In a message dated 27/09/2009 17:05:59 GMT Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

very few  who have seen our hives (between our county club, our conference 
attendees,  and various other beekeepers (in excess of 150 beekeepers) have 
ever seen comb  being built without foundation (the popularity of tbh's is 
changing this  slowly, but our bee inspector and the state apiarist can't 
seem to grasp that  a lang without foundation is not a tbh...remember, 
langstroth's first frames  were foundationless frames).  fwiw, even at this time of 
year with most  drones having been expelled, our bees are still building 
some comb.  they  seem not to be drawing out any of the foundation that is left 
in the hives at  this point.



If I'm putting in new frames into the brood box (British National, same  
principle as Langstroth but square boxes) I fit them with starter strips of 
thin  foundation.  Where I am re-using old combs from disease-free colonies I 
cut  out the centre part that has been bred in leaving a thick footprint 
round the  perimeter.  The subsequent brood patterns have to be seen to be 
believed -  massive slabs of sealed brood with hardly any misses.
 
I measured cell sizes on my TBH and found there is a curve between front,  
middle and back of the hive (smallest in the middle) with a similar curve 
across  each comb.
 
Chris

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