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Author Topic: Plastic Frames reuse  (Read 8800 times)

Offline TheHoneyPump

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Plastic Frames reuse
« on: October 09, 2018, 09:18:24 pm »
Once the bees are put away for winter it is time to get on with working on equipment to make ready for next year.  Repairing, refurbishing, replacing, new builds etc.
A question to the group regarding plastic frames.  Specifically;
What do you do with plastic frames (pierco, acorn, etc) of old black or gnarly comb? Do you just throw them out in the trash, or what?
« Last Edit: October 09, 2018, 09:29:32 pm by TheHoneyPump »
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Offline cao

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #1 on: October 09, 2018, 10:50:34 pm »
I don't have any plastis frames, but I have some plastic foundation that needed cleaning.  I scraped as much of the comb off as I could.  Dipped them in a boiling pot of water.  Then while the wax was still warm, smacked them on the table to get rid of most of the cocoons.  It didn't get rid of them all but, it got rid of enough of them to reuse after I rewax them.

Online BeeMaster2

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #2 on: October 10, 2018, 12:27:26 am »
Thp,
I have a stack of plastic that I will be using my pressure washer to clean up. Later I will dip the plastic foundation and plastic frames in wax.
By the way, on the plastic frames, I used a glue gun to fill in the gaps around the top and sides so that the SHB cannot hide in them.
Jim
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Offline robirot

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #3 on: October 10, 2018, 04:43:00 am »
If possible use a spatula to scrape them of.  Then you don't need to rewax. Else pressure cleaner and rewax.

Offline blackforest beekeeper

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #4 on: October 10, 2018, 04:47:31 am »
quite a mess, I assume?

Offline Oldbeavo

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #5 on: October 10, 2018, 06:11:52 am »
If the plastic frames or foundation have been used for brood or bad wax moth then the bees tend not to like patches of them and do a poor job.
Scrape off what you can, pressure wash and rewax. A lot of mucking around but seems to be what it takes to get a good drawing out.

Offline Hops Brewster

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #6 on: October 10, 2018, 11:33:17 am »
I have only a few plastic frames.  I rotate those out to use in swarm traps after scraping nasties out.
Winter is coming.

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Offline 2Sox

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #7 on: October 10, 2018, 12:19:42 pm »
I just started using some plastic frames - ONLY for honey.  I love them. These are the wooden frames with plastic foundation.  I do foundationless mainly in brood boxes, with a few frames with wax foundation in each box to encourage straight drawing.

Regarding the original question. I saw a YouTube video of an easy method of cleaning old black wax from plastic frames.  This beekeeper placed his frames out in the sun for about 10 or 15 minutes. The sun heated the wax and he went down the line and peeled the wax right off the frames cleanly.  Simple and ingenious.

Something else to try if you have the equipment: Place the entire super inside an upright freezer. Next day, just scrape off the old wax with a plastic taping tool or spatula.
"Good will is the desire to have something else stronger and more beautiful for this desire makes oneself stronger and more beautiful." - Eli Siegel, American educator, poet, founder of Aesthetic Realism

Offline blackforest beekeeper

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #8 on: October 10, 2018, 02:35:16 pm »
I have only a few plastic frames.  I rotate those out to use in swarm traps after scraping nasties out.

funny, how I find so many things NOT legal in Germany are quite common elsewhere:
old comb for swarm traps
letting comb get robbed out
open feeding
spring treatments

WE ARE OVERREGULATED .

Offline blackforest beekeeper

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #9 on: October 10, 2018, 02:36:39 pm »
I just started using some plastic frames - ONLY for honey.  I love them. These are the wooden frames with plastic foundation.  I do foundationless mainly in brood boxes, with a few frames with wax foundation in each box to encourage straight drawing.

Regarding the original question. I saw a YouTube video of an easy method of cleaning old black wax from plastic frames.  This beekeeper placed his frames out in the sun for about 10 or 15 minutes. The sun heated the wax and he went down the line and peeled the wax right off the frames cleanly.  Simple and ingenious.

Something else to try if you have the equipment: Place the entire super inside an upright freezer. Next day, just scrape off the old wax with a plastic taping tool or spatula.

I am sure, tHP will go for the latter...

 :cool:

Offline TheHoneyPump

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Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #10 on: October 10, 2018, 03:00:55 pm »
Yes, I saw the video about the sun and peeling/rolling the wax off with a scraper.
I have three challenges:
 1 - sun I have, temperatures I do not.  It is -5 degC here now.  I will not see warm temperatures until May 2019. The frozen frame thing is easy, they already are just from being left outside.
 2 - there are a LOT of frames to go through. To be pragmatic about it, hand scraping each one is not an option.  Scraping takes to long per frame and also left with no foundation as the bottoms of each cell will still be covered over by cocoons and base wax.  What you end up with is a flat mixed surface.
 3 - heat, temperature, warps the frames. Wax cannot be melted off the frames without damaging them.  This may or may not be the case with the plastic sheets inserted into wood frames.  The one piece plastic frames definitely warp to being unusable.

What is the fast way that results in a frames that are as new when done?
« Last Edit: October 10, 2018, 08:47:40 pm by TheHoneyPump »
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Offline robirot

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #11 on: October 10, 2018, 05:03:16 pm »
quite a mess, I assume?
Not really, you just need a propper setup. I really like the wooden frame/plastic foundation method. I'm currently exchanging all my frames to that.
But the key here ia to use propper foundation likr PF-100 or ACORN. The bad name about plastic foundation/frames in germany is caused by the Nordwabe, wich is really inferrior to these, cause of Bad construction. 0.5mm cell rims and flat bottoms are just not cutting it.
(And i hate wiring so bad)





Well, wax gets brittle when frozen. Should make the job a lot easier if they are frozen.
I know of a company in Oz wich is running fully on ceracell deep plastic frames, they constructed a conveyor, essentially 2 rails to guide the foundation long side and a bottom rail. Then have a chamber w?re two pressure washers are fixed and clean the foundation of the wax, while it is pushed through.

Offline Beeboy01

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #12 on: October 10, 2018, 10:35:39 pm »
I tried heat to clean up a few plastic foundation with wood frames and ended up warping the foundation to the point of being unusable. First time with a power washer should of gone on U-Tube, the frames flew all over the back yard and got dirt embedded in the wax, LOL, it didn't work. I ended up making a holder out of a piece of plywood and bungee cords which prevented the overspray from digging into the dirt. I was only cleaning about 20 frames so it wasn't a big job.

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #13 on: October 10, 2018, 10:50:18 pm »
I have only a few plastic frames.  I rotate those out to use in swarm traps after scraping nasties out.

funny, how I find so many things NOT legal in Germany are quite common elsewhere:
old comb for swarm traps
letting comb get robbed out
open feeding
spring treatments

WE ARE OVERREGULATED .

BlackForest: are the bee laws enforced.  What happens if you accidentally spill sugar syrup, can you let the bees clean it up???  Are the fines step?
Blessings

Offline blackforest beekeeper

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #14 on: October 11, 2018, 02:40:57 am »
I have only a few plastic frames.  I rotate those out to use in swarm traps after scraping nasties out.

funny, how I find so many things NOT legal in Germany are quite common elsewhere:
old comb for swarm traps
letting comb get robbed out
open feeding
spring treatments

WE ARE OVERREGULATED .

BlackForest: are the bee laws enforced.  What happens if you accidentally spill sugar syrup, can you let the bees clean it up???  Are the fines step?
Blessings

mmmh.
Germany is a lot more densly populated than the US, CAN or AUS. So, also, bee-populations are denser. The idea behind it all is to prevent AFB from spreading. This seems to work well. If You want to move bees, You gotta have a "proof of health". So, in my state, a guy from the local bee-club, who has had some schooling by the vets, will look at your colonies and check for AFB. Only if that is clean, can You move the hives. Quite a job in spring. In other states, a sample of feed is taken from every hive and sent to a lab. Only if that is negative, may you move your hives.
Also, when moving in somewhere, you are supposed to say that to the local authorities or the bee-club-guy mentioned above. Sometimes this is not done, but not liked at all.
If foulbrood is detected, there is ban-circle or quarantine-zone erected. No bees, bee-equipment or some such are allowed in or out till foulbrood is pinched out.
In this way we are more or less free of AFB. One may spend a beekeeping-life never ever having to think about it.
So there seems to be some sense to it.

When a guy (mostly the older) -or a gal - puts out old frames to be robbed out, this is not viewed with joy by other beekeepers.
Usually the most happens you get told to not do it.
I heard of an incidence when a commercial setup had a trailer full of empty honeysupers on a parking lot. the many bees flying in and out where noticed and there were consequences.

Open feeding forbids itself as the bee-density is so high you might need three times the feed... Also, it will be noticed.
Saying is, spilling syrup will promote robbery. I havent had robbery since my queens got better. No matter how much I spilled or let sit around. Sometimes I miss the frame-feeder and the syrup flows out the entrances.  :embarassed:
Years ago I put out the honey-supers out to be licked dry. Then there weren t very many and I told it to a guy. He almost hit me for it. All the combs were "virgin" - never bred in. Nowadays I store them - still sticky - in a room with low relative humidity.

For the "cement-honey" it would be perfect to let it be robbed out. Cause when they have done that, it stays liquid.... If I had a piece of forest to myself, I?d do it. But chances of a beekeeper taking a hike just passed your hives are too darn high...

as for spring-treatments: I don?t know. Most just dont. I never saw any need for that, either. I guess one OAV wouldnt go into the honey if you do it 4-6 weeks prior to supering. But OAV is illegal, too...
Honeys do get controlled. Ours more often, as they are organically certified.

Offline TheHoneyPump

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #15 on: October 11, 2018, 12:26:09 pm »
Anyone here who renews hundreds, thousands, of these frames per year?
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Online Michael Bush

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #16 on: October 11, 2018, 04:34:40 pm »
>Anyone here who renews hundreds, thousands, of these frames per year?

We wax dipped the plastic frames this last spring.  Probably about a thousand...

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Offline TheHoneyPump

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #17 on: October 12, 2018, 07:19:57 pm »
How did you go about cleaning them down to the original form, before dipping them?
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Offline TheHoneyPump

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #18 on: October 17, 2018, 02:11:07 pm »
Just to add perspective and scale to the inquiry.  I am looking at some stacks in the order of 18,000 - 25,000 frames to renew. 
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Online BeeMaster2

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Re: Plastic Frames reuse
« Reply #19 on: October 17, 2018, 03:45:26 pm »
THP,
Here is what I made to rewax several hundred plastic foundations. It is just 2-4x4x24 inch pieces of steel welded together with the middle pieces cut out before welding. Then I welded a piece of flat plate on the bottom. Put some water in the bottom and add wax. Leave enough room above the wax to allow you to shake out half of a frame.  I heat it with a propane deep fryer grill. It uses very little wax this way. I added the metal ring to put an aluminum pan, with the center cut to fit the top so that it catches the wax and keeps it away from the flame.





 I use a pressure washer, with the frames in a plastic basket, to keep the foundation from blowing away and then I dip half of the foundation in the wax. I stack them up and then do the other half. Before I pull the frames out, I bang them on the sides, all four sides, to knock the excess wax off. It worked real well and 10 times faster than trying to paint them.
Jim
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