SC regression technique

[drobbins]

Hello All,

I just setup my first hive 6 weeks ago, and after much reading I want to regress them onto SC.
I got some foundation and setup a frame and worked it into the brood nest about the 4th frame in.
Well, I made up another frame and decided to try to embed the wire in the wax by heating it, I failed to do that on the first frame. Well, I ran a little current thru the wire to heat it up and whadaya know, now I have 4 quarter sheets of foundation :eek:
Well I started thinking, my understanding is that you give em a few frames of SC foundation and they probably wont get it quite right, so you take those away and give em a few more and hope they do better.
Would it be better to give them these quarter sheet SC strips to get em started and then let them build what they want?
Or is it better to give them the whole sheet during the regression process to give them guideline?
I assume these are LC bee's, if left on their own do they regress to SC naturally?

Thoughts?
Ideas?

Dave

[Michael Bush]

>Would it be better to give them these quarter sheet SC strips to get em started and then let them build what they want?

I'd cut them down to about one inch and use those instead of the quarter sheets.

>Or is it better to give them the whole sheet during the regression process to give them guideline?

I don't. But you can.

>I assume these are LC bee's, if left on their own do they regress to SC naturally?

Define "let on their own". Putting them on large cell foundation is not leaving them on their own. Letting them build what they want is, sort of. But they need a full turnover to get there. In other words, to build the 5.1mm or so they will do the first try and raise brood on it and have that brood build what they want. Then you'll have some cells as small as 4.6mm. If you can get the core of the brood nest at 4.9mm or smaller you'll be there.