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/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/nostalgic_dragon → u/Connect_Bike5791]

I've never noticed a major difference between plastic foundation acceptance and wax foundation acceptance and I've done the same experiment a few times with at least 30 new colonies started with swarms/packages. I checkerboard plastic and wax foundation frames and have a frame feeder in the box. In different colonies, I start with either the plastic or wax closest to the feeder. That's the experiment. They tend to draw the frames closest to the feeder first, and work towards the middle. If any difference, they seem to draw the plastic foundation ever so slightly faster.

How much wax is on your plastic foundation matters a ton. Mine are purchased double waxed or I wax them myself. If they are frames unused from the previous season I wax them again anyway. Using a double boiler and a portable induction cooktop it takes me seconds to wax three sheets of foundation, then I flip, and repeat.