Foundationless Frames

Have you ever seen pictures of the astounding combs created by feral honey bee colonies? It would be an unusual beekeeper who didn’t wonder whether they could let their bees do that inside the hive, skipping part of the expense and bother of frames.

In most areas, beekeepers are legally required to maintain hives with removable frames so that they can be inspected for communicable bee diseases. So, old-fashioned hive designs like bee-gums and skeps are out, since the combs in them are stuck to the walls of the hive.

But what if you could persuade the bees to make their own combs within frames so they would still be removable, yet completely of their own making, without any foundation to guide them? Well, you can; it’s called foundationless beekeeping.

Are foundationless combs better for the bees?

Some beekeepers think that eliminating foundation removes any trace of human artifice from the hive. Whether that is plastic foundation, or even beeswax foundation, it is seen as an opportunity to import impurities. Since, as the argument goes, bees raise their babies and store the honey that’s going to be harvested in the combs, any brought-in material may be harmful. But whether on foundation, or not, both the brood and the honey for harvest are securely encased in beeswax generated by the bees’ bodies, so the question may be moot.

Other beekeepers think that the embossed patterns on the foundation are too rigid and “force” the bees to work with only one size cell. But anyone who has looked closely at comb drawn on foundation can see that the bees still have some latitude. And feral combs confirm that there is no single “ideal” cell size preferred by bees if left entirely to their own choice.

The final argument against comb drawn on foundation is that it isn’t “natural.” Well, that’s indisputably true. But then most honey bee colonies aren’t “natural,” either, because they are managed bees. And frames with foundation make management easier and simpler for beekeepers, and safer for bees.

But there is no technical requirement to use foundation. You can keep bees successfully without it, as long as you’re willing to give up some of the convenience and ease.

And all beekeepers will benefit from allowing the bees to create a few foundationless combs, simply to see how they do it and to marvel at the extraordinary engineering prowess of the “simple” insects under their care.

The importance of level hives

Careful beekeepers pay attention to details like keeping hives level. While a slight back-towards-the-front slant is useful to keep the bottom board dry, hives should be level from side to side. When using foundation in your frames, slight sideways tilts will have no consequence. But if you’re going foundationless, great care needs to be taken to make sure the hive stack is dead level from side to side. Without the discipline of foundation, the bees will use their internal plumb bobs. And the result can be comb that doesn’t stay neatly within a single frame. If you catch that early, it can usually be corrected, as long as you level the hive, first. Don’t try to eyeball it, use a level and shims to correct any tilt.

Comb-building is different on foundationless frames

New comb on foundationless frames looks very different. Instead of patches of wax being built up on the flat surface, foundationless comb starts as two or more downward-growing arcs that gradually expand from the top bar. These paddles of comb grow into each other and are finally joined into one sheet. There may be noticeably different cell sizes in the different areas, even after they are functionally a single comb. And the bees will likely never fully connect the comb to the bottom bar of the frame. They leave space under the comb and particularly at the lower corners to allow room to duck under and move freely from side to side. (Those open corners are why some plastic foundation has perforated, break-off corners. That’s in imitation of foundationless comb’s ease of moving around within the hive.)

How to get the bees to make foundationless comb

Getting the bees to make foundationless comb is no problem. Getting them to place it neatly within the confines of single frames is the trick. Beekeepers use what is called a starter strip under the top bar to give the bees a starting point. This can be as simple as popsicle sticks glued into the groove or narrows strips of foundation nailed under a wedge. This needn’t hang down very low; less than half an inch is ample. Then the frames are put in the hive, pushed tightly together, and the bees allowed to do their thing.

That’s the theory, at least. In practice, if you do this, you need to be in the hive all the time, constantly re-positioning, removing, trimming, and guiding the early progress in order to keep the combs developing into straight and even frames suitable for use in a managed colony.

We think of the frames as being centered around narrow, front-to-back-of-hive oriented spaces. To the bees, however, it is all open space to be developed into their nest. They could, for instance, decide to run the actual combs at right angles or diagonally across many frames. It’s all the same to them, as long as they preserve the bee space between the faces of the comb.

Is there an easier way to do this?

Yes, and that’s to start out with a set of frames and foundation and get those drawn out as perfectly as possible. Then when the second summer has settled down enough to make adding frames into the brood nest safe, place the foundationless frames in between pairs of perfect, foundation-guided brood combs. The bees then will have no alternative to drawing the new ones straight and parallel to the guide frames. And once drawn, if always kept pushed together afterwards, your foundationless frames will be the same as those with foundation. But it usually takes into your third summer before you have transitioned a whole 20-frame, double-deep hive to 100% foundationless.

While the foundationless comb is new, it is very fragile and should be handled in a special way. See this article on how to manipulate foundationless frames correctly.

Do you need to strengthen foundationless frames with wire?

It’s only necessary to add wire to foundationless combs that you intend to put in an extractor. And it may be helpful to use shallow, rather than medium, boxes if you choose to use foundationless frames in your supers. If you plan to harvest using the crush and strain method, you shouldn’t wire them. Combs intended for brood areas can be left completely au naturel.

Can you make comb honey from foundationless frames in supers?

Yes, and slipping a couple of foundationless frames in between drawn honey frames in your supers is an easy, and low-tech, way to try out comb honey making. At harvest time, you simply slice off the whole foundationless comb and divide it into sections: instant home-made comb honey. However, comb honey made for sale is considered a premium product, with exacting standards of presentation. And that involves the antithesis of the foundationless methods, requiring ultra-thin beeswax comb honey foundation, or complex boxes of plastic cassettes to force the bees to make individual units of comb. Ross Rounds and Hogg Halfcombs are two pre-sectioned, comb honey systems.

Is there a downside to having foundationless combs?

In addition to the more intense supervision required at the outset to get the combs off to a good start, and the careful handling while they are new, foundationless frames have only one other problem. Left to their own devices, the bees will make a higher proportion of drone cells. Bees seem to want between 10-15% of their total available cells to be occupied by drones at the start of the summer. This may mean that they create as many as two mostly-drone frames per brood box, which is more than what would be made on foundation. If you were using the technique of drone-frame removal as a varroa mite suppression tactic, you would want to keep removing those frames every 21 days all summer. Since varroa mites have a higher reproductive success rate in drone cells, leaving the foundationless drone frames permanently in the hive may drive up your mite numbers, and keep them at a higher level than normal all summer.

So, why would a beekeeper bother with foundationless comb?

Simply put, for the fun and education of it. Getting the bees to make you one or two foundationless frames will teach you a lot about the pure biology of wax and comb-making, which are the core activities of a hive. Sure, you give them a home to live in, but even if you provide foundation, you are still only giving them unfurnished space. They provide – from their own bodies – the wax for the combs they need to make room to raise their brood, store their food, communicate among the colony, keep the environment cozy and healthy, and even just to hang out and take a nap.

Foundation was invented for a good reason: it’s much easier to work with. And for beginners, it should be the starting point. But farther along the way, there’s no harm in satisfying your curiosity about what the bees would do without it by adding a couple of foundationless frames to a hive.