Pierco Frames

[david warr]

Hi all
I use plastic frames with built in foundation
Everyone here thinks I'm a lunatic
So What does America think of them?
David 8-)

[Michael Bush]

I have a few Pierco frames mostly for measuring size.  Since they are closer to natural size, I would probably use them if I weren't trying to get 4.9mm size.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm

See the measurements of standard foundation from various manufacturers.

[Brian D. Bray]

My experience has been that some hives would rather swarm than work plastic frames and foundation.  They seem to be enticed into working them by use of syrup sprayed onto the frames or some other such tactic. 
I keep up with all innovations like screened bottom boards, vented tops, strarter strips instead of entire sheets of foundation, etc., but when it come to frames I'm a traditionalist--give me wood.

[Cindi]

My experience has been that some hives would rather swarm than work plastic frames and foundation.  They seem to be enticed into working them by use of syrup sprayed onto the frames or some other such tactic. 
I keep up with all innovations like screened bottom boards, vented tops, strarter strips instead of entire sheets of foundation, etc., but when it come to frames I'm a traditionalist--give me wood.
Brian. 

Ya, I have been using the plastic frames and foundation.  I would have to say that the bees are somewhat reluctant to work on these.  In desperation they have drawn out a good part of many, but I am not satisfied with them completely.  I did even do the spraying of them with a sugar solution, they still did not love to work on them.  I am not going to be buying anymore, I will revert to the original wooden frames, with the good old wax foundation.  There never was a problem with my first year of beekeeping with the wooden frames.  I think that I will for the upcoming season, intermix the two, maybe alternating one with the other.  I see that you are in the Anacortes area.  What are your winters like?  Up here in the Lower Mainland, we still have by the end of October, OK flying weather for the bees.  We did indeed have a killing frost about 7 days ago that put down the annuals flowers to their death, but up until then, they were still in full bloom.  It is surprising the bees that worked on some of the annuals that I never knew they even bothered with.  One they particularly liked, and this really surprised me was the Crystal Palace lobelia, that was something that they really loved.

[Dick Allen]

Hi David.
This is another of those areas where beekeepers have opinions. Not everyone in the U.S. hates them. Some beekeepers prefer using them. Given a chance to choose between plastic and wax foundation, bees usually go with the wax. But, if they have no choice and given plastic only, they usually draw them out ok. Wax coating the plastic seems to make a difference in acceptance. A package or swarm of bees having lots of younger bees with well developed wax glands usually go right to work on those wax coated Pierco frames.

[Dale]

  I use the plastic foundation for regression.  Its better than using all wax ones, becuse the draw it out very uniformly, and the get down to about 5.2 size. From there, 4.9 is not that hard to acheive.

[Michael Bush]

>I use the plastic foundation for regression.

But then you have all these 5.2 frames that cost more than using no foundation or than buying small cell.  Plastic is an investment.

I suppose you can cut the center of it out (leaving a row of cells all the way around) and let them fill it in for the next regression.  :)

[beemaster]

I always wonder why Non-Americans think we have no concept of doing NEW or DIFFERENT things to our hives? Conventional thinking isn't really the friend of the beekeeper - we need to stray, experiment and see results in order to learn whether mistakes are made or not, the end result is learned knowledge and hopefully non-repeated results of failures.

It is important too that we distinguish hobbyist from small and large bee yards. The beekeeper with only one or two hives usually have less options due to possible failures and loss. A yard with a hundred hives can afford to experiment with less chance of devastating results.

Just a thought...