Beehive Starter Strips (cell size 4.9 - 5.2 mm)

thingiverse

If you are not using foundations in your hive, there's a fair chance that you're relying on some kind of starter strip. Most commonly, this would be a simple line of wax (works well in my experience, but can be a pain to apply), made from wood or a strip cut from a wax foundation. An advantage of using foundations is actually that they give you a certain amount of control over what size the actual cells will be. It seems that 5.3 - 5.4 mm is a very common cell size (measured across 10 cells, so this includes walls) used for commercial foundations. However, some beekeepers claim that this is way too big and has a negative impact on bee health (mainly varroa), and they therefore started to reduce cell sizes on their foundations to less than 5 mm. Basically, when you let the bees build their own honeycomb, they are likely to build what's best for them. And most of the time, this will be smaller than 5.xx mm. The problem is that if they come from an example like a 5.3 mm cell size, they're likely to build similarly large cells. So here's my attempt at combining the advantages from both worlds (which is rather experimental). Give them a size to start with, and they'll probably continue building the same size. I've included starter strips in 4.9, 5.0, 5.1, and 5.2 mm for you to choose from. Some folks claim that you have to slowly reduce the size (I currently use 5.0 mm). They're all 220 mm wide (I know this is not the full width of your frames), but likely they'll start in the middle and continue building to the sides. This is because I wanted something that's really easy (single print) and fast (approx. 30 mins/piece) to print. I simply cut a groove or slit in the top bar of the frames and hot glue the strips in. Also, in my experience, you don't need to dip them into hot wax (not such a good idea with PLA anyway). What I do is use a piece of cold wax to rub over the surface of the starter strip. This seems to work (see the picture after 24 hours). I hope your bees like it. Here's a collection of some of my Beekeeping Designs on Thingiverse. I hope this works for you (so far, it does for me). However, remember that this is somewhat experimental. So please share your experiences! Enjoy!