For anyone who is new to beekeeping, my recommendation is to go with plastic foundation. Many things can go wrong quickly with foundationless and there is already enough for a new beekeeper to worry about. There is a reason why the beginner's hives you can buy come with plastic foundation. Start yourself off with the best chance of success, use plastic foundation.

 

I agree w dudelt. I also recommend acorn double waxed plastic foundation. The bees draw it out quickly and evenly

 

Plastic I don't like. I think it's personal preference on plastic. I say give foundationless a shot if it's too much then go with wax foundation. That's what I prefer. I went foundationless my first year and everything went fine. They say it's more work because you have to keep a eye on it and correct it ASAP. It's easy to fix if you catch it early and it's a pain in the *** if your late. It's defiantly cheaper going foundationless. Now the bees make more drone comb than usual so seeing more drones is common. If your going to harvest honey then foundation is the way to go if your using a extractor. If no extractor then foundationless is ok, you crush comb to get honey and drain and strain. So you have to ask yourself what your doing first. I have a mix of foundation and foundationless. With plastic you have to put wax on those frames or the bees will not draw comb. Some people have a hard time getting bees to draw in plastic but others don't. There's pros and cons with every choice. Good luck in your descision and with the bees.

 

It's defiantly cheaper going foundationless.

Penny wise, pound foolish is what I would call that. It may seem slightly less expensive up front to go foundationless, but, it ends there. Particularly for a new beekeeper, first time a comb falls out of a frame because it's not attached yet when they inspect the hive, it's just not worth the few pennies saved. The other thing, OP mentions starting with a nuc, so it's likely on deep frames. What many of the strong proponents of foundationless forget to mention, most of them use medium frames. Foundationless in a medium can be relatively sturdy, but it's a different story in a deep frame, especially fresh new comb that hasn't been fully drawn and attached both sides and bottom of the frame.

I've never had problems getting new comb drawn, be it on plastic, or on foundationless frames, as long as there is a flow on. With no flow running, I've never got frames drawn of any variant without substantial feeding to push them.

All of our standard size boxes are populated with plastic frames. I have a dozen boxes of mediums that we use foundationless, but they aren't intended to see the extractor, we use them for cutting comb honey. My mating nucs are filled with half size deep frames, and I didn't bother with foundation in those either. they are small enough the bees drew them right out and attached the comb well on all 4 sides.

Yes, I have all the variants in various boxes here, and no, I would NOT recommend somebody starting out new to go with foundationless frames, not of any size. Start with foundation, and if it's going to be wood + wax, wire it properly. If it's plastic, you dont have to worry about wiring. Only after you are comfortable handling a frame of bees, consider foundationless. If you start out learning with it, particularily if its deep frames, it's going to turn into a disaster of broken combs that fall out of the frames when you lift them out of the hive.

 

I agree with others, don't start out with foundationless as a starting beekeeper. Foundationless makes more drone comb, and drone comb are varroa mite magnets. This along with what others have already said, leads me to say don't go foundationless to start out with.

 

Options:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...d.php?301391-Photos-of-my-partial-sheet-of-foundation-in-deep-frames-experiment

I'd suggest not doing anything too complicated until you understand how the bees work the frames and draw comb. There are many factors that determine how they draw comb. Placement of frames within the hive, the time of year, the age of the queen (newly mated or overwintered) are just a few. Even entrance location can have an impact, especially if they are in a single deep.
Medium frames are easier, they are not so unstable as deeps, but after a few years of working the combs and trying different frame configurations to make it work, I'l say there is a lot to it if you want those foundationless frames reliably drawn, straight, the right cell size and stable. The partial foundation in the center is the best I've come up with.

 

I started this year with foundationless. I did go all mediums. I did break a few combs. I have not extracted but hear you can. Even breaking a comb or two is cheeper and not nessasarilly pound foolish, foundation is expensive. When I know more, I may switch to foundation but as of now do not regret my decision. I have ten hives worth of foundationless frames built. Hundreds and hundreds of them. At $3 each of buying frames, it would have been expencive for a pure hobiest that may never sell a jar of honey. If I ever do sell a jar I might use the money to buy some foundation. I think it would be nice but also think it depends on your goals and also if you want lots more hives. I figured that if I learned with the hard stuff, it could only get easier from there. It can always be added.

It is very intimidating on the first few new combs you mess with but then hopefully you learn what passes and what doesn't and it seems like it will get better. I am not pushing for foundationless here, just saying what I did and money was why. I wanted to try bees with as little invested as possible so I could maby learn what the potential was and learn my own mind on how far I wanted to persue bee keeping. I am not there yet. I don't want to call myself dumb for doing it this way and so say that starting this way is a learning decision that can be changed at a later date as I learn. Depending on your goals foundationless can fit and so can foundation.
Cheers
gww

 

This is what you want:

http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/...t.com/albums/pp340/tweety4926/2016 bees/P6240294 Mt queen brood_zpstpnttuhj.jpg

Not this.

http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/pp340/tweety4926/2016 bees/P7170603_zpsfjaksgfc.jpg

Be careful you don't waste your first season and chance to get good frames drawn by trying to do something that would be better attempted with a little more experience. Good drawn frames will give you a huge advantage your second year. Too many frames like the one shown above will have you kicking yourself the next spring. Almost not even good enough for a swarm trap.

 

lauri
Could you give me a break down of all the bad things you hate about that comb?

Would a knife make that a better comb or smashing it between two flat surfaces and then giving it back to the bees help?

I do have a lot of traps out and they none have comb in them and someday I may have enough to fix that.

I hear what you are saying and also am new enough that answers to my questions above would be helpfull.

From a differrent perspective though. If I built everything, caught the bees and though I would like some honey, am not yet decided on becoming a sideliner, then even if I end up badly starting out, I have little to lose and will still learn a bit. I am retired and don't count my time and consider whatever happens is cheeper then building a motor and then blowing it up at the race track.

That doesn't mean a guy wouldn't like to get better at things but more that I don't mind it it takes a bit longer to get better at them as long as I learn a bit.

I have some wide comb, some comb that the honey band is very wide compared to the rest of the frame. I can still pull them though and the bees seem to still have babies in them and I wonder what I am really loseing even if they are not perfect. This is from a guy that has no experiance and so willingly admits he could be wrong. I haven't changed my mind about how I started cause I at least have bees now and didn't before.

This sorta reminds me of the old saying that a young mans wants are an old mans needs. I may change my tune after I try other things. Not trying to reinvent the wheel but don't see the error yet of starting this way for me. Not for others but for me. I didn't have bees and now I do. That was step one.
Cheers
gww

PS as always, love all your pictures

 

Khines
It's a personal preference/decision and I really don't want to get in a tinkling contest with anyone, to each their own. Read Michael Bush's writings http://bushfarms.com/beesfoundationless.htm


If you are drawing comb on empty foundationless frames placed next to each other, you do need to keep an eye on the alignment and correct sooner than later. Stringing or wiring the frames reinforces the comb but you still need to handle the frames correctly (example: don't rotate frames flat when full and/or new comb); wired foundationless (deeps and mediums) can go into an extractor, still best if the comb is connected on all four sides. When drawing comb during the spring, the bees will draw whatever they feel is appropriate in drone comb, raise the drones and later fill them with nectar, can't personally support them being mite magnets. While going foundationless from the start will not send you to the devil in a hand basket, there is validity in eliminating "one more thing to think about" during your first year before trying foundationless. Again though, it's a personal decision/preference and doesn't have to be an all or nothing proposition.

 

I've done foundationless out of necessity from the beginning. It all depends on what you're wanting to accomplish. I am about as low tech as one can get. Even if I could afford top dollar equipment, I don't think I'd go for it. My priorities don't necessitate the need for expensive equipment. So before answering if foundationless is the right way to go, I'd ask yourself what your goals are as a beekeeper. Beekeeping isn't a one size fits all endeavor. That's the beauty of it to me. I will say if you're the kind of person who gets frustrated when things don't go according to plan, you might want to stick with some form of foundation. Me, I've had great luck with foundationless. Never tried it on deeps, admittedly.

 

I'm totally new as well, I have gone with a mix of foundationless, wax foundation and wax starter strips. Only decided to get into bees 4 weeks ago, installed a nuc 3 weeks ago and then got a good offer on some more bees 2 weeks ago. The mix is as much a result of me having to find equipment quickly as deciding to go with anything in preference.
I think a nuc with foundationless frames is a very different proposition to a package with foundationless frames. My nuc had 5 frames of drawn comb so plenty to guide them in building comb on the other frames, The others were 7 frames so even less room for them to get it wrong.

 

If you do decide to go foundationless purchasing a nuc that already has straight drawn frames is a huge help. When they expand they will have that guide to help rather than just putting a package in with a bunch of foundationless frames. Also make sure your hives are level

 

i agree with this . having fully straight drawn comb that you can drop an empty frame into helps alot . as for drone comb put it in your honey super .

 

If the answer were simple there would not be so many people in every one of those camps. Some hate plastic. Some hate wax. Some hate foundation. Some hate foundationless. Your experience will drive a lot of that and your experience probably has more to do with the foibles of the weather and the whims of the bees than with which of these is better than the other. They all have their advantages. I like foundationless because it ends the "cell size' debate and because it's clean wax. I like plastic because it's easy. Mann Lake PF100s and PF120s are the cell size I want, if I'm going to use foundation, and all I have to do is put them in the box. I don't like wax because it's too much work and it often buckles or falls out if you don't spend enough work on it. And I want to avoid any contamination with acaracides.

 

I started out 12 years ago being foundationless. A coupe of years into it I had a whole deep hive body that the bees decided to draw the come diagonally. After that mess I decided to use plastic foundation. Best move I've made.

 

I've had experience with both, and its easy to tell which colony is foundation and which is foundationless, which one has burr comb.

My first colony was one I bought from a local beek who gave me a captured swarm, the box and the frames with foundation. They had a decent amount of comb and I let them build up in their box till I moved them from the top bar. Burr comb all over. The TBH, nope.

Second year, ran long langs. no burr comb in sight, but no foundation either.