Several beekeepers with foundationless frames have reported finding large number of drone cells in their hives. In some cases, the new brood is 25% to 50% drones.
While colonies on foundationless frames always have more drones than those on preformed foundation, the number of drones can seem out of hand. And indeed, vast amounts of hive resources are going to raising these bees who give nothing in return. Instead of having workers out there collecting honey and raising more workers, you have hundreds of drones lazing around, waiting to be fed.
The first thing you should do is make sure the queen is laying at least some worker brood. If so, the queen is probably fine. If you see no worker brood—or at least none in a clear pattern—you may have an infertile queen that needs to be replaced. Although not frequent, it does happen from time to time.
If you think the queen is okay, you can try moving the drone brood to the outside of the brood nest and inserting new frames near the center of the nest. It is usually best not to remove the drone frames completely (unless you are doing it for mite control) because the colony will just expend more energy in an effort to replace it.
One thing to remember is that most drone brood is raised in early spring just before and during swarm season. It should taper off after that. You may just have to be patient for a few weeks. As the season progresses you should see a greater and greater percentage of worker brood.
Some beekeepers use a queen excluder just about the hive entrance to keep the drones from returning to the hive where they take up space and use resources. The problem with this is that newly hatching drones are unable to leave, so it is necessary to remove the queen excluder every few days to allow the newly-hatched drones to exit.
Another thing you can try is using a pre-stamped piece of wax foundation as a starter strip to encourage worker-sized cells. If you have a proper saw, you can even cut starter strips from plastic foundation.
Remember, there are many reasons that beekeepers developed pre-stamped foundation. One of them was to keep down the number of drones. If you go foundationless, you will always be faced with a higher proportion of drones and a lower yield of honey than a beekeeper using patterned foundation. Every method has its pros and cons.
Rusty
“The first thing you should do is make sure the queen is laying at least some worker brood. If so, the queen is probably fine.”
I found a single frame of well laid capped worker brood in the middle of the top box recently — on plastic foundation. Then five frames of drones — on foundationless frames. The other frames were full of honey and pollen.
“If you think the queen is okay, you can try moving the drone brood to the outside of the brood nest and inserting new frames near the center of the nest.”
By outside the brood nest, do you mean the edge of the brood nest or the edge of the box?
“One thing to remember is that most drone brood is raised in early spring just before and during swarm season. It should taper off after that.”
I hope so. I got talked into going foundationless almost immediately after I got into beekeeping last year, mainly because I love the look of natural comb and I don’t want to get into extracting, and I was led to believe foundationless is better for the bees. But I’m in it for the honey too. I’ve put a lot of work into caring for my bees. I want to get paid and I don’t want the drones eating up my pay cheque.
“You may just have to be patient for a few weeks. As the season progresses you should see a greater and greater percentage of worker brood.”
Our season is so short in Newfoundland, I’m concerned that if all the foundationless frames continue to produce drones, there won’t be enough bees to raise worker brood and produce honey of any significant amount. I was told on the beesource.com forums that drone comb will be back-filled with honey after the drones emerge, and then everything will balance itself out. I’ll have to watch and see. Going foundationless is certainly a learning experience.
“Another thing you can try is using a pre-stamped piece of wax foundation as a starter strip to encourage worker-sized cells. If you have a proper saw, you can even cut starter strips from plastic foundation.”
Hmm. Does this work? I have plenty of plastic foundation I can cut into starter strips. It doesn’t matter to me if the top 3 inches of the frames in the brood boxes are plastic foundation. I have no intentions ever cutting out comb from the brood chamber.
I was also told by some beeks at beesource.com that placing an empty frame between frames of worker brood will produce another frame of worker brood. The basic hypothesis is that whatever an empty frame is surrounded by, that’s what the bees will build on the frame.
“The basic hypothesis is that whatever an empty frame is surrounded by, that’s what the bees will build on the frame.”
That may be true, but the bees weren’t surrounded by drone comb when they decided to build drone comb–they were just empty frames. Still, it’s worth a try.
Letting the bees do whatever they want to do might be worth a try too, as long as the queen has room to lay.
I have two nucs on order for this summer. I’m tempted to experiment with them. One hive all plastic foundation. The other all foundationless from the start (instead of the mixed up hives I have now).
I got word from a well-known foundationless Langstroth beekeeper informing me that all the drone-prevention methods are pretty much bunk. The bees will build worker brood after they’ve met their quota of drones, and that’s it. The old drone comb will be backfilled with honey or torn down and rebuilt into worker brood. In others words, the bees know what they’re doing better than I do. I might move drone comb away from the direct centre of the brood nest. But other than that, I’ll let the bees work it out, which often seems to be the best policy. Not always, but often.
Like I said above, “You may just have to be patient for a few weeks. As the season progresses you should see a greater and greater percentage of worker brood.”
Bees will be bees.
I didn’t believe you the first time. And I wanted to clarify that all my theories from my first comment are wrong. I look forward to seeing how everything balances out in the hive in the coming weeks.
Oh, so now the truth comes out!
Need some workers Phil? I can spot you a few…..
No way, man, I have faith in my bees. (They better not mess it up.)
I’ve got a full inspection of both hives scheduled for Sunday. The camera will be rolling. It should be interesting.
I should probably feed them since they’re putting so many resources into producing drones. Maybe a little sugar boost will get them over the hump.
Anyway, I’m keeping the faith.