Horizontal Starter
Is this a better starter strip?
Horizontal Foundation.
I make a beeswax ridge down the center of each top bar. This ridge is produced by pouring hot beeswax into the notch of a wooden mold or by spooning melted beeswax directly into the kerf. The ridge helps the bees orient their comb down a top bar's length. This method works most, but not all of the time.
When I produce cut comb in shallow supers, I cut comb off the frames. About a cells worth of comb is left at the top of each frame. Bees use this as a comb guide the following season. It works great. The bees seldom deviate from it when constructing new comb.
Could a simple mold be made that would mimic those same kind of initial patterns? This mold would produce a central ridge, but the first hint of cell wall would project from the central ridge at a right angle to it. It's much like the wax remanent that's left when comb is cut off my shallow frames.
So, I went back to my top bar comb photos. Cell sizes along the top row of cells were measured next to the top bar. Guess what? With a few exceptions, they all start out at about the same size! It didn't matter whether the comb was broodnest or storage comb. And within a row or two, the bees would expand or contract that cell size to accommodate their comb building needs. My top bar hive cell sizes ranged from 5.0mm to 5.67mm. Most measurements were in 5.63 to 5.67mm range. The average was 5.64mm.
Well, I couldn't stop there. I did the same thing with shots from Barry's top bar hive. And I observed the same pattern there, although the numbers are different. For Barry's hive, these cell sizes ranged from 4.6mm to 5.83mm. Most measurements were in the 5.3 to 5.5mm range. The average was 5.44mm.
A.I. Root measured natural comb and found the interior angle, of the base, was 120 degrees.
Calculations
Horizontal Foundation Strip Mold.
Could a mold be produced that would mimic this structure on a top bar, a horizontal starter? A mold could never produce the delicately thin midrib the bees build. But maybe a delicate structure isn't needed. The bees should use excess wax in the building/reshaping process. The ideal situation is to get a robust imprint that provides a definite guide for building comb, while not frustrating the bees. The finished product has a cell wall spacing that approximates natural comb. It could be thicker than natural comb but should taper to a fine edge.
Reducing the natural comb measurements from mm per 10 cells, to inches per cell, I came up with a cell size range of .21(5.4mm Barry's Lusbees) to .22(5.6mm my bees) inches per cell. I think .22 is a good spacing to initially try. A .25 inch(1/4) pattern would be easy to construct and well within the range of natural comb measurements.
Construction
Horizontal Foundation Roller.
In the past, the Swiss, built a roller that would produce a similar imprint on a top bar. I don't know what cell spacing was used. It's an interesting concept. But I think much excess wax would end up on the sides of the top bar requiring cleaning. A simple roller could easily be built
Use
The hardwood strip mold is soaked in water before it's used. A thin bead of hot, molten beeswax is run down the center of a top bar. Then the mold is placed on top of the beeswax. The wax is allowed to cool and the mold gently removed.
Results
Instead of a roller, I will try a one piece mold. The cell wall pattern is drafted down the centerline of a hardwood slat the size as wide and long as a top bar. Then the pattern is used to incribe the slat. It could be burnt or hammered in.
I haven't actually built this yet. But, I should have results by the end of next year. If you build one, let me know how it works.
Tom, a Colorado top bar hive beekeeper, is testing the same concept using thin, flexible, plywood strips inscribed by a thin saw blade.
