Plastic Foundation

[Malta Bee]

My bees dont seem to like plastic foundation.

I added a super with plastic foundation to a Langstroth brood body , after a couple of months the bees didnt touch the plastic foundatiion and stored the honey down in the brood box along with the brood.The hive was packed with both honey and capped brood in the brood box.

To make space I added another brood box and moved up 3 frames of mostly honey and some brood ,shook off the bees and added a queen excluder and added drawn wax frames instead of plastic foundation.

I would like to ask 2 questions :

1 - how do you manage to use plastic foundation ?

2 - will the capped brood survive as i moved them to the upper brood box above the queen excluder.

 

[yeogi75]

try spraying frames with sugar water see if that makes a diffrence

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

coat the plastic foundation in a thin layer of wax - melt some wax then use a small paint roller to roll it on.

 

[richardbees]

is there a reason you can't get wax foundation in Malta?
If so, PM me and I'll send you some....bees really, really do not like plastic

 

[bee crazy]

bees really, really do not like plastic

Not sure i agree with that

 

[itma]

...

I would like to ask 2 questions :

1 - how do you manage to use plastic foundation ?

2 - will the capped brood survive as i moved them to the upper brood box above the queen excluder.

I know Malta can be much warmer than the UK... BUT ... I'm not really convinced that adding supers and qx's at this time of year would be a terribly good idea.

 

[Into the lions den]

Not sure i agree with that

Me neither. Have got somewhere in the region of 25000 sheets and full frames drawn in the past.

For sure it is ONLY drawn well in good conditions, and bees DO prefer wood and wax, but there are loads of variables that influence the outcome.

The guy on here most likely to shed sense on the issue would be Norton. He copes with a very similar climate, and we in the UK do not.

However..............in any climate, if you try to get bees to draw plastic, especially unwaxed plastic, in a situation with a weak honey flow you will get results much inferior to wax. (Even an unholy mess sometimes). So much so that they will congest up and swarm at times rather than draw it. In bad conditions of course they will not draw anything other than if you feed them.

The upside is, once properly drawn, you have a comb that is as tough as nails and willlast a long time.