BBKA Forum

Hello.
I want to produce cut comb this year and I’m wondering if I can attach the starter strips using a birthday cake candle. Could I have some advice Please?

Yes, better if from beeswax candle
But be careful as bees given free reign over drawing comb from thin strips can produce some Daliesque patterns, rather than the straight comb we desire. I use full sheets of the thin foundation that Thornes and others sell, it's cheap as well. That is all I use in all my frames so I can always have some cut comb from any flow. Although you will mistakenly be told that you can't centrifuge the thin stuff.....rot and nonsense.

As Nigel indicates a birthday cake candle will be paraffin wax, so perhaps not so good for eating!
I use a slow cooker for melting beeswax which are very cheap. (Better ones have temperature settings and timers which is a safer option as I have learned to my expense).
Using starter strip frames interleaved with already drawn ones should result in straight comb being drawn.

I have used starter strips in the past but the bees always built drone comb onto it all and if your queen slips through the Qex its a nightmare, I once had a super with 7 frames of drone brood

I guess it depends on the time of year when the strips are started; in a good honeyflow they should be worker-size as bees pack in the honey.
I have seen drone comb from drone foundation used in a super, however bees seem to be less willing to fill it.

why put drone comb in the super?

Exactly, supers with drone comb, the drone comb is the last to be filled. Bees draw drone comb wherever they can in the spring as they realise the hives need for drones. Late season (summer onwards) its nearly always worker sized cells.

Spike wrote: ↑

21 Apr 2025, 16:08

why put drone comb in the super?

I inherited (from somewhere I can't recall) a couple of supers with drawn comb. Some of the frames had drone drawn foundation in them. I think the view at some time was that bees needed less wax in order to make drone comb so the process would have been more efficient. But no good if the bees don't like filling them!

I once listened to some stupid advice saying 'the bees won't store pollen in drone comb' I have had enough of it and have been removing all of the drone combs from my colonies over the last year.