Early wax-maker for drawing more SC comb

[wayacoyote]

Guys,
I was so concerned about this trial I'm doing with Pcolar (Joe's) idea of frame-spacing as it messed up the beespace between bodies. The bees filled it with drone comb. I always worry about smashing the queen while trying to separate the frames.

But coming home and settling into bed with my literature, I was reminded that a hive's ability to produce wax is a limiting factor in its ability to draw comb early in the season which is critical for SC comb making, I'm told.

Now I've had to change my notebook to praise this SC hive for its early wax. And I need to "shake down" to clean foundation since I have some LC packages coming next month.

Has anyone else done the "shake down" with a regressed hive? How did you do it, and what did you think of it?

Waya

[Joseph Clemens]

I've never done a "shake down" to regress LC bees to SC. It was always easier for me to replace frames with SC foundation over a period of summer months. I began one spring, and by fall all of the combs of the target hives had been changed over. When I used 1/2 sheets of deep frame SC foundation and horizontally wired them into my medium depth frames the bees often completed the space beneath the foundation with drone comb, but not always.