After reading George Irimie's excellent description of how to super hives
with drawn comb, one person asked 'for those of us who do not have enough
drawn comb, how do you recommend drawing foundation?"

I am in possession of George's recommendations on how to draw foundation.
With his permission, I am reproducing it below.  While George lives in
Maryland, and I live in upstate NY, my personal recommendations would be
almost exactly the same as George's.  The details George provides are
important, but there are three overriding rules for hobbyists who live in
areas without a major flow (most hobbyists).  A major flow is one that lasts
at least three weeks without interruption.  Those rules are FEED, FEED,
FEED.  Your supers of drawn comb will last at least 5 years...a hobbyist
should be more than willing to sacrifice one year of honey to get 3-4 or
more supers of completely drawn comb per hive!

George's comments:
" wish I could do it in a few short words; but so many beekeepers just don't
understand the very basics of bee BEHAVIOR, I have to use a LOT OF WORDS.
Honey bees are not programmed to "PLAN AHEAD"; but they wait for a NEED for
something before they will go into action. The ONLY PURPOSE for drawn comb
(making foundation into comb) is a SPACE for the queen to lay an egg or a
SPACE
for foraging bees to deposit NECTAR or pollen; and bees are NOT GOING TO
DRAW
FOUNDATION unless there is a need for brood laying or storage space for
NECTAR.
Further, queen laying is greatly diminished in the absence of a NECTAR flow.
Hence, one MUST understand that bees will NOT draw foundation (build comb)
without some type of NECTAR flow.  Without a natural NECTAR flow, we
beekeepers
can provide an ARTIFICIAL nectar flow by feeding 1:1 ratio of sugar syrup,
which
surely is NOT AS GOOD as a real nectar flow, but works to some extent.

When trying to get foundation drawn into drawn comb, you MUST observe 4
cardinal
principles: 1.) there MUST BE a nectar flow present or at least an
artificial
nectar
of 1:1 sugar syrup, 2.) there MUST be 10 (TEN) frames in the super, never 9
or 8,
and 3.) the frames MUST BE TIGHTLY PACKED TOGETHER with NO space between the
end bars; and lastly 4.) only ONE super of foundation at a time can be
installed to be drawn, and the 2nd super of foundation can NOT be installed
until
the 1st super is
about 75% drawn and FILLED WITH SOMETHING, be it brood, pollen, or nectar.
Obviously, the same rules apply for the 3rd super of foundation, where you
MUST
wait until the frames in the 2nd super are drawn and filled with something.

I'll give you an example:  In Maryland, our ONLY honey flow is EARLY and
SHORT,
starting about April 15th and ending by June 15th..  If I am short on frames
of
DRAWN comb and have to use foundation (which is a pain in my fanny), I
definitely like to use queen excluders to keep the queen out of my honey,
but I put
a super
of foundation on the colony about April 1st WITH NO QUEEN EXCLUDER UNDER IT,
and let the bees either put nectar in it or the queen to lay eggs in it.
This becomes
a BAIT super because the bees just won't leave it alone in order to either
RIPEN the
nectar into honey or FEED THE BROOD.  Having this BAIT super present,
sometime
about April 15th, I place a QUEEN EXCLUDER under this BAIT super and add my
2nd
super of foundation. Every 4-5 days, I sneak a look at the work in that 2nd
super,
and when I find it is about 66% or 75% filled with nectar, I move the
outside
frames into the center and the center frames to the outside, and install the
3rd super of
foundation; and repeat for the 4th and 5th supers if there is a strong
enough
nectar
flow.
I will be VERY POSITIVE in saying this: I don't care WHERE you are or WHAT
race
of bees you have, there is NO way to get foundation drawn without a NECTAR
flow or
feeding an artificial nectar like 1:1 sugar syrup.  Further, there is NO WAY
to get
frames of foundation drawn PROPERLY unless the frames are very tightly
pushed
together 10/super, and it MUST be done just one super at a time.

Sure, it is LABOR INTENSIVE, but if you try to do any other way, you will
wind up
in failure, and have to finally do it as I have described.  It is the BEE'S
WAY OF
DOING THINGS, not mine.

I hope I have helped.

George Imirie, retired scientist
Beginning my 72nd year as a beekeeper

Lloyd
Lloyd Spear, Owner Ross Rounds, Inc.
Manufacturers of Ross Rounds Comb
Honey Equipment, Sundance Pollen Traps
and Custom Printer of Sundance Labels.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and  other info ---
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::