it's just wait and see how it goes. I did realize after the face that i probably made a mistake: I noticed some of my wires weren't all in plane, and in some of the frames i had wired an "X" there were visible gaps between the wires. I probably need to fix this going forward, though i guess it will be interesting to see how the bees handle it.

After browsing this thread again, I'm also thinking now i might have also messed up by not placing a wooden starter in my grooved frames. I suppose we'll just have to see how it goes...

...Anyway, Ukraine is still on fire.

On a positive note, I think i might be finally getting over Covid!
I have physical tomorrow ;)

I'm attaching 4 photos in case the links go bad. what gauge wire is that? 26awg?

[Oldbeavo]

The secret to making wires tight is to make a jig so that the centers of the side bars are pushed inwards a bit. then wire the frame by tightening wires as you move down the wires. Tie is off on the nail and the as you loosen off the pressure on the side bars they take up and make the wires tight.
You only bow the side bars about 1/4".

[.30WCF]

I wired some a couple years ago, but am moving to plastic lately. I didn?t have a jig, but kinda pressed the frame against the edge of the counter to bow it in when I ?tied the wire off?. It worked fine. I posted a video. I?ll see if I can find it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[.30WCF]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NSVyV5cQEBs


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Lesgold]

Yep, that works fine. It would be a little more complex with 4 wires but it would still be possible. With a few off cuts and 30 minutes of spare time, a framing jig is a simple project that basically costs nothing. I?ve been using mine now for years. In saying that, framing jigs are not all that expensive to buy. There is plenty of options as to how the job can be done.

[.30WCF]

Yep, that works fine. It would be a little more complex with 4 wires but it would still be possible. With a few off cuts and 30 minutes of spare time, a framing jig is a simple project that basically costs nothing. I?ve been using mine now for years. In saying that, framing jigs are not all that expensive to buy. There is plenty of options as to how the job can be done.

No doubt, if I were going to keep it up I?d build a jig.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk