One of the frequently heard criticisms of running foundationless is that wonky combs will invariably result. Well, yes, it
does happen from time to time, but in my experience not very often - and it's easy enough to straighten them, providing you catch 'em in the early days.
I've never bought so much as a single sheet of foundation in my life, and can see no persuasive reason to change. Maybe there's a case for using it in honey supers (which I don't use) ... but brood frames really don't need to have foundation installed.
Two years ago in mis-season, a two-legged fox stole my remaining stock of flat-pack frames - and I only discovered this when I needed them urgently - so - it was a case of 'making-do' with whatever I could coble-up on the spur of the moment. The solution was to make 50-60 top-bars from thin laths and some lengths of triangular-section moulding I found in the shed. These were quickly cut to length and glued together, and I was able to chequer-board these into some congested hives on the same day.
Here's a shot taken yesterday of some of the resulting combs on their way to the melter, and by the time you read this, they'll have been melted down and the bars cleaned-up:
![](http://i67.tinypic.com/2vshlza.jpg)
These combs are very typical, and as you can see they're not 'perfect'. But those bars were simply inserted between foundationless frames and never touched again, other than pulling them for inspection. Sure, there's a little waving along the comb bottom edges - but I don't have much of a problem with that.
In the foregound are a couple of top bars which appear to have been unused - they're not identical, and have different widths - but that's a result of using whatever material I had available on that particular morning.
Doubt I'll ever use these top bars again, as I'm not really a top-bar person - so if anyone's passing by, drop in and you're welcome to them.
LJ