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Author Topic: Plastic foundation  (Read 13600 times)

Offline nietssemaj

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Re: Plastic foundation
« Reply #20 on: May 06, 2013, 04:47:35 pm »
This is pretty good info on SHB

Things We Need To Know About
SMALL HIVE BEETLES


The beetles are attracted to the ripening pollen and the larvae eat pollen/honey and brood.

Offline capt44

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Re: Plastic foundation
« Reply #21 on: May 12, 2013, 12:31:30 pm »
I have been using Duragilt Foundation for a few years now and am going to get away from it.
The bees will move the wax leaving bare areas on the foundation.
I've been looking at the Rite Cell foundations at Mann Lake LTD.
Richard Vardaman (capt44)

Offline Joe D

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Re: Plastic foundation
« Reply #22 on: May 12, 2013, 12:51:05 pm »
I have been using old drone out foundation or foundationless until this year.  I was going to help the bees some and built several new supers and installed prewaxed Rite cell foundation in supers fo four hives.  The bees haven't built ANY comb on them yet.  I have sprayed with sugar syrup, did no good.  I am in the process of putting more wax on them now.  But out of four hives with a 10 frame meduim super on each and not one piece of comb on any.  They are in wood frames.



Joe

Offline edward

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Re: Plastic foundation
« Reply #23 on: May 12, 2013, 04:10:40 pm »
I have been using old drone out foundation or foundationless until this year.  I was going to help the bees some and built several new supers and installed prewaxed Rite cell foundation in supers fo four hives.  The bees haven't built ANY comb on them yet.  I have sprayed with sugar syrup, did no good.  I am in the process of putting more wax on them now.  But out of four hives with a 10 frame meduim super on each and not one piece of comb on any.  They are in wood frames.

Try putting a frame beetween to frames with eggs and larvae and watch what happens  :-D :shock: :-D


mvh Edward  :-P

Offline melliferal

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Re: Plastic foundation
« Reply #24 on: May 13, 2013, 07:44:46 pm »
I've always had pretty great results with plastic foundation.  There's a caveat, in that some beeks (as noted above) have reported some odd problems with it, or that their bees take longer to draw it out; but I've never had that trouble and when I restart next spring I plan on using all plastic foundation.  Aside from the ease of cleaning, extracting, and spotting eggs, I also find plastic foundation is great when it's time to cull old combs; just use your hive tool to scrape the comb off and you can immediately return the frame to a hive to be drawn out again without needing to buy new foundation.  In this way, it's easy to imagine some plastic foundation lasting as long or even longer than some of one's wooden hive furniture.

I would, however, suggest that all new beekeepers should be encouraged to give wax foundation a try - for one thing, if you decide on all-plastic it should be an informed decision, not a "so-and-so said always use plastic" kind of decision.  For another, you'll need to know how to install thin surplus when/if you decide to make cut-comb; and finally, I think beekeepers in general should make an effort to have at least some working knowledge of every corner of our craft.  A beekeeper who looks at a spur embedder and says "what's this?" would make me a sad. :(

The rite-cell stuff is great; I noticed ML is selling all-plastic rite-cell frames, and I'm strongly considering that for my honey supers.  I do hope they begin making such frames in black, because I much prefer the black foundation for brood chambers.
Recently moved; re-keeping in 2014.

Offline Joe D

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Re: Plastic foundation
« Reply #25 on: May 13, 2013, 10:21:53 pm »
The rite cell I am having trouble with is in the honey supers.  I am giving them a little more time.    I put extra wax on the foundation and installed them today.   
        In my earlier post I put drone comb,  should have been drawn comb.

Offline minz

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Re: Plastic foundation
« Reply #26 on: May 13, 2013, 10:47:32 pm »
I had no luck with them so I tried it again this year.  I painted it with wax and tried it again.  Here is the result on a swarm, in mid flow, in the center of the brood, with feed.  If there were no so many bees on it I would have sent it across the yard.  I find if you get it new, wax it and put it in they will draw it but after the first season I cannot seem to get them to touch in.  In this frame they took all the wax that I painted on and moved it to the center for this little clump. 
http://i1141.photobucket.com/albums/n599/6minz/DSCF4447_zps61468700.jpg
The other box drew out 9 new wax in under 2 weeks (same time frame).  I have spent a lot of money on wax this year.  The other thing about it is when my hives make swarm prep and I have cells on everything I can cut the wax and put a QC or two in each area of a queen castle,  what do you do with plastic?

Poor decisions make the best stories.

Offline melliferal

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Re: Plastic foundation
« Reply #27 on: May 14, 2013, 10:32:44 am »
If you use plastic foundation, that method of queen rearing would indeed be problematic; I imagine the alternative would either be taking the entire frame (but you'll only get one queen out of multiple QCs) or using one of the queen systems that involves grafting your own larvae into your own artificial queen cells; IIRC, there's even one system that lets your current queen lay eggs directly in the cell cups themselves.

The caveat, as with plastic foundation, is that some beekeepers report tremendous success with these systems and others report nothing but problems.  Like plastic foundation, there's just no way to know what your results will be until you try.  But unlike plastic foundation, queen systems can be expensive.
Recently moved; re-keeping in 2014.

Offline beek1951

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Re: Plastic foundation
« Reply #28 on: May 27, 2013, 08:44:23 pm »
I use a lot of Duragilt and have had good luck with it.
My hives all have one plastic frame in each brood box
as I have noticed that the queen will be on the plastic
more often than not. Don't know why they like the plastic,
but I have seen it time and again.

Offline don2

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Re: Plastic foundation
« Reply #29 on: May 27, 2013, 09:01:51 pm »
Unlike the varroa and other parasites the hive beetle feed on honey and wax, if  you have shb's and leave unattended excess honey in the hive very long you will be sorry. :) d2

Offline Sflbeesupplies

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Re: Plastic foundation
« Reply #30 on: June 05, 2013, 09:34:54 pm »
We opened our store a few months ago and as Beekeepers using beeswax foundation we ordered plastic foundation only as an added item to our inventory. Much to our surprise it's extremely popular, especially with commercial Beekeepers. We carry both all plastic frame and foundation and foundation only. We sell Pierco plastic foundation that is coated with beeswax to ensure good acceptance from the bees.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2013, 07:55:33 am by buzzbee »
Thank you,
South Florida Bee Supplies

Offline dfizer

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Re: Plastic foundation
« Reply #31 on: June 07, 2013, 02:14:36 pm »
I have used pierco frames (all plastic) exclusively since I started beekeeping which was 4 years ago.  I am now up to 9 hives, 2 nucs, and a 1 trapout that's in progress.  I have had nothing but success with it.  I do not plan to use anything else.  I did have to purchase a 20 wooded frames with the pierco plastic foundation installed.  I'll see how this goes but would have much preferred the all plastic frames.  The only reason I have the wood frames now is because the supplier was out of the all plastic ones. 

I do not re-apply wax since the they already come coated pretty well with a wax layer.  What I do do is spray the heck out of them with 1:1 sugar syrup to aid in acceptance. 

Again - I have never had any problems.  The only issue I anticipate is doing a cut out.  I have a home owner that would like me to get the bees out of their over hang so I believe I'll be rubber banding some comb into wood frames and installing them into a deep.     

David