Foundationless Checkerboarding Questions

>1: To start foundationless, you initially checkerboard foundationless with foundation, correct?

I wouldn't. At most I would put one frame of foundation in and at least I would put none.

>2: If this is the case, how do you get the foundation frames removed?? If, once the foundationless combs are drawn, you replace the foundation combs with empty frames, won't the bees just keep drawing the wax and cause a gummy mess?

There is a distinct difference between supers and brood nest. In the brood nest if they had no frames they would build combs that are on about 1 1/4" centers that are slightly under 1" thick. They are consistent because the size cell required to raise worker brood is consistent. In the honey supers combs can be as thick as 2" or more. If you feed empty frames between two straight brood combs they will be perfect. If you feed empty frames between two uncapped honey combs, they will fatten the existing combs and ignore your frames. If you feed foundation between two uncapped honey combs, the results will be the same.

>3: To add deeps, I am planning on adding them below the drawn box (as Mr. bush suggests). When I do this, won't it be more stressful on the bees when I make frame checks??

You lift off the top box and examine the bottom one. You don't even need to remove the cover on the top box...

> In order to repair any screwed up comb I'd have to pull the top box off…

Not a problem.

>4: When I hear people refer to "repairing" ill-formed comb on a foundationless hive, nobody every says how it's done…how does that all work??

If it's wandering off a little, you push it back in line. If it's off altogether you cut it out and rubber band it into the frames. If you have a good comb guide they are usually in the frames and don't require any work at all. The real issue is that bees build parallel combs and because of this, one bad comb leads to another. But by the same token, one good comb leads to another...