Free standing comb

After the last honey harvest, I threw all of the honey supers back onto the hives. I wanted to pull them back off for winter to reduce the hive size, but when I went to check on the bees today, they were already refilling all of the comb. There were way too many bees to take away the supers, so I just left them there.

Another surprise when I peaked in, I had forgotten to replace the foundation on one of the frames, but the bees just started filling it right up with comb:

I'd like to do more of my frames this way next year, rather than starting the bees off with plastic foundation. This way I might be able to harvest some honey comb next year. I ended up pulling this frame out of the hive temporarily so that I could show it to the class that I am teaching next week. This will be a great way to show kids how bees naturally draw comb.