# Starter Strips



## danno (Dec 17, 2007)

I dont do TBH but imagine starter strips would be the same as what I do in my comb honey supers. I use thin surplus foundation. I cut 1" full length strips from the sheets. These get glued into the top bar slots. To glue them I use a small double boiler filled with wax. Dadant sell a tool called a wax tube fastener. When the wax is liquid the WTF is set in to heat up. It has to be the same temp as the wax to work. When its hot it will fill with melted wax. It has a little breather hole on the handle that when plugged with your finger the wax stays inside the tube. The starter strips are held in the inverted top bar slot while the WTF trickles out a small bead of wax to glue it in. About every 3rd or 4th frame I glue in a full sheet instead of a strip.


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## KPeacock (Jan 29, 2013)

a lot of folks think that making frames for langs is a waste of time, and for them, they are correct. For me, I like to make things, so it satisfies a desire to build, and it also satisfies a need for frames. even if one buys in bulk, frames are about $0.75. well, a hive with two boxxes for brood, and two honey supers, requires 40 rfames. if you have two or three hives, thats 80 or 120 frames you need. I'll gladly save $100 and doing something i kinda enjoy, that supports a hobby I'm interested in. Heck, that savings just "paid" for another package/nuc of bees. 

Anyways, you don't care about that, so back to starter strips. I made up some foundationless frames to test out and used plastic foundation as a starter strip. i cut the leftover sheets to about an inch or so. I then took the top bar of the frames and ran them over the table saw to cut a small groove in them. I forget the exact width required, but I made the groove just a bit wider than the foundation...and I mean just a bit...like thousandths of an inch. I squireted a bit of titebondIII in the groove, and then pressed in the 1" strips of plastic foundation. Just in case, i rand 4 narrow crown stables through the top bar perpendiculat to the "foundation" so that they go through the top bar and foundation to mechanically secure it. This will give the beest a few cels headstarts and a nice guide to get them going with their own comb making.

This is all just an idea though. i happened to have some extra plastic foundation sitting around, and wanted to try foundationless. I won't know if this works for a few months, so you may want to take the advice of someone more experienced. I think i have a solid plan though.


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## llgoddj (Apr 11, 2012)

I have been able to make two TBH without virtually purchasing anything. It is usually pretty easy to find scrap wood around the neighborhood when people are throwing away furniture, etc, which is what I have done. the only item I purchased was a couple of hinges and bolts for the legs and the hinges for my window. As far as the strips, I used paint stirrers, cut in half to optimize the number of strips from each stirrer. went in to Home Depot and asked for them, no problem. otherwise you can make the strips out of any 1/8" piece of wood and router out a strip in your top bar, then glue the strip into it. works like a charm.
thanks and good luck.
larry


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

http://www.bushfarms.com/beestopbarhives.htm#guide
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoundationless.htm#whichguide

I like most anything but the wax filled groove ok, but I prefer wood over wax as it's more permanent and doesn't get deformed easily.


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## bobbarker (May 23, 2012)

Thanks everyone. I've been pretty excited about doing a TBH since last fall, and this was the missing link for me.


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## thebalvenie (Feb 25, 2013)

i've heard and read that gluing Popsicle sticks for starter strips works like a charm.

but, i've purchased my first hive from beethinking.com and their hives come with all-in-one bars with starter strips

See here:









my next hive will be a warre hive...but i first want to manage the horizontal top bar and see how that works.


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## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

Bob, I made some bars like thebalvenie has a photo of in the previous post. The first ones I made with my cousin on his table saw and it was pretty easy. We probably knocked out 40 or so in an hour, maybe less than that. The next batch I made with a circular saw and a few home made jigs. I made 150 and it took me probably 20 times longer, plus the time to make the jigs. Word of advice, if you don't have access to a table saw and you want bars with a wedge in them, purchase them. 

I have seen some folks that use strips of coroplast as starter strips in lang frames. That should work fine in a top bar hive as well. I may try that for the next batch of bars.


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## thenance007 (May 25, 2011)

Look in the trim section in the lumber dept. at a big box store. There are lots of cove moldings, etc. some of which are the perfect shape to glue under the top bar as a starter strip--cheap and easy.


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## rmcpb (Aug 15, 2012)

thenance007 said:


> Look in the trim section in the lumber dept. at a big box store. There are lots of cove moldings, etc. some of which are the perfect shape to glue under the top bar as a starter strip--cheap and easy.


This is how I do mine - a bit of molding, a few panel pins and glue. Simple as pie...................


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## SteveBee (Jul 15, 2010)

We use bars as shown on this link. They're a little harder to make, and you have to have a table saw, but they worked better than other versions we tried.

lyonsvillefletcher.blogspot.com/2009/03/top-bar-pictorial.html

There is a top bar hive powerpoint presentation at this link and this type bar is shown in the presentation.

http://honeysunapiary.wordpress.com/tbh-warre/


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## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

SteveBee, that is the way that I made them on a table saw as well, but when we made the wedge cut we made it with the wood over top of the blade. The safest way would be to use a sled to hold the work.

It is very fast to do on a table saw. I'll probably make a few hundred more, but I'll wait until I can get some cheap good wood. The results from the circular saw are almost identical, but it is too labor intensive to recommend to anyone. I would like to have a table saw, but I got spoiled by my cousins high end job site saw, and I can't afford a $500 saw.


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## thebalvenie (Feb 25, 2013)

@ steve

these ones?


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## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

Nice bars, but those bars would be a lot of work for a Warre. With a Warre you don't care how they pull comb (at least that is the way I understand it) so I wouldn't use a wedge.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

shannonswyatt said:


> I would like to have a table saw, but I got spoiled by my cousins high end job site saw, and I can't afford a $500 saw.


As Cleo Hogan has pointed out several times, Craigslist has lots of decent tablesaws for sale. Here's a couple from Roanoke:

A $60 Delta benchtop:
http://roanoke.craigslist.org/tls/3615881970.html

Or a full size Craftsman with wheels at $200
http://roanoke.craigslist.org/tls/3656143722.html

Lots more choices ...


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## SteveBee (Jul 15, 2010)

Nope, thebalvenie. Those are what I made for a Warre. The ones we used for the TBH are cut from a single piece of 2X scrap. They're shown as a slide on the Powerpoint presentation on the TBH/Warre tab on our site. The Warre top bars are small v-shaped pieces nailed on to the main bar.


Shannonswyatt- - we never could get our state apiarist to tell us if the Warre is even legal where we live. So, we want to make the combs as "removable" as possible, since this will be the sticking point. With that being said, I want them to build the straight and on the strip, which makes them easy to remove (using a bread knife) if required. 

Shannonswyatt - -You are correct that making a sled would make it much safer to make the top bars. It's risky business with that blade sticking up at an angle. I used a strong push-bar while cutting.


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## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

Like I said, I got spoiled by my cousins sweet Bosch jobsite saw. I know how I am. If I buy something that is ok I will cuss it every time I use it until I replace it with what I really want. Right now my play money is tied up on some other stuff, but if I came across something like a Bosch for a couple hundred I would be all over it.


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## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

SteveBee said:


> Shannonswyatt - -You are correct that making a sled would make it much safer to make the top bars. It's risky business with that blade sticking up at an angle. I used a strong push-bar while cutting.


Yes, there really isn't a cost savings if you lose your thumb!


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## rmaro (Feb 22, 2011)

Here is an old vid I did about this very same thing and it worked great,,, do not make the problem harder than it needs to be.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiBp0YiXpII


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## bobbarker (May 23, 2012)

Fantastic ideas, everyone. I'm not sure which route I'm going to go yet, but I appreciate all the input. 

I've got a table saw that I bought off of Craigslist, and it works out okay for me for small jobs. For the precise or really nice things, I borrow my father-in-law's shop, which comes complete with some very nice high end tools, and a master craftsman to help me out too. I'm still waiting and saving for my expensive, nice cabinet saw, but the cheap-o from Craigslist has allowed me to get an awful lot done that I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

>  the cheap-o from Craigslist has allowed me to get an awful lot done that I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.

In many cases, the difference between a cheap-o saw and a high end tablesaw is the quality and accuracy of the fence. Since beekeeping woodenware often involves lots of pieces of the same dimensions, its possible to build wooden jigs that ride in the saw's miter slot to provide very good accuracy and eliminate setup time. These jigs don't need to use the fence at all.

Building jigs is free, and can go a long way towards making a cheap saw perform as well as an expensive saw.


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## bobbarker (May 23, 2012)

Rader Sidetrack said:


> >  the cheap-o from Craigslist has allowed me to get an awful lot done that I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.
> 
> In many cases, the difference between a cheap-o saw and a high end tablesaw is the quality and accuracy of the fence. Since beekeeping woodenware often involves lots of pieces of the same dimensions, its possible to build wooden jigs that ride in the saw's miter slot to provide very good accuracy and eliminate setup time. These jigs don't need to use the fence at all.
> 
> Building jigs is free, and can go a long way towards making a cheap saw perform as well as an expensive saw.



I absolutely agree. However, the fence on mine is accurate enough for beekeeping, it's just not accurate enough for the furniture and other finished goods that I enjoy making. Since I've stopped using box joints for the corners and use a Kreg jig for my joinery, I don't have to worry about a dado blade at all (which is good, because el cheapo table saw won't take one). I also use a router table to cut the frame rests, so very little of building boxes comes off of my table saw. It's just ripping the boards to width. After that I hit the sliding miter saw to cut to length, the router table for the rests, and finally the kreg jig.

The table saw, even being a cheap one that doesn't get used in every state of the operation, is still an invaluable part of the operation.


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## DrDoorlock (Mar 5, 2013)

I read in over three places - catalog, beekeeper's handbook and other keepers to NOT mix wood and plastic in any situation. It is believed to confuse the bees. I built my hive just looking at stuff on the 'net and I'm proud to be in this group. I built my top bars out of Red Oak and made the starter strips of Aspen. Lowes sells really nice aspen that works well, has no grain and doesn't warp. Check out today's post about my endoscope.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfallacies.htm#waxplastic

That you can't mix wax and plastic is not so much a myth as an over simplification. Putting undrawn plastic in with undrawn wax is like putting a piece of cherry pie and a bowl of broccoli in front of your kids at the same time. If you want them to eat the broccoli, you should wait to put out the cherry pie.

If you mix wax and plastic foundation, the bees will jump on the wax and ignore the plastic. If you put in all plastic they will use it when they need comb.

There is no great impending disaster if you mix them. They just have their preferences and if you want them to follow your preferences you should limit their choices. Once it is drawn comb or comb that is being used, you can mix it freely with everything with no problems.


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## thebalvenie (Feb 25, 2013)

well said. 

this makes sense.

thank you.


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## the doc (Mar 3, 2010)

my best success with generating straight comb has been using the full length starter strips as others have described. ( i haven't tried the wedge bars yet as this works fine and I have a lot of free foundation). definitely staple them as well, one year it was quite warm and the broodnest heat melted out the starter strips and the were flopping everywhere. what a mess!


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## Tomas (Jun 10, 2005)

I usually make my starter strips by cutting newspaper or regular white photocopier paper into one-half inch strips and bathing it in melted wax. Putting it into melted wax two times has worked fine but bathing it three times makes them a bit thicker/stronger and they hold up better under rough handling of the bars (such as during transportation to the apiary if they are all bundled together). You could also use strips of cardboard, such as that from a cereal box. 

Your bars need to have a groove for installing the starter strips. Secure them using a bit more melted wax. An advantage of these is that you can make them easily if you do not have a lot of wax on hand. A pound or two of wax can be melted in a small can or pot and the strips of paper easily dipped and covered. You also don’t have to buy or ruin a sheet of foundation.

Another alternative is to make a simple wax sheet using a dipping board. Wet the board well so the wax won’t stick. Dip it into melted wax two or three times, depending on the thickness of the sheet you want. The resulting sheets are cut into strips and the strips glued into the top bar’s groove using some more melted wax. The disadvantage of this is that you need to melt quite a bit of wax into a larger container so the board can be dipped to make the sheet—not good if you don’t have that much wax on hand. The other problem is that these strips can be fragile, especially on a colder day. If you don’t be careful you can break off all of your starter strips.

I have also used popsicle sticks successfully as starter strips.

Click on the link to my photobucket page to find (among other things) photos of my starter strips.

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Tom


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## oldfordguy (Dec 5, 2009)

I have both foundationless langs and Top bar hives, and when I make the foundationless lang frames I have a lot of triangular cutoffs left over that get glued and air-stapled to the bottom of the top bars for guides, and the bees seem to follow them quite well without any waxing.


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