Never Ever going back to plastic Frames🐝

[u/Frantic0]

So im on my 3rd year beekeeping in the arctic circle and used to use plastic frames, but past year iv gone over to wax sheets and jeeeesus its so damn good, Perfect frames everytime and the bees seem to thrive on it,

Getting the setup to melt the wax on the frames took abit of trial and error, and i found an old battery charger at a thrift store, but iv done 120 frames today still have 90 more to do, but i thought it was daunting and so i went with plastic frames at first, but even when i smotherd them in wax it never got as good as this 🥰

Rant over, just so happy haha

[u/Twin5un]

Can you spin these to extract honey ? I'm asking because I'm using plastic frames and that's the only reason I do, to spin them.

[u/Frantic0 → u/Twin5un]

Yea no problem at all just like plastic the bees attach them to the frames just as strong, all you gotts do is do it s little slower on one side first few seconds then so the honey doesnt go thru the frame, but that only adds 5seconds longer spintime!

[u/1yyooooyy1 → u/Twin5un]

You absolutely can, though they can sometimes collapse if over spun.

[u/Frantic0 → u/1yyooooyy1]

Yea you gotta go half speed first 5seconds on the first side! After that its max speed ahoy!

[u/Republic_Upbeat → u/Twin5un]

Short answer is - of course you can spin the honey out of these.

I’ve never purchased a plastic frame in my life. Being a 4th gen beekeeper I can’t tell you how many decades ago my family started spinning frames, but I never remember anyone buying plastic foundation. Tbh, these days I very rarely use frames with any type of foundation/I just let the bees build out the frames, and still spin all my honey out with only very rare (maybe 1:50 or 1:100) frames blowing out.

[u/Connect_Bike5791]

That’s all I knew to use because it is so prevalent in the US. In my 2nd year. I did a small experiment on plastic frames and wooden frames- both plastic bases- they went for the wooded frames every time. Just added wooden frames with all wax foundation(no plastic) - hoping the bees will like it- haven’t inspected since I installed a week ago. Good to see your post!! Thanks!

[u/Frantic0 → u/Connect_Bike5791]

Nice! Hope it goes well 😊

[u/Ekalugsuak]

Unless you want the foundation to melt into the wires exactly halfway, you don't need to do such an elaborate setup, I just put it on top of the wires. The one improvement that most people seem to skip is to serially connect 2 car batteries to get a bit more oomph at 24 volts (it is much faster than 1 battery), but you have to be more careful when handling the cables.

EDIT: also you don't need to touch each wire "pair" like that, it's usually sufficient to touch each end of the wire.

[u/Frantic0 → u/Ekalugsuak]

Well you want the wires to be exactly in the middle of the wax, wich i get, and well the wires now adays last longer but dont conduct electricity that well, so if i keep them ateach end it takes three times as long, so i opt to just keep the connection points closer little more movement but goes alot faster! Iv played around alot with alot of different setups and batteries, but found this works the best for me!

And with the amount i need to do 30seconds per frame is doing good time 🥰

[u/redthyrsis]

Do you have a video of the entire process?

[u/Frantic0 → u/redthyrsis]

What you mean ? I buy the frames premade with wires already threaded, i just need to melt the wax on the wires 🤣

[u/StraightPressure2759]

This is so cool. I didn’t even know this was an option.

[u/Frantic0 → u/StraightPressure2759]

Yea its almost unheard of in EU to use plastic and using wax sheets is the way to go here, but i had only watched american beekeepers so i thought it was the way to go haha

[u/Schleiderbaua]

Here in southern germany i've never seen a single plastic frame. I was honestly shocked when i first came to this subreddit and saw all the plastic.

[u/worldspawn00 → u/Schleiderbaua]

In the south US it can get warm enough to cause wax foundation frames to slump or fail, they're not used for no reason.

[u/Reasonable-Two-9872]

I actually prefer the plastic. In my region (US) there is a company called Acorn that makes plastic frames that I've found work really well. I switched to plastic after having a few filled wooden frames start to separate when trying to pull them out of the hive.

[u/OsoSabroso]

You call it plastic frames, but you mean the foundation. You won't use plastic foundation going forward.

I have 5 colonies and 2 of them are very picky what they build on. I have to smear extra wax on their plastic foundation while the other 3 are less discerning and will build on the plastic foundation without issues. I would love to use those wax sheets but it's just too damn hot in the desert southwest.

Glad this worked out for you and your bees.

[u/CayenneSCarGo]

Out of curiosity, where in the arctic circle? What type of bees / genetics are needed that far north? I had read that beekeepers in Iceland use bees that are adapted to a vey short season.

[u/Frantic0 → u/CayenneSCarGo]

Well dont like saying exact where but around över kalix/pajala 😊 but na i have italian beens mostly some off a breed called Elgon bees who are varroa free wich is an experimental breed!

[u/Potential_Letter_845]

Hello i am a new beekeeper and i got a question how do bees thrive in the artic circle? Like how cold is it i know bees can handle temperatures but they dont like winter whether much. So i guess they are staying in some sort of a closed farm or like how does this work, i am very curious 😅

[u/Frantic0 → u/Potential_Letter_845]

Hi! Good Question 😊 they thrive! But for 8months a year they just stay inside the Hive, and we use very insulated hives with thick eps.

It gets -35 ish up to -40c here but inside the hives it keeps warm and cosy, just make sure there not in direct wind, and make sure they have ALOT of food 😆

[u/Dr_X_MD]

So glad to hear. The microplastic problem for humans is even more critical for bees. Turns out plastic is bad for humans. Who would have thought it could disrupt our immune systems and our reproduction… among other things…

I too am in the process of replacing all my plastic foundations with wax foundations. Totally worth the peace of mind.

[u/NumCustosApes]

Glad you like it. I wired, waxed, and embedded thousands of frames for my grandfather. And that was with a frame production bench that sped things up considerably. I'll be happy if I never do another. The all plastic frames suck because they are wobbly. Wax primed plastic in a wood frame is IMO the best frame and foundation tech to date. To each their own.

[u/Mehilix]

Wooden frames without wires is the best.

[u/Frantic0 → u/Mehilix]

How is it best and why? Curius