I use narrow starter strips for comb honey on the grounds that the whole
comb will all be from the local nectar and the mid rib as thin as the
bees make it. The cutter I have does 5 pieces and what's left can be
extracted and the frame returned for the next time, already started.
Alternating drawn comb and strips gives a good parallel comb and
stacking them one above the other seems to encourage the young bees to
work up through the boxes.

This year I experimented with Dave Cushman's design of brood starter
strips and fishing line "wiring". It will be interesting to measure the
cell sizes next time round. This time, since the bees were expanding on
to a second box, they drew a lot of drone comb, and removed a
significant proportion of the drone brood. This seems quite a promising
sign to follow up.
--
James Kilty

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