# Request for photos: Foundationless Frame



## Moon

Hey guys,

Those of you out there with pictures of your foundationless frames and would be willing to share them with the rest of us; would you please post them on this thread? I would like to see any pictures in any stages of development by the bees or construction by you!

As always
Appreciate the replies!

Moon


----------



## Ben Brewcat

Mine are just a frame that I don't put foundation into. It takes longer to take and post a pic than to build 10 of them.

As to the comb, it has the occasional transition area (as natural comb will) but otherwise it's pretty much just comb.


----------



## John V

http://www.flickr.com/photos/showmejohnspics/5701148810/


----------



## CharlieN

Frame from an early March split taken 5/17/11. I run most everything in Mediums with an unlimited brood nest.


----------



## Ben Franklin

John V: Nice


----------



## no1cowboy




----------



## Solomon Parker

There's a couple pictures of my foundationless frames at various stages of comb on my blog. Can't post them here, too large, too lazy, other excuses.


----------



## Moon

Wow, thanks for the amazing photos you guys! Those are crazy good! Does anybody have any photos of any foundationless ones that didn't draw out so well? I've read some different things that say the bees sometimes won't attach the comb to certain parts of the frame to help with the harmonics of the comb when they communicate by dance or even when the queen will communicate with different vibrations?


----------



## D Semple

Don


----------



## Moon

How many of you guys are using wire or fishing line in your foundationless frames? I was thinking if the foundationless frames were going in the broodnest there isn't any reason to but added support because they'll never be extracted. Do you guys use foundationless in the broodnest and then frames with foundation in your supers? Thanks for the great pics everyone =)


----------



## John V

This is only my second year in bee keeping. I don't have any drawn supers yet so I'm using foundation until next year. Then I'll space the foundationless in between the drawn comb in the supers to start phasing them in. I guess it's not necassary, but I've read it makes straighter comb if drawn between other drawn comb. I have drawn deep frames I am able to use in the brood chambers to intersperse the foundationless in with. 

They aren't wired. You do have to be careful and not hold them horizontally or they will sag out, especially if they haven't been attached on the sides or bottoms yet. Luckily I was already aware of that issue and never started the habit of turning my frames in all different directions. I won't wire my supers when the time comes. I've read they can still be extracted, just not as fast until the comb is a little older and more firm. 

These are only a few personal experiences and a lot of what I have read, for what thats worth. Although I do trust the sources.

Later, John


----------



## MJC417

After some trial and error, eventually all my hives will be foundationless.


----------



## NasalSponge

Yes I crosswire my foundationless.


----------



## CharlieN

Frame from a Russian swarm I hived little over a week ago.


----------



## BeehiveProject

Using Walter T. Kelly Foundationless frame with comb guide. Applied beeswax to the guide, should be good to go yes? Others like these? Success with them?


----------



## NasalSponge




----------



## Nico108

Can we talk about comb guide for a minute...I'm new to all of this and in fact don't even have my bees until Friday, but would like to start out foundationless after reading Micheal Bush's website. In fact, it seems the only way. So, here are a few questions;
1. In our 8 frame medium kit, we received sixteen frames; each one has a groove in the bottom and the top. To start a comb guide, do I just glue a popsicle stick in the top? Or should I take a "bit of foundation" and attach it to the top? Some people seem to be using dowels running straight down...and what about wire?
2. Is foundationless just for the brood nest and not for the super? If you use it in the super, do you just cut out a fair portion leaving an inch at the top and that is your guide for the next year?
3. If I get a nuc, the five frames are presumably on foundation. Do I set them in the hive together with foundationless on either side? And how do I intersperse the? I have read that you don't want to shuffle your frames...
Very confused but excited. Thanks to anyone who can answer these...
Nico


----------



## Walliebee

These are great pictures of foundationless frames being shown. :applause: Is their anyone willing to show their not so perfect frames, and tell us what might have gone wrong? k:

1. To start a comb guide, do I just glue a popsicle stick in the top? Yes, you can. That's one way. You can also use the wedge from the top bar, turned on its side, and glued in place. (Nico, you don't have this type)
Or should I take a "bit of foundation" and attach it to the top? Again, yes you can. It's called a starter strip. 
Some people seem to be using dowels running straight down...and what about wire? Wire come later after the comb is built for strength and support. I'm not familiar with using dowels.

2. Is foundationless just for the brood nest and not for the super? It is an individual choice. If you use foundationless in the supers, you will need to wire them if you plan to use a radial extractor.
If you use it in the super, do you just cut out a fair portion leaving an inch at the top and that is your guide for the next year? Yes, then you can make cut comb, and/or use the crush and strain extraction method.

3. If I get a nuc, the five frames are presumably on foundation. Do I set them in the hive together with foundationless on either side? Yes, you do not want to seperate the frames. 
And how do I intersperse the? The bees will expand outward as the colony grows. As more of the frames are drawn you can work them inward some, but you never want to seperate frames that have brood or new eggs. You will get a feel for the process as you inspect the progress.


----------



## Desert Viking Ranch

Walliebee said:


> The bees will expand outward as the colony grows. As more of the frames are drawn you can work them inward some, but you never want to seperate frames that have brood or new eggs. You will get a feel for the process as you inspect the progress.


Can you explain why you never want to seperate the frames? I have been working at converting over to foundationless and I have been inserting a foundtionless frame (I use 1/2" starter strips of foundation I cut up and place inside the top groove - works well for me) in between drawn foundation almost every other one. What is the downside to doing this? Am I slowing down the comb drawing process maybe?


----------



## OSafado

Desert Viking Ranch said:


> Can you explain why you never want to seperate the frames?


I'm still a bit of a newb, but the reason is you don't want to separate brood to the extent that the colony can't regulate the temperature. That said, separating brood with foundationless frames is sometimes recommended as a swarm prevention measure. If the hive is strong, it is probably fine...if it isn't strong, you could lose a frame or two of brood.


----------



## Kazzandra

LOVE my foundationless foray using starter strips. After their first delay at doing their first two, they now prefer working on them to the foundation. I interlace foundation/starter strip/foundation and they make their own comb straighter and nicer than the foundation. No burr or brace problems. The difference is shocking. So glad I didn't listen to all of the nay-sayers. On the other side of this frame, they've stored honey in those giant cells, so that goes to show you they don't lay it full of brood. The eggs are now nice uncapped larva. I'll be curious if these will be drones or workers. My bets are on drones, but then again, these are large pure Russians-- they might want a bit more room. 
Click for High-Res Photos: With great pictures of eggs! (Probably drones, but this shows I have one good laying queen in there-- somewhere!)


A comparison of foundation (top) and foundationless (bottom). The top one, of course, is older. But notice the size difference.

Pretty eggs!


----------



## stacie

Ah, I can finally jump into this thread! Alright, so I got into my hives yesterday and it was long overdue. In my deep hive bodies, it's a mix of Mann Lake PF-whatevers, the "small cell" plastic frame with foundationless. I think these pics are all of the newer medium supers above, each of which only has one plastic "ladder" frame. So the good, the bad, and the neato:

Here's cross comb, begun at the bottom of one frame and attached at the top of the next frame over. The level says the hive is, but this is one example of "bad" foundationless:









This one's from the same hive as above, but closer to the ladder. Great work:









Not quite finished in the second hive, but getting a lot of use:









New comb section in the second hive. They're really good builders over there:


----------



## Kazzandra

Oops! Moved those pictures-- will need to repost.

Well, here's true foundationless-- no starter strip or anything. These guys are comb building champs. I love Russians for their gorgeous festooning! And I guess I don't have SHB, either.


















Original comparison shot:


----------



## David LaFerney

No cross wires, and I had absolutely zero problems extracting foundationless honey last month.


----------



## stacie

Whoa, gorgeous pictures. I've been following this thread for a while. I think of it as bee porn. 

Slightly off topic, but since festooning was mentioned above: Bees aren't injured when I gently pull a frame out that separates a festooned bunch of bees, right? I try to be careful, but it looks like they're really hanging on to each other. They just let go, right? No legs are broken, as far as we know?


----------



## jmgi

MJC417, Those rods in your pictures look good, running them vertically in the frames instead of horizotally adds to the strength too. I assume you glued them in. John


----------



## camero7

Mine are similar to David's.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/?hide_photostream_welcome=1


----------



## Intheswamp

Well, looks like a slightly older thread revived but some good informational pics and methods revisited. :thumbsup:


----------



## David LaFerney

TheBix - _"This year I was planning to build my first, completely foundationless beehive, but in the supers I was planning to put fishing line in for structural reinforcement..thinking of the honey extraction to come. However, your experience tells me that I don't need it. I'd like more information, if possible. And I'd be happy to put this out on the forum if you'd prefer. But, my specific question is this: Were the frames you extracted connected on all four sides of the comb? General question: What other conditions or processes did you do to successfully extract your foundationless frames?"_

The foundationless frames that I extracted were pretty much fully attached on all four sides like the middle one in the set above. I have a hand cranked Maxant 3200 and I extracted them in the tangential position - which has a lot of support for the comb. Crank carefully and don't even try to fully extract the first side in one try, flip it and extract the other side. When you have removed most of the weight of the honey you can spin it up if you want, but even if you don't there is no waste because you are just going to feed it to the bees when they clean up the stickies. It really isn't difficult at all, you just have to use reasonable care.


----------



## DLMKA

I'm glad this thread got bumped. That comb is just beautiful.


----------



## Lauri

You can see I cut rite cell foundation into small strips with a razor knife and pound it into the grove for a starter strip. It holds better than a smooth wood strip. ALso NEVER do deep frames without a wire or dowel. You will loose a lot of great comb when it gets heavy with honey.


















Here's some beautiful honeycomb that just fell out of the frame. Especially in the winter when the outside frames get cold-ugh the comb gets brittle.And I am extremly careful about handling them.


----------



## Lauri

[/QUOTE]

LOL, now that just looks like a big yellow butt!


----------



## BeeGhost

Lauri, those are very cool pictures of comb on your foundationless frames!! Upon further reading I drilled my end bars and ran two strands of 50# fishing mono horizontally through the frame for comb support. I will be tending to the hives tomorrow as well as checking a trap out tree and swarm traps, and I will be changing out the un-wired frames in the traps with wired frames.............but some sturgeon fishing is in order first thing in the morning!!


----------



## Lauri

Ya, Sturgeon line would be great!


----------



## BeeGhost

Here is a deep foundationless frame that I had in with a fresh swarm I picked up this year, actually, its a whole box of foundationless frames and they have almost all them drawn out like this!! I dont think I will be going back to plastic foundation, except in my honey supers. Very impressed though!!


----------



## Allen

My friends bees:


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

Allen, very interesting pictures. I was under the impression that bees always built comb _down, _but those photos show they build comb both _up_ and down_._


----------



## DC Bees

Here are a few pics of my foundationless frames.I really enjoy this part of beekeeping,sharing pics and ideas.

http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i418/DCBees/Picture016.jpg
http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i418/DCBees/DSC01994-1.jpg


----------



## dux

This is 21 days after I installed my very first package in a top bar hive...

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s41/sh/0d1db127-5272-4794-a884-fd2e8b4fc6c0/ad84934ef91cdb60ccdb3f1f2ddc43b8


----------



## BayHighlandBees

here's a few of mine. (One is the background for my desktop). I use mine intermixed with plastic foundation.


----------



## Michael Bush

>I use mine intermixed with plastic 

And the plastic remains untouched...


----------



## Solomon Parker

I'm finding that if you want the plastic drawn well, you need at least three frames adjacent one another. Otherwise, they'd rather draw the wax or foundtionless super wide and ignore the plastic.

Either that or get them drawn in the spring in a nuc, but it's still not perfect. I tried doing a shaken swarm with 5 plastic and one foundationless and they drew a nice perfect comb perpendicular to the plastic, right through the open space of the foundationless frame. Trying to get into mediums.


----------



## westernbeekeeper

Here are some of mine.


----------



## NUBE

If you use a starter strip of foundation will the bees build the whole comb out at that size cell or will they build whatever size they want.


----------



## westernbeekeeper

It seems to depend on the season. If it is late in the year, they will build plenty of drone cells alongt with the worker cells. If earlier in the year, they will do it almost all worker cells. 
If you are talking about small cell vs. standard, I really don't know. I haven't experimented much with small cell foundationless comb. Hope this helps.


----------



## NUBE

Thanks for the reply. I was most curious about cell size though. I'm trying to go to a small cell size and wondering if my use of larger cell starter stips, about 2 inch strips of I think 5.4, is hindering my goal


----------



## Michael Bush

>Thanks for the reply. I was most curious about cell size though. I'm trying to go to a small cell size and wondering if my use of larger cell starter stips, about 2 inch strips of I think 5.4, is hindering my goal 

The top row of cells is often larger anyway and they will quickly adjust it. It will work fine, but I'd make them 3/4" instead of 2". In fact I'd use wood strips instead of either as they are more durable, more reliable and won't have any affect on cell size.


----------



## NUBE

Thanks for the info Michael. I plan too eventually use the wood strip only, but since I only recently got start back into keeping (swarm found an old hive i never tore down) I was worried about the possibility of a mess if I didn't give the girls a strong indication of where to start the draw. 
P.S. Does anyone else have problems posting photos from an iPhone photo gallery


----------



## Allen

Nube, in the three images I posted in this thread of frames with foundation as starter strips, the cells were smaller on the strips.
When they drew comb below the strips it then got larger.

I had expected the opposite to happen and don't know why they are doing it that way.


----------



## NUBE

http://m.facebook.com/?_rdr#!/media...=1&op=1&v&ref=bookmark&__user=100001086464066


----------



## max2

Lots of lovely pics - come spring I may even give it a go. Thanks


----------



## curios1

this one was started with a piece about the size of a cell phone. i just turn the wedge. nail it. and pinch a piece of comb to the wedge.


----------



## Horst

Hi Fans, my Dadant-modified TBH with a honey chamber


----------



## curios1

this eavning i started 5 new frames. i thought i would try something new. i found some 1/8 wood dowel that i inserted for crosspieces for strenth. i eaven went virticle on one just to see how it comes out.i will show more on next post


----------



## curios1

and then i cut pieces from natural foundation i have in a hive to start a new one.makeing shure ther are no eggs or larva where i cut.


----------



## curios1

more photos even the queen showed up.


----------



## curios1

started 7/12






and today just 7 days later


----------



## Ben Little

this is mine, i didn't use anything, just an empty frame no supports.


----------

