I’ve been meaning to start this thread for a while now. Since the subject of foundation came up, it’s time to do it.
No matter how well we fit wax foundation, sometimes the bees make a mess of it. They view the wire as a foreign body & chew around it.
It’s difficult to use the on side/off side method while checker boarding, however in situations where the bees are gradually building across, meaning they would naturally start on one side first. You can determine that the side away from the wire can be called the on side & the wire side, the off side. You can place the “on side” towards where the bees are going to build first. That way the bees wont encounter any wire, therefore they should build the comb perfectly on that side. By the time they get to the wire (off side) side, it would be difficult for the bees to mess it up, seeing as the other side is already built.