New Hives & Foundations?

[jpryce]

Hi,
  I'm getting ready to take a trek to Dadant for all my supplies for my first 2 hives.  I have a few questions about foundations.  I'm gonna be buying bees from a local apiary.  He said to bring him my brood boxes and he'd set me up- not to bother with the nucs.

He uses plasticell so I will need to buy at least 10 sheets of plasticell foundation for his replacement frames. 

I'd like to keep my hives as natural as I can and run foundationless.  I'm not sure what to use in the rest of the frames in the brood boxes and their honey boxes.  Will using different foundations screw the bees up?

I've read just to put a 1 inch strip of thin surplus foundation with a bead of hot wax along the top edge to secure it. 

Would I keep all five of the plasticell frames in the middle of my box and add the starter frames on either side of the brood box?

I'm planning on using medium supers for our honey and plan on doing crush and strain for at least the first year as I probably won't get a ton of honey. 

Would you recommend using all the mdium frames set up with 1 inch strip thin surplus starters with a bead of hot wax for the med honey supers or do they need at least one full sheet of starter in the honey box?
Thanks

[Bigeddie]

Why not have him shake you out a 2 or3#package with a new queen and then install in your box of foundationless and go from there?
I just turn the wedge of the frame on edge and nail it in for a starter,the bees take over from there. I'm going to start 12 hives this way in spring.
You wont have eggs and brood instantly but you will be instantly foundationless.

[Michael Bush]

Personally I would NOT get plasticell if you want natural cells.  It is 5.4mm.  Foundationless is simple enough:

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoundationless.htm

[Natalie]

If you are wanting to run foundationless hives then its better to start out with them rather than trying to change them over.
As someone said you could shake some bees out or you can buy packages pretty much anywhere.
If you want him to set up a brood box for you though then why not bring him over the foundationless frames and have him start the bees on them.
I did that with one of the apiaries I do business with.
I have bought nucs as well and I just phased out the frames the bees came on as they built out the other frames.
I personally never used starter strips so I don't know the best way for that, I used frames that had the angled topbars and I didn't wax them or anything, just put them in the hive and they took right to them.
I do all mediums and I did not put anything in the honey supers to start them on, just the frames so you do not need to buy foundation to start them on.
Also, if you are trying to do all natural then plasticell is about as far away from that as you can get.