Rod and Dave,
If you lump starter strips into the "foundationless" definition, then that is not my experience. I used 1-3/8" and 4-1/8" starter strips of SC foundation from Brushy Mountain in a medium brood box, alternating them, to see how well my bees drew them. I placed this box between the deep and medium brood boxes.
After the first week of installation, my bees had drawn both types equally well -- you could not tell them apart. None were totally drawn, but on average, I'd say they were 60% drawn. By the second week, most were fully drawn, and my bees were placing nectar in them. There was not a single larvae to be found in any of them. Since I wanted my bees to use this as a brood box, I placed a queen excluder (after ensuring the queen was in the deep) between this box and the medium brood box above.
By the third (this past) week, my bees had begun replacing the nectar in the SC box with brood, so all is well.
In the future, I will only use 1-3/8" ( or possibly smaller) SC starter strips to create more SC frames. I will also attempt Michael Bush's technique of beveled top bars and compare the two.
/////////////////////////
Rod,
quote:
-----------------------------------
What you will get with foundationless is that the first frame of foundationless you put in a hive will get drawn out almost all drone comb. and HUGE at that.
-----------------------------------
interesting to hear you say that.
I'm in the process of switching from deeps to mediums and using starter strips in the mediums as I introduce them. The deeps had been started this spring on Pierco foundation. I had also introduced a frame with a starter strip into one of my deeps.
This past weekend I got to the point where I removed one of the deeps from the hive, the one with the frame of starter strip. It was just like you describe, all drone cells. I was kinda mystified, do you have any explanation for this behaviour??
Dave
///////////////////////