Odd stuff

Any of you ever seen this? I have bees building up from the bottom of foundationless frames. I believe its because they build a lot of burr comb between the supers and seem to have just continued it on up into the foundationless frame. Just wondering what other folks have seen and what they did about it.

In another hive, all the foundationless frames are built with cross comb. Fortunately I will just harvest the entire super and be done with it. I'm beginning to get the feeling that alternating small cell foundation with foundationless would be the best combination. If you have experience or comments, please feel free to share. I'm all ears.

Is this in the brood chamber or super? I suspect it's in the super and that you didn't seed it with anything. You need a comb or two in the empty box to encourage them to build the way we want them to. If you just place an empty box on top they will likely build some from the bottom and some from the top of the new box.

Your suspicions would be correct. I didn't have anything theycould use for guide comb. Makes a lot of sense and I appreciate the help.

I ran out of medium foundation so i was cutting deep foundation to fit my medium frames. When you do this there is a strip of foundation left which i also was using in frames as a guide off the top. Since I had been drinking while doing this I accidentally put a few strips on the bottom of a few frames instead of the top but I put them into a few honey boxes for giggles to see what would happen and they drew the comb straight up to the top bar. I really didnt know what to expect but was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. I have also seen comb collapses in a few of my nucs that were drawn straight up and re-attached HORRIBLY :)

As a side note: I was all foundationless up until this year and would HIGHLY recommend using a sheet of foundation in at least 1 frame (I put mine in the middle) to ensure they draw straight then, if you are hard core about tainted wax in foundation or whatever, you can easily rotate it out once the bees "know" where to build.