Drone Foundation For Honey Supers

[Marbees]

Playing with the idea of having all drone frames/foundation in my honey supers.
Anybody doing this? Comments/opinions welcome.

[Crofter]

I guess it is easier to extract. Not available in medium plastic is it?  Are you using deeps for honey supers? <grunts at the thought>

[Perry]

I have almost a full box (52) of the green drone frames. I have been selling them 1 or 2 at a time. It is tempting to use them for honey. I could let the bees draw them out, fill them, extract, and then use them for drone trapping.
My biggest fear of using them from scratch as mite "traps", is being a day or two late and hatching out a whack of mites. Once they have been drawn out though, the time frame for removal would be more finite.

[riverbee]

i have not used drone foundation in my honey supers, however they are larger cells.  the claims i have read are, and i have no experience with this; less wax needed to draw the cells, more honey per super, and easier/quicker extraction time.

[Riverrat]

The bees will draw wax or any foundation  in the honey supers to drone size if they are drawing for stores. This is why when you have brood in a honey super 99% of the time it will be drone brood.

[Marbees]

I am finally going to mediums for my honey supers. Waited to developed bad back with deeps, not very smart.
Yes I would prefer medium drone plastic foundation in wooden frames if available, to take advantage of things Crofter and river mentioned. Wondering if the extra effort would be justified on 50 hives? .....

[Marbees]

The bees will draw wax or any foundation  in the honey supers to drone size if they are drawing for stores. This is why when you have brood in a honey super 99% of the time it will be drone brood.

Good point Mo, comb honey is always in big cells...

[Barbarian]

Time for me to 'fess up.

I have used drone wax foundation in my honey supers for several years. The supers go above a QE. I see no reason change this policy.
I insert the foundation in new (Manley) frames and re-cycled standard frames.
I like to mark the wooden top bar of such frames with a 'D' .

[apisbees]

The bees will draw wax or any foundation  in the honey supers to drone size if they are drawing for stores. This is why when you have brood in a honey super 99% of the time it will be drone brood.

I have not found this, if the foundation has a good imprint the bees follow the hex imprint and draw worker size cells above the queen excluder in the honey supers. the only time I have heard of the bees doing that is with foundation that is not imprinted well. Find another foundation manufacturer.

[LazyBkpr]

Going to have to check this, because I often snag the drawn honey super foundation to make up new hives in the spring...

[GLOCK]

I use 4.9 for brood and 5.3 for honey I think drone frames are 5.8 I my be wrong.

[tecumseh]

kelley use to sell a 'thin surplus' foundation that was constructed with a slightly larger pattern and if you leave this in a hive very long it does seem to be used for brood production.  it is very thin and a bit difficult to handle.