Often bees will not accept plastic foundation.
I have had better luck with wired wax foundation
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This is a real mess, I am assuming they don’t like your plastic foundation.
I would put frames of real wax foundation in the center , bordered by your best combs of brood
Moving the bur combs to the outside edges , to be cleaned up after the brood hatches ,this would involve adding a supper on top , reorganizing frames . You want nicely drawn out combs in the center brood area. Try wax foundation
The burr combs with honey in them can be cut off , put in a Tupperware container on a third box above a top board with hole in center and top cover . They will move that honey back down , hopefully in a more organized fashion
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@Hillbillyhort I did some reading and it seems lots of comments about bees not liking the plastic comb.
For better or worse I made three foundationless frames and inserted them where we removed three plastic frames they were ignoring.
I’ll check them in a week and if it doesn’t help your suggestions will be plan b.
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That cell rite foundation is a pain to get started, but it is much stronger than wax, so it has been widely accepted by commercial beekeepers. Usually to get them to draw out combs correctly, a new foundation is placed between 2 already drawn combs. In your case with the wonky combs, scrape it off and let them try again. I saw this a few times when I was running my 100 or so hives.
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Well , I would not recommend using frames without foundation .
It is very important to have nice orderly drawn out combs , especially in the heart of the brood chamber.
Without the burr combs / cross comb. Drone comb.
A lot of the above end up being drone comb, which is not helpful for raising worker brood.
Also , you risk killing a queen by moving frames that are so out of order ,stuck together. By unintentionally smashing her.
Foundation keeps all the frames even , interchangeable, orderly.
I highly recommend wired wax foundation , feed them all they can eat to help draw out the comb , plant lots of buckwheat , etc.
Wish you the best of luck.
Sometimes bees don’t cooperate ,other times they do …
Ive noticed they will do that more often I think if the foundation gets dusty and looses its tackiness, if you hit it with a heat gun to quickly melt the wax on the surface might help, or scrape on some additional wax might encourage them to use it also.
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I like foundationless frames actually. I’ve had bad luck with bees rejecting plastic foundation. I hate losing valuable time and coming back and seeing that the bees haven’t touched it (even when you rub wax on it).
With foundationless, the bees will never reject it. Sometimes they make crazy comb and you regret it, but other times it’s so awesome when you get a perfectly drawn comb on a foundationless frame that goes straight down.
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I think one of the tips to using plastic foundation is putting it on a STRONG hive to build it out initially, dont put it on a weak hive that doesnt need space, its kind of like using flow frames, if they have other options, they will use those, but if you put it on a hive that needs space and has the strength to build it out fast, it seems to turn out better…
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Thanks for the great ideas everyone. I did put in three foundationless frames. I glued paintsticks in the top and 1/16 wire centered from the side and top so it crosses in the middle. And rubbed wax on them.
Comb being built in unwanted places. My experience with new comb wax or wax coated plastic is to start with a full ten frames until they are drawn out. When the comb is extracted you can drop down to nine frames per standard width hive. Bee spacing is very important especially with undrawn comb. I have used both wax and plastic before with good results.
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My mistake. I commented previously thinking that the frame spacing was as the picture is. I hope you get the problem worked out and enjoy beekeeping as much as I did.
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I would think twice about ordering queens, packages, or nucs from this supplier again. Excessive bur comb is a genetic problem. I have had excellent results from both plastic and wax foundation with bees working somewhat faster on wax but plastic foundation is so much handier to use, install, and not to mention sturdier.
If it were mine, I would salvage as much honey as possible and scrap the foundation clean, leave any honey on the frames and get your bees from Koehnan’s next year. Order as early as possible after the first of the year. My packages from them drew 3-10 frame deeps and 2/3 have drawn 4 medium supers of plastic foundation to state fair quality, the other is pokey and only has one.
If this happens again in the future, scrap the bad stuff off asap. Do watch for the queen, they like those folds and lumps.
Keep trying, beekeeping is rewarding and profitable but a steep learning curve at times.
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I put in some foundationless frames which they seem to like and are straightening out. The queen seemed to not be very productive and there hasn’t been much brood. We hopefully eliminated her and last Sunday introduced a Saskatraz queen. I am definately getting some experience and whether this hive makes it or not am looking forward to next year already.