When you and the second brood box, do you add it on top of the first brood box or do you place it underneath the first brood box. Do the bees prefer to work up or down?
On top and move your queen excluder on top of in. You also may take a frame or two from the lower box and move it to the upper box to urge the bees to use it.
I would put it on the bottom. Especially if itās foundationless. What bees naturally do is move into a hollow tree and start at the top and work downā¦ But on top can work if you have foundation or if you pull a drawn comb or two up into the top box and replace them with empties in the bottom box.
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I am using wax coated foundations. Hope it will allow the bees to build up faster. I am also getting 2 Nucās for my 2 flow hives.
Faster than what? Foundationless is the fastest in my experience. Wax foundation would be next. Wax coated plastic, next. Plastic last.
Interesting. I would of thought giving them a base to work on would be faster then them having to build all.
I am a new bee keeper. taken a class on bee keeping and did allot of reading. Why do you think them building from scratch is faster?
Thanks,
Rob
The productivity of the bees is often related to decision making. If they have to come to a consensus about something it slows them down. Their normal method of building comb involves a cluster of bees and constant communication from one side to the other while the construction progresses. Foundation slows them down on both these accounts. First they have to decide what to do with the foundation, then they have to content with a lack of communication between the two sides. It is not the normal method of comb building for bees.
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Very interesting, makes sense. Do you have any advise on the best way to put the wire in and keep it taught?
Thanks!
Rob
I would prefer not to wire it, even for deeps.
me too that would of been nice
Where you wished you were as concise as him. I wish so too
Oh OKā¦ 
Your wish is my command - posts deleted
As a new beekeeper I prefer to not experiment yet. I want to use standard methods my first year. I have no problem trying new thingsā¦ Heck, I am do FLOWHIVE!!!
SO, I am also going to ask at my monthy bee keeper meeting their opinion on the foundations as well. I am not against foundation-less frames. Just had the idea that a wax coated plastic foundation would āhelpā the hive build up faster. I cant see the wires doing anything but help keep the comb more secure. I dont see any downside to using it.
Some people find that the queen will not lay in cells which have wire running through them. Hilary, who is a professional beekeeper also posted these concerns on another thread:
You shouldnāt need wires at all if you are using wax-coated plastic foundation.
Dawn, Thanks for the clip. I was going to use plastic, but Michael brought up an interesting argument against it. So was starting to consider foundation-less. I DONT KNOWWWW!!! Wow this hobby has so many variations. I am looking forward to my meeting to see what they say! I really enjoy this forum and the free exchange of info is so helpful.
Thanks to all the experienced BeeKeepers for spending your time with us novices!!!
-Rob
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Thatās not many cells though is it?
For those who buy vertically wired wax and then put in horizontal wires, it can be quite a fewā¦
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Do many? ā¦
A lot of people use vertical wired foundation - that has about 9 vertical wires. Some also wire horizontally. Some use wireless foundation, then embed wires after wiring their frames themselves. I miss the diagonal wires we used in the UK - they seemed better aligned with the cells.
I canāt do the mathematics on a hexagonal array being crossed by horizontal and vertical wires. However, if we assume that the cells are 5.4mm squares (they may be smaller, but letās just get an idea), then a Langstroth deep frame would be 38 cells high and 79 across. So 4 horizontal wires, which is standard for a Deep will occlude 316 cells out of 3,500 on on side of a frame - almost 10%. The 9 vertical wires would go through 342 cells. So a double-wired frame could take out around 19% of the cells available for laying, or add unwanted iron to that many larvae, etc.
You made me do mathematics on a Sunday @Dee!!! 
Hi @Dee & @Dawn_SD I find that when the queen doesnāt lay eggs in the cells where the wire is present, itās only for one or at the most, 2 generations. Even if the queen did lay in the cells that contain wire, youāll never ever get a 100% lay on a frame. Itās always good to see frames that are laid close to a 100%.
I think a good % to aim for would be 60 - 70%. If your hive has 7 frames producing 4,500 bees each in 21 days, your looking at 31,500 young bees.
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