ugcheleuce
Field Bee
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2013
- Messages
- 669
- Reaction score
- 1
- Location
- Apeldoorn, Netherlands
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 7-10
G'day everyone
As far as I know, you can't buy plastic drawn-out foundation in my country, so the second option for a hobbyist with nothing useful to do in winter is to make it oneself. I'm just trying to find out what you think the potential drawbacks of this might be and/or why doing this is bound to fail horribly.
I want to know if you think it is possible to make DIY plastic drawn-out foundation using plastic drinking straws. These straws can be bought at various thicknesses, from 4 mm right up to over 10 mm. If I can use drinking straws that are 6 mm thick, the bees might just love it.
You can cut the straws to the right size easily by grabbing a handful and slicing it with a hot wire. The heat will probably also fuse the straws together, but if not, you can always stick them to a sheet of plastic or wood.
Questions: If the bees were to fill this with honey, do you think it would be possible to use it for human consumption, given the fact that the honey would have been sitting in plastic housing for several weeks? What do you think the bees will do to the triangular holes between the cells? Do you think the bees will accept the straw foundation at all? What size do you think is safest, if the idea is to use it for honey stores? The cheapest straws that I can find are 5 mm thick -- do you think that that is too thin for the bees?
Thanks
Samuel
As far as I know, you can't buy plastic drawn-out foundation in my country, so the second option for a hobbyist with nothing useful to do in winter is to make it oneself. I'm just trying to find out what you think the potential drawbacks of this might be and/or why doing this is bound to fail horribly.
I want to know if you think it is possible to make DIY plastic drawn-out foundation using plastic drinking straws. These straws can be bought at various thicknesses, from 4 mm right up to over 10 mm. If I can use drinking straws that are 6 mm thick, the bees might just love it.
You can cut the straws to the right size easily by grabbing a handful and slicing it with a hot wire. The heat will probably also fuse the straws together, but if not, you can always stick them to a sheet of plastic or wood.
Questions: If the bees were to fill this with honey, do you think it would be possible to use it for human consumption, given the fact that the honey would have been sitting in plastic housing for several weeks? What do you think the bees will do to the triangular holes between the cells? Do you think the bees will accept the straw foundation at all? What size do you think is safest, if the idea is to use it for honey stores? The cheapest straws that I can find are 5 mm thick -- do you think that that is too thin for the bees?
Thanks
Samuel