This is largely a myth.
OK, so you may need to double my figures for the price most of you will have to pay, but using starters is a complete false economy.
Just as an arbitrary figure, on say one box of shallow foundation, this, decent quality and wired. should cost no more than about 4 pounds, unwired maybe 2.90 (I pay well less)..........you take a quarter of that.............so pay say 70p for your starter strip foundation, saving lets say 2.20 on the foundation cost. But you still have to cut it, and fix it in place, which relative to fitting a full sheet is slower.
2.20? Thats less than the selling price of ONE piece of cut comb. I am not going to go digging out the old figures, but the reduction in harvest in our old tests, done carefully and extensively back in the 1980s, was about a third compared to full sheets. Only sections were worse. Its a real 'save a penny. throw away a pound' situation, that can only be defended on economic grounds if the beekeeper does not have the money to buy full sheet foundation.
I know all about the other arguments advanced from the 'natural' sector about the 'wrongs' of using foundation, but this not the subject of this thread.
Bees WILL draw a comb on a flat sheet. It may well not be a comb you will like however, and, without the geometric pattern of interlocking hexagons across the comb, most of the natural strength will be lost. OK, so it is a naturally derived system that works, but the pattern of cell imprints and the way each cell ineratc equally with three cells on the opposite face of the comb is very clever in terms of mathematics, geometry, and mechanics, which a flat sheet will be completely with out. You can even get bees to draw a comb of sorts on a sheet of chicken wire if you wish. (Yes, it has been done.)
) Even crystallized honey can be removed with ease.
