I did a check today, I skipped a couple weeks LOL so they are about 3.5 weeks into their building.
Well I was shocked, that hive is about 85% full of beautiful natural comb. A couple frames with brood (one mostly drone) and a couple with honey :) I know cause a little section broke and the honey was dripping out. Man it looked SO good. LOL
I am rushing out tomorrow first thing in the morning for a second brood hive. I had to beg and plead for one cause they were sold out. Thankfully the beekeeper had mercy on me when he heard my story and is selling me one of his own extras (second quality, but that doesn't matter to me). *phew* crisis averted.
I am just so excited and happy with the work my little bee babies are doing! No one I talk to even the well known profession beekeepers around here are familiar with natural comb. When I tell them I am foundationless they look at me like I am crazy. One guy even told me he thought it was illegal to use foundationless hives because "you need to have removeable comb" to which I said, it is, it can be cut out just like any other type, except its all natural ;) I don't know what he was envisioning LOL, but I don't think he had a clue what I have going on here, I offered to send pics but he wasn't interested.
Let me tell you, I'm so glad I have this board here to talk to other beekeepers otherwise I know I would have never heard of foundationless hives. This hive is just so wonderful, I pulled out all the foundationless frames and looked them over and none were stuck together or built wrong, they were nice and straight and built right across the whole frames. :) I have pics I can post later if I can get approval, but for now just wanted to share my happy update :)
Imagine, nature, what a concept! LOL Have fun!
Oh, you got to try some of that honey! Sounds like they are doing great!
It is true that by law you need "movable" combs. That means that you can take a frame of comb out and inspect it. But as long as they draw the comb on the frame correctly then it is movable or removable since you can take the frame out. It is when they don't cooperate and draw the comb across the frames the wrong way that you have problems... :roll:
Yes, so far I have been lucky with the wax starter strips and the bees are doing a wonderful job of drawing out the wax combs nice and straight. It is so precious to watch them festooning down the frames like they are all stuck together. I always feel badly when I accidently pick up one of these frames like I intruded on something very private.
Enjoy the experience, I certainly am.
Annette
I went to a lecture on making cut comb honey involving a painstaking process of forcing the bees down into one box to build the comb from scratch so it will be white and beautiful. I came home and looked into my hives and every comb (all built from scratch) was white and beautiful tender wax. And I didn't try to "force" the bees to do anything.
Amazing what foundationless can do!
And since I crush and strain or cut comb or chunk harvest everything, my bees start the beautiful process over again the next year.
Linda T in Atlanta