The honeycomb structure of a honeybee nest is one of nature’s architectural miracles. Its intricate structure forms the colony's body and means of survival. In the beekeeping world, its significance can easily be overlooked.
Understanding how free-living bees build their comb can give us some important insights into the life of the honeybee. In northern Europe, honeybees evolved in the cavities of mature trees, many of which have now disappeared. Bees have had to turn to alternative nesting sites such as roof spaces, cavities, and chimneys in buildings.
Whatever the availability or choice of nesting site, the primary task of the bees will be to form a comb structure to suit the colony's needs and make the most of the space at their disposal. They will fix the comb to the sides of the cavity, creating closed corridors to facilitate the retention of warmth, control draughts, as well as condensation and create a propolis-infused atmosphere to help keep the colony healthy.
Traditional husbandry practices such as Zeidler and Skep beekeeping allowed bees to build natural comb in this way. I believe that their freedom to do this is vital to the colony's health. In essence, they are creating the colony's skeleton with wax they make from their own bodies, with each structure being unique to the specific colony.
Only when the frame of August von Berlepsch was invented in 1852, along with the development of his foundation by Jean Mehring and the emergence of wooden boxes as a habitation for the bees did beekeepers start to turn away from natural comb.
The progression to frames and foundation made manipulation and inspection of a colony much easier, not to mention the far greater ease of removing the bees' hard-earned stores from the hive. In the early days, this mainly benefitted the commercial beekeeping industry in the US but this non-bee-centric practice soon migrated to most other forms of beekeeping worldwide.
Beeswax foundation is considered to be one of the great beekeeping inventions, a sheet of beeswax embossed with the shape of a cell from which the bees can build their comb. This is where we start to drift away from the true nature of the honeybee.
In the context of this article let’s consider some of the main differences between natural comb and foundation-based comb.
The Wax
As mentioned above, the unadulterated wax used to build fresh comb comes directly from within the bees themselves. During early development, each bee will spend part of her time as a comb-building bee, constructing or maintaining the colony’s own body. (In the wild, it has been observed that even when a swarm moves into an existing nest space it will often build fresh comb in a different direction to the previous comb and in some cases destroy otherwise perfectly good looking comb)
Beeswax foundation however will not exhibit the same level of purity:
Beeswax foundation is made up of recycled beeswax heated to 120°c for at least half an hour to eliminate any Foulbrood spores
Some of this wax has been through the sterilisation process numerous times and can be classed as ‘old’ wax
Traces of chemicals can often be found in the foundation, remnants of miticides used in hives or from foraging activity
Commercial and cheap imported beeswax often has paraffin wax used in its manufacture
Considering the points above it’s hard to imagine that foundation-based comb, which forms the body of the colony, is going to benefit its overall well-being in any way.
Construction
The honeycomb structure is made up mainly of worker cells and at certain times of the year there is a need for slightly larger drone cells. In natural comb, the bees construct these cells as and when required to suit the needs of the colony.
Most beeswax foundation comes with a pre-determined cell size embossed into the wax sheet, namely that of worker cells. This can create potential problems. Not every colony is made up of the same size bee even if from the same subspecies, so their needs are going to be different. Furthermore, the beeswax foundation does not allow for the construction of drone brood cells. The bees have to adapt by either adding them onto the end of frames or any other space they can find, even by destroying the existing comb. This is why the percentage of drone comb found in a wild colony can be double that of a managed colony. The ramifications of this on queen mating success amongst the wider bee population cannot be positive.
Another important note about wax foundation is that the sheet, which forms the septum (wall) between each side of the comb, is relatively thick when compared to that of natural comb. The reason for this is it has to withstand the various procedures of manufacture and be suitable for fixing into frames. As this doesn’t fit the bee’s remit, they gnaw away the excess wax and use it to build the cell walls. The resulting cell walls comprise approx.1/3 old wax and 2/3 fresh wax. This can easily be visible in the different colouration of the waxes. The question here is whether the development of larvae is enhanced by the properties that make up natural comb compared with foundation-based comb that might see the opposite effect.
Anyone fortunate enough to have observed bees building natural comb, even in a frame, will have seen them do so from a suspended cluster.
This cluster creates the necessary warmth for the bees to manipulate the wax, and use themselves to support and measure the bright white structure that is forming within. This essential species-specific behaviour is effectively thwarted when the bees are presented with a sheet of wax. As bees do, they will adapt, but what challenges and unnecessary stress does this cause them in the process?
Old Comb
The colour of honeycomb can vary depending on its age and what it has been used for. The comb used for storing honey will not discolour at the same rate as the comb used for raising brood. As the number of brood cycles increases the cell size will reduce slightly, and the comb will take on dark brown or even black colouration. Modern-day beekeeping encourages the replacement of these combs with a fresh sheet of foundation.
There is no such intervention in a wild nest. Once the bees have decided the brood comb cells are too old or too small, they either scrape away the cell walls back to the septum and rebuild new ones or ‘allow’ wax moths to destroy the old comb and then start all over again.
Observations have shown that in unmanaged colonies this cycle takes place every 4 or 5 years, which coincides with what was the normal lifespan of a Queen.
Conclusion
It’s difficult not to see that fundamental differences exist between the 2 methods of comb construction. If you are of the opinion that working with the bees’ natural tendencies is likely to benefit their health and well being then switching to natural comb may be the way forward.
REF. Biodynamic Beekeeping by Matthias Thun
Credit. Dave Cushman’s website
Credit. AndersHQ – Life inside the beehive
I have tried to keep this article as simple as possible and avoid overloading the reader with references to scientific papers. These are observations made from a mix of personal experience, research and a common sense approach to life in general. We have lost our connection with nature, and putting these thoughts out there will enable the reader to ponder and come to their own conclusions
Simon Kellam – Just Bee Eco Hives
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