Mr. Calvin Robinson, a member of the Buncombe County Beekeepers Chapter, presented a method of beekeeping without chemicals or foundation to the FCBA on Saturday, April 5. As a beekeeper interested in alternative beekeeping techniques or what could be considered natural beekeeping, this program peaked my interest. Although Robinson’s methods aren’t necessarily radical, since he still uses standard hives and components, his take on foundation (or the lack there of) will divide many beekeepers.
Open any mainstream book on beekeeping and you’ll find the use of reinforced foundation as standard a practice as using the modern hive itself. To not use foundation seems to fly in the face of logic. Isn’t foundation a mainstay in beekeeping technology? Like the movable frame, foundation has played a key role in the development of commercial beekeeping. Although the importance of foundation at first glance might appear to be the uniformity that the foundation helps to create, the real importance lies in the ability to reinforce combs so they can be transported and extracted without causing failure of the comb’s structure. In other words, reinforced foundation makes the movable frame hive truly mobile. So why would anyone want to forgo useful technology and keep bees the way it was done in the late 19th and early 20th centuries?
Robinson outlined two main reasons:
It has yet to be proven that processed wax contains any chemical residues from any type of treatment. I’m not aware of any research that has been published recently on this issue. My apprehension to point to processed wax as an agent for the slow chemical poisoning of honey bees is the fact that most wax used for making foundation comes from the wax cappings associated with honey extraction, which would hopefully contain few chemicals anyway since chemicals should be confined to the brood chamber, if used at all. Also, the act of heating the wax to the wax’s melting point must do something to degrade the chemicals. Furthermore, because of the wax’s lipid properties, I would theorize that more chemicals are absorbed in the propolis, larval sheddings, and honey as apposed to the wax itself, which is a good reason to purge old combs if chemicals have been used in the past.
That being said, the uniformity of foundation, while producing beautiful comb, does not reflect what the bees want to do. Approximately 15% of all comb is dedicated to drone cells in established feral colonies. Bees usually accommodate for the lack of drone cells in standard hives by building burr comb in the space between brood boxes. Also, the queen will lay unfertilized eggs in worker cells, resulting in the bulleted drone cells that you sometimes see among worker brood. Perhaps more important is the lack of uniformity among what would be considered worker cells in feral colonies. Any measurement of these would reveal that cell size varies, which has measurable implications on the size of the bees. While humans want uniformity, the bees tend to favor diversity. Perhaps there is something important about having bees of all different sizes in the hive, instead of the uniformly large bees that most foundation creates. Some exploration of this idea has been entertained, although most of the work has been in developing a smaller bee rather than a colony of bees varying in size. Much more research needs to be conducted on this topic.
While the idea of processed wax contamination is something to be debated, I will venture to guess that cell size might have some implications. Why else would the bees vary cell size? Honey bees have had millions of years of natural selection to develop this strategy for some useful purpose. Robinson and I agree on one important aspect: It’s time to change our beekeeping, especially among those who can change, such as hobby beekeepers. I wouldn’t use reinforced foundation if I happened to live near such important nectar flows like sourwood and black locust, as Robinson does. Not having to move hives for any reason makes certain aspects of beekeeping easier. I’m not saying, however, that hives without reinforced foundation cannot be moved, but deeps tend to be particularly vulnerable, especially when the comb isn’t attached to all four sides of the frame (i.e. when the comb is first being built).
Anything in beekeeping is possible; it just depends on how much time and effort you’re able to devote to various methods of beekeeping.
Read more about beekeeping without foundation from Michael Bush.
April 18, 2008 • Beekeeping
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