In this instructional video, the presenter explains what a foundation wall is in a beehive, why it can trap a colony, and how to identify it through symptoms such as a colony’s reluctance to expand, brood compression, nectar backfilling, and the formation of swarm cells. The core solution presented is the "checkerboarding" technique: when installing a new nuc, shift foundation frames one space over and re‑space the frames so that drawn frames interleave with foundation frames, thereby preventing the wall from forming. The presenter demonstrates the method on both sides of a split, advises performing checkerboarding on at least one side of each split once the colony reaches the full six‑frame size, and recommends checking under crown boards or feeders for the queen. The video concludes by promoting a 14‑Day Beekeeper Course for further beginner guidance.
Chapters
Today I'm going to show you what a foundation wall is, but more importantly, how to fix it. So the foundation wall often catches beekeepers out, especially new beekeepers when they get a brand new nuc and they set it up in their beehive. Maybe they put the 6 frames in the middle and on the edges they place foundation. Now 9 times out of 10, that's the correct configuration and the bees respect that. They start off on their 6 frames and then when they want to expand, they just move on to the adjacent frames of foundation and they draw the wax out and the colony expands normally. For some reason, occasionally the bees see a frame of foundation and they do not want to expand into it. Now the best way of identifying if you've got a foundation wall in your beehive is by a colony not willing to expand obviously onto that foundation, but then starting to compress their own brood nest down. Maybe you're seeing nectar backfilling the brood, and then if you start to see the creation of swarm cells, then you've pushed it too far and the colony will naturally want to go ahead and swarm. But luckily, there's a really simple way to make sure that the foundation wall never, ever affects you. And that is by doing just a little bit of checkerboarding early on when you put your nuc in. I didn't do that on this colony, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to open it up and I'm going to show you exactly how to do it when you're installing your nuc. And then that way you'll never have any swarming issues as a result of a foundation wall. So always check underneath any crown boards or feeders you've got for your queen. So you can see it on this colony here, we've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. These are the 6 original frames from the brood nest, the nucleus that we put in here, and then all of these frames here, these are the frames of foundation. So let me explain to you about the foundation wall. Normally you place your 6-frame nuc in here like that, and then the frames next to it, they're going to be foundation frames. If the bees don't perceive that foundation to be space, you have blocked the bees In. They can't go that way, they can't go that way, they can't go down, they can't go up. Their only way to go is out, and that is through swarming. Now it doesn't happen that often, but the way to work out if it's happening to you— this frame here is a brand new frame, so if I pull out this brand new frame and I see something like that, that is all that you need to see. You have not got a foundation wall. The bees are respecting that and they are drawing it out, and all is good, and you do not need to do If you pulled it out and both sides were like that, there were not that many bees on it, and it was just exactly like the foundation you put in before, you might have a foundation wall. Now luckily for you, the way to fix it is super easy. It's called checkerboarding, and it won't set back your colony at all. So it's probably good practice to do it, I would say, at least on one side of each split that you're installing in a beehive like this. These are the 2 adjacent frames. Let's assume that they're both foundation walls. All you need to do to do the checkerboarding is to take your foundation wall frame and bring it in one space over there. Move all of the frames back together again because they're self-spacing frames, they need to be touching. And then the same on this side, we just take that foundation frame in and we do a little bit of checkerboarding. You can, you can place any other frames back in like that. And this colony here is now successfully set up, and you will not have any issues when it comes to a foundation wall. As I said, my advice going forward will probably include at least doing this on one individual frame once the colony has reached that full 6-frame maximum. Hopefully that video was useful for you. We've got tons of cool tips and guidance like that on our 14-Day Beekeeper Course that will turn you from a beginner to a competent beekeeper in just 2 weeks.
