# Getting my ladies in March or April & couldnt be more excited. Chas. SC



## KPeacock (Jan 29, 2013)

Welcome,

I'm new to bees as well, but have fabricated and assembled 4 deeps, 4 mediums, the covers...etc and all the frames to go with them. I too am now leaning towards foundationless. Sadly, this is a week after buying and installing all 80 foundations. I also purcahses an entrance feeder while getting my foundation, but after recieving it, I'm quite certain this i will not be using it. I figured that for $4 it was worth buying, but I'm in agreement with many others who think they are undersized. I will be building top feeders with a capacity of around 4 gallons. I doubt I'll fill them all the way, but I'd rather be able to add more syrup than build another.

I'm going to try some 1" strips of plastic foundation as my starter strips in the foundationless frames. I have yet to decide whether I want to try one hive completely foundationless, or keep foundation in the brood boxes. Heck, I may even end up running both in the same boxes.

Like you, am I excited to get the call to go pick up my nucs.

Welcome to the forum and enjoy reading. i find myself going back through old pages of threads and just reading and reading. There is a wealth of information here.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

Welcome to Beesource, Andrea!

While entrance feeders (AKA Boardman feeders) are easy to use, they are an invitation to start a robbing scenario, because it is easy for 'foreign' bees to access the feeder. I believe you will be better off in the long run using a top feeder.

If you are using an inner cover with a hole in it, that hole _may _be sized to accept a feeder jar. If it is not the right size, just set the boardman feeder on top of the inner cover (allowing the bees access thru the cover hole), and cover the feeder with an empty hive body, then the telescoping cover. More info on feeders here:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm


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## Lazer128 (Dec 15, 2012)

Welcome to the site! Great place!


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

Welcome Andrea!


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## sfisher (Sep 22, 2009)

Welcome Andrea Im in Myrtle Beach. Brushy sells a nice hive top feeder, once you start robbing, you will wish you would of used one. Also have you seen the Charelston area beekeepers forum and club? Lots of good local info there! Stay in touch.


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## samoadc (Dec 15, 2012)

Good luck and keep us posted on how well things go.


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## MelanieWoosley (Nov 11, 2012)

Welcome, Andrea! First: awesome name for the bees! I am still a newbie (I started last spring) and absolutely can't wait til spring! Today, I got my fix by walking out to the hive to find the bees busy as heck on this sunny day! Bringing pollen in and all! I, like racer sidetrack do recommend using that feeder on top the hive with a hive body around it and covers on top. If you haven't already, find fat beeman on you tube and go thru his videos. Very helpful on basic topics for us newbies. Best of luck this spring!


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## Mbeck (Apr 27, 2011)

Welcome


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## andreaf (Feb 6, 2013)

Thanks everyone! I do love the site BushFarms.com. I probably will go with the top bar feeder, I'm just kinda bummed it cost more than a super! Last year in my garden, I didn't see 1 honeybee which is one of the leading reasons why i'm getting some this year). On my sunflowers, I saw teeny tiny bees and then we have some farmer bees burrowing in my porch. Will these bees try to rob my ladies?


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## Ramona (Apr 26, 2008)

Hi Andrea and KP.

We have bee doing foundationless for about 10 years now and have had very good luck using wooden jumbo craft sticks.

The bees do a better job drawing straight comb when the sticks span the entire length of the frame. You'll need about two and two-thirds sticks per frame. Dean built a little jig for snapping off the end of the third stick. They don't have to be perfect- gaps of an inch or so are ok but you should aim to span the frame.

We use wood glue.

You can purchase Jumbo craft sticks in boxes of 300 for about $5.00/Box at either Walmart or Michaels's Crafts.

We don't apply any wax to the wood - the bees do a better job attaching their own wax without it.

We don't use any treatments on our bees but until we regressed them to 4.9 cell size we had problems keeping them alive for more than a year even with foundationless.

The best tool for regressing that is available now is the Mann Lake PF 100 series of all-in-one frames/foundation. If you start your bees on the PF's, you can introduce foundationless frames on the edges of the broodnest after a couple of rounds of brood (6-8 weeks or so). You can then begin rotating out the PF's if you don't want the plastic in your hives.

Ramona


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## andreaf (Feb 6, 2013)

If the bees build their own comb to begin with, is it usually smaller than the normal foundation but not 4.9 cell size? And why would your foundationless colonies die after a year?

Thanks for the info. Very Helpful! I am going to use the craft sticks but I was going to just stick 2 back to back in the middle. Now, I will follow your advice and do it the length of the frame.


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## samoadc (Dec 15, 2012)

wasting space I know but I just wanted to thank you very much for the information about Jumbo Kraft sticks as I will try it in the future.Thanks for posting this very important information to me.


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## sfisher (Sep 22, 2009)

andreaf if you let them draw their own they usually draw them out about 5.1 at least mine did. I went to a paint store and they gave me a whole bag of paint stirers that I used for my foundationless frames.


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