undrawn frames/ mixing frame types

[Janemma]

My bees don't arrive until May 10th, and to start with I will be using Pierco plastic frames and then my plan is to slowly move over to foundation free frames in the upper supers so that I can cut the comb rather than process honey.  I have two questions.

Will a mix of frames in different supers work in the same hive?  (ie pierco plastic frames in the brood box and foundation free frames with a little comb to get the bees started in the upper boxes...)

Is it ok to put my package bees straight into a hive of completely undrawn pierco frames?  I have been reading the instructions on them and it says to spray them or dip them in the sugar-water solution etc but that many beekeepers use all undrawn frames now so that the bees HAVE to accept the frames....do bees need some drawn frames or can you use only undrawn frames?

TIA

[Joseph Clemens]

Once the frames are filled with drawn comb they can be mixed up in whichever way you choose, without many problems. Before that there can be issues: For instance, I have some hives that almost refuse to draw plastic foundation if I don't coat it with lots of extra beeswax and place it between combs of sealed or emerging brood. I just extricated several of these which had been in very strong hives for several months now (three supers full of brood and three of honey), where they were apparently just taking up space - not the slightest effort had been made to draw comb on these plastic foundations.

It should be just fine to hive packages on Pierco® one-piece frame/foundation units. I personally, would carefully coat the plastic cell-wall bases with lots of extra beeswax, being careful not to get too much into the bottoms of the cells, as this can hinder the bees from building a good comb from the plastic foundation. I recently forced the bees, from a fairly strong hive, which was reluctant to become queenright - into a single super of PF120's that had not been drawn yet, but were coated with lots of extra beeswax. Most had been drawn into comb after only four days.

[Pond Creek Farm]

I just switched deeps on a hive and replaced all the formerly bottom deep with PF100.  I have not done an inspection since then but am expecting that I will start the queen laying into the smaller cells. I will soon switch the bodies again, and cull whatever existing frames I can to replace with PF100.  My intention is to have 2 deeps of the pf100 and then put starter stripped mediums above that for honey. When my packages arrive, I am putting them on HSC with a queen excluder (used as an includer) to keep her in there and force a rapid regression.  We will see how this works.