(I’m embarrassed to say) I didn’t follow your advice last week, Dawn…
I put foundationless frames with paint stirrer starter strips (all smeared with softened burr comb from my hive) in positions 2 and 9 in the bottom box and put those (partially drawn) frames with foundation in position 2 and 9 of the upper box, with wax-smeared foundationless frames with paint stirrer sticks for the other 8 frames.
I realized after the fact, as I was second guessing my decision not to take your advice, that the general consensus seems to be that glue alone is insufficient for holding the starter strips on a honey-filled deep foundationless comb and I was reading the comb collapse thread -
https://forum.honeyflow.com/t/foundationless-frames-wax-collapse-yikes-should-i/26535
with horror…
So, I decided I should go back in early and follow your advice and just take off the second box and the new frames.
But when I had a chance to get back in there (3 days later) I found that the two new foundationless frames from the lower box were almost completely drawn and they had started on 6 of 8 the new upper frames and had finished drawing out the frames I moved up. All the new comb looked nice and straight, right off the edge of the starter strip. I had a dilemma…
The bees were very calm and I didn’t want to disturb their new soft comb by manipulating the frame too much… I ran inside and I got a narrow crown pneumatic stapler and managed to pop four 5/8”staples across the top bars to secure the paint stirrers with bees still all over the frame I was afraid to shake the or brush them off the new comb. I figure 5/8” was long enough to cross the groove… Mostly the bees didn’t even look up - a couple flew off when the exhaust from the stapler blew them off the edge of the frame… Too busy building comb, I guess!
Hopefully, all’s well that ends well. I didn’t have time to set up a camera nor did I have an assistant to take pictures - I’ll take some next time I look in a couple weeks to decide if I need to continue feeding.
I’m planning to feed until all 20 frames are fully drawn, hopefully also with a significant amount of capped honey since I believe that a dearth is upon us and the late summer flow here isn’t very significant.
Since last winter was extremely mild, I’m sure we’re going to get walloped this winter and I want them to be set up for a long cold stretch.