Apidea, wax starter strip or full length?

[jeff33]

This is the first time I have used apideas and like in my homemade mating nucs, I have used starter strips of roughly an inch.

Today I was checking for emergence of queens but could not get the cell holders off as they had started building comb around the queencells and it was perpendicular to the frames. I had no other option but to open the apideas (put together Thursday) and remove the wild comb before it got too big. They seem to have eaten away the starter strips.

Any tips to get these going, don't seem to have this problem with my homemade ones

 

[Curly green finger's]

I’m going to use some cut down comb in mine next week to help the girls out .
Cut it to size and melt some wax to hold it in place.
My Kieler minis are coming into play

 

[Hebeegeebee]

I have used starter strips without problems. However once you get some drawn comb and want to expand or replace old comb, you'll have drawn comb as guides where starter strips can be placed in between the drawn stuff.
Sometimes bees don't do as they are told. You need to give them a stiff talking to!

 

[blackcloud]

Theory is just a starter strip to encourage "team bonding" (sorry James) in the comb building excercise.