we also do not use foundation. we did (as dee suggested) regress using HSC, then all foundationless from there.
as chris said, the hives must be level. we don't use starter strips, but glue "jumbo craft sticks" (bit popsicle sticks from walmart or michaels crafts) into the top bar groove all the way across the frame. this takes 2 full sticks and a partial (about 3 cents per frame). an untested plan is to, when there is a full box of comb to cull, just put the whole box over a pan, and put glass ontop in the sun. since the comb guides are wood (and glued in, not waxed in), they should be all ready to use after the wax melts off.
when i want to add a box of empty frames, i try to do it in the brood nest. 2 brood frames in the center of otherwise foundationless frames right above the brood nest seems to work well. an empty box on top will often result in the bees building comb from the bottom of the frames (which doesn't work very well). the 2 full frames act as a "ladder", and the bees seem happy to expand out from there pretty well.
we showed our county bee club one of our hives last weekend. what i think surprised people the most was the drawing of foundationless frames (which was in progress, as this was a fairly recent split). without the foundation to divide the bees onto either side of the foundation (where they draw horizontally in one direction), the cluster of bees hangs off the bottom of the comb, drawing both sides at once.
we did photograph an entire hive a few weeks ago (both sides of each comb). this hive was used to hold equipment against wax moths, so there is plenty of room in there. a good goldenrod flow has been on, and i haven't checked this hive to see what is going on, but this will show you some foundationless comb (some better, some worse), interspersed with some HSC.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Dean.Ramona/VirtualLeafHiveSept152008
deknow
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