No I haven’t
However, I have had a swarm build perfectly straight combs with ALL starter strips but only once. They usually make pretty patterns, often diagonally across the box.
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Haha that sounds less than ideal
Hi Dawn,
I’ve assembled all of the brood frames as per the instructions. ie I’ve put the wooden comb guides into the gap in the underside of the top bar of each frame (with glue). But I plan to use wax foundation. So my question is can I leave the foundation sheets curving away from the wooden comb guides? Or should I attach the foundation to the comb guide (if so how?) Or should I cut the the foundation sheet to line up with the comb guide? Or should I remove the wooden comb guides?
Thanks Michael (Melbourne, Australia)
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Hi Michael,
I have never tried what you are suggesting. Given the amount of effort that your bees will put into drawing the comb, personally I would not take a risk with a creative solution which may have unexpected results. 
As frames are generally under $1.50 each (I recently bought some for 95 cents), I would just buy 8 new frames designed to hold foundation (I prefer a wedge top bar and a divided bottom bar for foundation). It is almost impossible to have too many frames, and who knows, maybe you would like to try one or two foundationless frames in the future. Removing the wood strips might prove tricky, given the strength of PVA glue, and you may end up breaking the frame, which would be a shame.
Just my 2 cents worth, others may differ. 
Dawn
Thank you, Dawn.
It’s all a bit of a new (& exciting) journey for me!
Cheers Michael
Hi Dawn,
Here are photos of the current foundation-less frames WITH foundation. Note the slight curve of the foundation.
Have you any further comments?
Cheers Michael
Hi Michael,
Well, it looks like you could trim the top edge of the foundation off, where it meets the wooden comb guide in the top bar of the frame. Even if there was a small gap, it wouldn’t matter - the bees will fill it soon enough.
I am slightly concerned that it doesn’t look as if your wire is embedded in the foundation. @JeffH has a video of what happens if you don’t get it properly embedded, but maybe you already knew about that.
Dawn
Mmmmm. That’s why I share Dawns preference for frames with wedges
I think you need to push the wax into the wire??
Better to melt it in with a low voltage current. Again, @JeffH has a nice video which shows him doing exactly that, and his embedder looks like he engineered it himself from easily available parts.
Thanks & hi @Dawn_SD & Michael. I helped some people out the other day. We removed those wooden starter strips before using foundation. Actually those wooden strips make great little plant markers in the garden:). I have a little tip I recently found out. Poorly embedded wax foundation works better in honey supers, especially in a honey flow. It’s a good way to get the frames drawn out before putting them into the brood.
They seem to ignore any imperfections, such as exposed wire. The other day I used a sheet of foundation that was a bit dodgy in one of my frames, put it in a honey super of a strong colony, 2 days later it was drawn out perfect.
That’s the beauty of maintaining a standard size super for brood & honey. Another advantage is: Frames that have had a few generations of leftover cocoons are excellent as honey frames. The cocoons strengthen it right up.
Hi Jeff @ JeffH …please explain the team “cocoon” if you would. That’s not a term I
am familiar with sir. Thankz !
Gerald up Stateside ( near Seattle). Wet n cool here tonight but what different for Puget Sound region 
Hi Gerald, I’m not sure if I used the right word, but it’s the leftover pupa case each bee leaves behind as it emerges. After 3 or 4 generations of bees have emerged out of cells, it makes the comb quite rigid & ideal to use as honey frames for extracting. When you look at the construction of the comb, it’s easy to see how those leftover pupa cases would stiffen the comb up.
It’s hot & muggy here, not ideal to be working the bees with a suit on. I’m heading off to do something early in the morning before it gets too hot. take care, bye:)
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Cocoon is right.
Our association beginners are taught that they should change brood combs every two to three years because successive additions of pupal cases to the brood cell make it smaller and you end up with increasingly smaller bees. This is twaddle, of course, you should change comb to prevent build up of disease…but that’s another topic. The bees are pretty good at ensuring the cell size is right by chewing cocoons away. Jeff is right, it makes the comb pretty rigid
I have heard that you should not be using Brood Frames as Honey Frames.
Valli, I don’t know where you are picking up this information but it is quite wrong.
Bees will make sure each honey cell is squeaky clean before they put their food in it.
Think of the Warre. Here you are ALWAYS harvesting from frames that have been brooded in…
(Warre beekeepers crush and strain these frames…now, I wouldn’t ever crush frames that have been brooded and I suspect most other beekeepers wouldn’t either)
There is a difference between brood frames and frames that have had brood in them.
Nobody is suggesting that we spin frames that contain grubs! Lots of beekeepers run multi box brood colonies, reduce to one or two boxes for the winter and spin honey out of the rest.
Celia Davis actually.
I put the question to her last year and she was quite adamant
I think a myriad of beekeepers all over the UK…and seemingly in Australia too would disagree with her, adamant or not.
I watched a video on the National Honey Show site of Ben Harden extolling the virtues of keeping bees cold in the winter. His opinion. It goes entirely against the grain of thermodynamics and has been shown time after time that bees do better with insulation.
We all have our opinions. Some gleaned from others, some from personal experience. There is room for both.