Foundationless frames cross-combed across three frames — the surgery, step by step

Third year, first serious attempt at foundationless, and I earned the classic punishment: the bees ignored my starter strips and built one glorious sheet of comb diagonally across three frames. Fixed it Saturday and it went better than expected, so here's what worked. Picked a warm afternoon, about 27C — comb is pliable then instead of shattering. Brought a big cutting board, a serrated bread knife, and a bag of rubber bands. Cut the comb free in the biggest slabs I could, trimmed each slab to fit inside an empty frame, then held it in place with two or three rubber bands around the whole frame. Brood comb went back over the brood nest, honey slabs I banded in at the edges. Bees reattach the comb within days and chew the bands off themselves — you'll find them dumped at the entrance like tiny protests. Prevention lesson learned: foundationless frames need to alternate with drawn comb as guides, and the hive must be dead level side-to-side. Mine was off by enough and that's all it takes.