The Negative Impacts of Wired Foundation.

I’m just about to start making wax foundation using a neat piece of kit I bought online from Latvia earlier in the year. The finished sheets of foundation will fit Langstroth frames so I need to make a template for cutting them to size to fit British Standard National frames which I use. I will be making foundation for both deep brood and shallow super frames.

I’ve tested the cooling system by wiring it up to a battery charger so I know that it works. The clean filtered wax is in small blocks and ready to melt at 63.4 ˚C in a bain Marie to pour into the silicone mould. I’m expecting a lot of mess so need to put plans in place and set up a good workspace protecting the floors and work surfaces in the kitchen where I will work.

Why make your own foundation?

The original reason for making my own foundation is because I don’t want to use wax from bee supply companies anymore because it could contain miticide residues from varroa treatments used by other beekeepers. Wax can be heat- treated to kill bacteria but not to remove chemicals. It is more expensive to buy organic foundation which would solve my problem, but I have plenty clean wax from not having used anything other than organic acids to treat varroa for over 10 years.

Inside The Hive.TV.

However, I’ve just got another reason to make my own foundation. Through Inside The Hive. TV, (https://www.insidethehive.tv/site/about) and Dr. Humberto Boncristiani’s interactive education for beekeepers, I’ve discovered this interesting paper by Drs. Kaira Wagoner and Olav Ruepell highlighting some negative effects on brood of using steel foundation to strengthen foundation, Effects of steel foundation wire on elemental content and hygienic removal of honey bee (Apis mellifera) brood: Journal of Apicultural Research: Vol 56, No 3

Why wired foundation?

We use wire in foundation to stabilise and strengthen combs, but mostly the wire is made from steel which is an alloy constructed from iron and carbon. Better quality foundation might contain more expensively constructed stainless steel, but how do we know what sort of wire is used, and why should we be concerned about it in the first place?

Empty brood cells.

Most beekeepers discover early on in their careers that the queen doesn’t like to lay eggs near the wires, and we’ve all seen the patterns on our brood frames with rows of empty cells along the lines of wiring.  Till now, I’ve never given this phenomenon much thought.

Here you can see the V shapes of empty cells on this frame. But what is the problem if the queen doesn’t lay in these cells? There might not be a problem for a strong colony, but over a season these empty cells can add up to a considerable amount of brood lost leading to a reduction in new bee production which might tip the balance for a colony needing to increase numbers for winter.

Honey bee stressors.

The authors of the paper quoted are searching for ways to improve overall honey bee health and we know that strong colonies do better than small weaker ones going into winter. There are many other honey bee stressors including, varroa mites and other pests, diseases, lack of forage, agrochemicals, and trace metals. We might not think much about metals but several are toxic to brood and adult bees and damage manifests through increased mortality, altered brain chemistry, and decreased foraging in adults.

What research tells us.

We learn through this paper that some brood cells overlapping the steel wires are not laid up by the queen. However, many are used for raising brood but they often do not thrive in the cells and are removed by the workers. Studies were carried out to test the hypothesis that steel wires negatively affect brood health. Four colonies were used in 2014, and the experiment was repeated in 2015 using seven colonies. The scientists predicted that there would be a higher rate of brood removal by worker bees from the cells that overlapped the wire than from the control cells in the adjacent row of cells and this was true. They also tested the wire and larvae for the following elements; arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt copper, iron, lead, manganese, vanadium, and zinc. What they found was that in both studies iron was the most abundant element and was 170 times more plentiful than any of the other elements tested. Also, they found that brood removed from the cells overlapping the steel foundation contained more iron than brood from the control cells. Interestingly the brood was often discoloured and unhealthy looking near the wires.

The authors are unclear whether the high levels of iron in the brood food, or the physical presence of the wire in the cell bases interfered with the brood development in these cells and more research is needed to find out. However, the removal of fully-grown brood is costly for a colony in terms of resources to raise brood to this stage, and has more negative impact than the queen’s avoidance of laying in cells. Food is needed by the brood and nurse bees removing them. The bees removing brood are diverted from other important in-house tasks which may lead to an inbalance in the colony. More nurse bees may be needed which could reduce available foragers for collecting important food resources.

Implications for beekeepers.

The negative effects of wire foundation, and the body of evidence around food safety issues, are not yet large enough to conclude that all beekeepers should avoid it, but we can now make more informed choices. Many beekeepers already practice foundationless beekeeping and the authors suggest other alternatives such as; plastic foundation, wireless foundation, using wooden kebab-type stick stabilisers, or trying stainless steel wire which might reduce the impact of iron leaching out. One of things we can do to responsibly source products is to check with suppliers what their materials are constructed from before we buy.

https://galvanizeit.org/knowledgebase/article/is-it-safe-for-food-to-be-in-contact-with-galvanized-steel

On a final note, that honey might be contaminated in supers of wired foundation is of great concern. That galvanised steel should not come in contact with acids foods rings alarm bells. I think that further research testing different types of wire, such as stainless steel and galvanised steel, is needed now to give us more confidence in the products we use for brood rearing and honey production. Protecting consumers and honey bees is key to our work.