One of the biggest things holding back new beekeepers is a lack of drawn comb. It limits the space that the queen can lay, and can hold back the entire colony. In this video I share some photos of the terrible comb that my bees drew in year 1 and go through three tips to help you avoid the same issue.

When I'm talking about wonky comb, I'm not referring to small pieces of cross-comb. I'm talking about comb that doesn't follow the pattern on the foundation and isn't built directly on the foundation. This is about comb built BETWEEN frames rather than ON frames.

Here are the tips:
1. Don't use black plastic foundation. Plastic foundation is sturdy and it makes for very consistent frames, which is useful for beekeepers. Black is handy because it makes seeing eggs very easy. But this is by far the toughest material/color combination for bees to draw correctly. I've switched to white and yellow plastic foundation. I tried foundationless, but it has its own issues. I may do a separate video on that.
2. Wax your plastic foundation heavily! Either melt down wax and apply it with a foam roller brush, or take wax and rub it on the frame directly like a crayon. I keep my burr comb and wax cappings from the honey harvest to wax frames.
3. Push your frames together. Frames are self-spacing. They have the perfect amount of beespace between them when shoved tightly together. The extra space in the box should be entirely on the outside edge. When you give too much space, your bees will fill that with wonky comb instead of building out from the frames themselves. This was a huge issue for me. Such a simple mistake, with such frustrating results.

If you have wonky comb, don't scrape it off. I was told, scrape it off, try again. Instead of this, push it down directly onto the foundation so that it lays flat. The bees put a ton of energy into producing wax, so you're saving their effort by doing this.

Hope these tips help!

#beekeeping
#beginnerbeekeeping
#honeybees

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