foundationless help please

Hi-Tech · June 24, 2015, 02:14:41 PM

I want to start my new hive off with some (or all) foundationless frames and I have never done this before. Any help and advice is appreciated. Here are some questions I have right off the bat...

> Should I do all of the brood area foundationless or is it OK to have some foundationless and some plastic foundation?
> What (and where) should I put some kind of starter on the frame for them to start building from?
> Do they build up or down?
> Should I use fishing line in the frames for added strength?
> I have some small cell wax (not wired) foundation. would strips of that attached to frames work for a starter and if so, can you mix small cell brood and regular cell supers?
> with this being a new package installed yesterday, whats my best way to do this?

Thanks for your help!!!

mikecva · June 24, 2015, 02:18:58 PM

Try : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjyeP7PKS3I

gww · June 24, 2015, 03:36:29 PM

I also got bees yesterday. That means I have no experiance yet. I did however build my frames. On the bush bees website he shows a couple of options. I picked the top bar of the frame cut at two 45 degree angles to make a ridge across the whole top bar. Michael has a picture of it on his website. I am going all mediums and did not use wire or fishing string. On deeps it might be a consideration, I don't know.

I don't have any experiance but am convinced it is going to work fine this way.
Good luck
gww

Hi-Tech · June 24, 2015, 03:46:56 PM

The video was awesome and answered most of my questions. I had a top bar years ago and used strips of a plastic foundation as the initial guide. they built off it great but it was very fragile. You had to be careful when pulling frames out for inspection. I like the idea of cutting out the center of plastic foundation (since I have so much of it) and going that route. Let them make their own comb but have the top, bottom and sides of plastic for stability.

OK.. Its on.. we will see how it goes...

chux · June 24, 2015, 05:33:03 PM

I started 2 years ago, using wedge-top frames, with the wedge turned on it's side, glued and nailed in the center of the top-bar. No wax. No nothing but the little ridge of wood. No fishing line or wire for strength in the middle of the frame. The bees did fine with that. I just had to check every week to make sure that they were building straight. Most of the time, they did fine.

This year I bought the foundationless frames from Kelly. So much faster to put together since I don't have to cut off then re-attach the wedge. Or attach some other form of starter strip.

I would not mix foundationless and foundation frames. I have tried it, and it did not work for me. The bees end up cross-combing, or pushing out the comb too far into the other frame space. You can put foundationless frames between or beside drawn comb. Actually, if you put one foundationless between two drawn combs, it will increase the probability that the foundationless frame will be drawn out straight.

When the bees have built out 80%-90% of the frames in the first box, add another box on top. If the second box is the same size as the first box, move a couple of frames up into the center of the new box, to act as a "bridge" for the bees to move up to the top-bars of the top box.

Sounds like you installed the bees yesterday???? I'm guessing that you installed them with foundation frames? If so, I would probably leave them alone in that box and let them draw it out. Messing with them too much before they have drawn comb and produced brood can cause them to abscond. Packages abscond often enough already. Let them build out the frames with foundation if that is what is in there. When you add your next box, that could be foundationless. You could pull up some of the comb from the bottom box as well. Just my thoughts. Worth what you pay for them.

If you are not going to extract from the deep frame, you definitely don't need any line in it to strengthen it. I don't use line in my mediums, and I rarely have a blowout. Just use care and don't try to spin too fast too soon.

Eric Bosworth · June 24, 2015, 09:24:40 PM

Perhaps I am just lucky. I have never had a problem with messed up comb. Occasionally I have to squeeze a little on an end but that is it. That said I never use foundation. The exception is the plastic frames that came with the nucs I bought this spring. I have 9 foundationless frames from Walter Kelly that I bought last year. I used one for a template and now I make my own. I can whip off top bars in about a minute a piece. The end bars take a little longer but once I get going they go quickly.

rober · June 24, 2015, 09:39:02 PM

you can buy end bars for .25

chux · June 25, 2015, 09:47:15 AM

The more hives I have, the less time I have to get into each one. I'm up to 27 hives right now, spread out in multiple yards. Getting ready to add more supers. Most of the hives will draw straight on the foundationless frames, especially if I give them one or two combs in the middle to work beside. Still, toward the ends of the frame they usually try to curve it a little. If you are keeping less than a dozen hives, and can take a quick peek every week during the flow, I believe foundationless is awesome. The more hives you get, or the less attention you can give them, the riskier it gets for crosscombing. Still, I love it, and am glad that I started that way.

Eric Bosworth · June 25, 2015, 10:12:55 AM

Quote from: rober on June 24, 2015, 09:39:02 PM
you can buy end bars for .25

I think if I want to I can buy 100, or enough for 50 frames from Dadent for about $14.00 (I think it was $13.98) I have done that a couple times just because I didn't have the time to make them and I was only a couple miles away from their Waverly store. (Where I work we have an office in Waverly. I rarely go there but when I do if I need something it is convenient. My other option is to call ahead, buy it with a credit card and then use honey to bribe the lady across the hall to pick stuff up... I haven't needed that option... Yet...) Even that is cheaper than a quarter. My issue with that is that I can only get 1 3/8" frames. I like to use 1.25" frames in the brood nest. I also made some quick nuc boxes out of rough cut 1"X10"X8' that I only cut boards to length and slapped them together. That problem with this approach is that they hold 6 frames perfectly provided 4 are 1.25" the other two can be 1.375". Short of building them myself I don't know of any source of 1.25" frames.

Michael Bush · June 25, 2015, 10:21:10 AM

> Should I do all of the brood area foundationless or is it OK to have some foundationless and some plastic foundation?

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfallacies.htm#waxplastic

> What (and where) should I put some kind of starter on the frame for them to start building from?

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoundationless.htm#combguide

> Do they build up or down?

You need them to build down. When you add an empty box I would put some drawn comb in it (from the box below most likely) to give them a "ladder".
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoundationless.htm#wholebox

> Should I use fishing line in the frames for added strength?

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoundationless.htm#dowire

> I have some small cell wax (not wired) foundation. would strips of that attached to frames work for a starter and if so, can you mix small cell brood and regular cell supers?

I don't use an excluder and I don't know where the queen might lay, so I don't want any large cell comb in my hives...
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm

> with this being a new package installed yesterday, whats my best way to do this?

What are they installed on? Foundation? What cell size? Anything the bees haven't drawn on is easy. Just replace it with foundationless. If there is large cell comb I would pull it now before they have invested a lot of resources in raising brood in it. If there is a lot of larger open brood in it, or capped brood in it, I would leave it for now and worry about it later.