Medium size drone comb

[tefer2]

Making up a few drone mother hives for next spring and looking for plastic medium size drone comb.
Any source for them new?

[Michael Bush]

Put an empty frame in the middle of the brood nest during drone building time and they will make a frame of natural sized drone comb for you.

[Fishman43]

Cut down some Pierco drone foundation to the medium depth.  A band saw is best, but if you only have a table/circular saw just go really slowly to avoid cracking the plastic to much.

[tefer2]

Thanks for the tips, I will give it a go with the band saw.

[kingbee]

If you are running deeps someone suggested that instead of buying drone comb you just insert a drawn medium frame in the brood nest in place of a full sized frame.  If the bees are intrested in raising drones they will extend the medium brood comb to deep frame dimensions for you starting with the bottom bar, filling the new space mostly with drone comb at no additional charge to you.  A quick swipe with a keen knife and presto you have a medium frame again or else you have removed a lot of young mites.  If you are running mediums already a few frames with starter strips placed on the outside edges of the brood nest will be filled with drone brood in no time if the bees are in a drone raising frame of mind.  Like M. Bush said, "Everything works if you let it..."  :shock:

[BlueBee]

Everybody else had great suggestions. 

If you resort to cutting plastic foundation, a table saw does a fine job too if you have a sharp blade with a decent amount of teeth.  A thin kerf blade seems less prone to chipping too.  I’ve cut lots of Pierco on my table saw.  The biggest problem is the stuff sticking to the surface as you try to slide it though the saw (assuming it’s waxed that is).  I deal with that by using a piece of cardboard under the Piecro to make it slide over the table easily.  If you try to cut more than 2 sheets at a time, then chipping is more likely to occur. 

I’ve never tried cutting the stuff with a bandsaw, but with more teeth/unit time, I would suspect Fishman is correct that a bandsaw would work well.

[tefer2]

Used the band saw and just went slow at it. Worked well for the few that I needed. Gave up buying them.

[kingbee]

... If you resort to cutting plastic foundation, a table saw does a fine job ...if you have a sharp blade with a decent amount of teeth...

How about turning your saw blade around backwards?  With a fine tooth steel plywood blade you would be "wearing" the plastic foundation in two. No chipping.

[specialkayme]

I usually take a deep and cut it down to medium length on a table saw. With the leftover piece, I just trim it up and use it as foundation for a regular frame. I end up getting two mediums out of one deep perico frame.