Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => EQUIPMENT USAGE, EXPERIMENTATION, HIVE PLANS, CONSTRUCTION TIPS AND TOOLS => Topic started by: showme bob on January 23, 2012, 12:55:12 pm
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(If there is already a discussion of this please help me find it).
I would like opinions and experiences with wax coated foundation on wood frames especially: what would be the most important management of wax coated plastic and which companies have proven to be the most accepted by the bees? Thanks.
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I won't use it. Bees scrub damaged spots down to the plastic and will not rebuild comb on it.
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Most of the plastic foundation and frames are available waxed and unwaxed. The bees in a flow USUALLY accept it when it's waxed and usually not when it's not waxed. I've had the best acceptance with the PF100 series, one piece plastic frames and foundation from Mann lake (I mostly have the PF120s as they are mediums). I assume it's the high cell walls and the small cell size that contribute.
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This is one of those questions where you’re going to get a dozen different answers from a dozen different beeks.
My preference is the wood frame + waxed plastic foundation. It is more rigid than the all plastic frames, more durable in my opinion, and has less nooks and crannies for the pests to hide in. If you do get some pest attacking your hive/nuc, you can scrape the infected comb down to the plastic foundation without ruining the whole frame; done that numerous times. I find less burr comb between boxes with wood frames than the plastic as well, probably because of the deeper top bar in a wood frame than a plastic one.
I have tired the Mann Lake all plastic 4.9mm PF frames and the Pierco plastic foundation in wood frames. My bees would not touch the PF frames until I added a thin extra coat of wax on them with a 4” foam roller. After the extra wax, they had no problem building nice comb on them; they went right to town on those frames. There are more cells per frame on a PF frame due to the smaller 4.9 spacing so you do get more bees per frame. They also don’t require assembly. Plug and play.
However my preference is the Pierco plastic foundation + wood frames. Brushy among others retails the Piecro. My bees love that Pierco stuff. I alternate the Pierco with foundationless to get foundationless combed up strait. My bees always comb up the Pierco first.
Regardless of what plastic you pick, I would start out adding my own coat of wax to make sure the bees get a good start. After that, you could experiment to see rather of not your bees really need an extra coat of wax or not. It’s an extra expense to buy bees wax if you’re a newbie, but I think it is worth it.
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(If there is already a discussion of this please help me find it).
I would like opinions and experiences with wax coated foundation on wood frames especially: what would be the most important management of wax coated plastic and which companies have proven to be the most accepted by the bees? Thanks.
This may help you
PLASTIC FOUNDATION Frames Bees Wax Waxing repair,Beekeeping Georgia Beekeeper John Pluta,Honeybees (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pyB64oaHWk#)
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
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Great vid! Love all of your vids keep em coming!
Alfred
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Appreciate the video. Now we know how it is done. :)
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Thanks for taking them time to share your experiences. I really do appreciate it and will save the comments and video. The will be good resources.
I think I will try an experiment between 100% wax and coated plastic in wood frames.
Have a honey of a day!!!
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Great video. Thanks!
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Great video!! learning lots. thank you!!
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Very nice video. Thank you, Jim. :)