# Should I have alternated drawn frames and foundation in the brood nest



## Ed K (Oct 24, 2003)

I have a hive that I completly shook at the end of April and put on bare plastic foundation. I opened the recently (a month later) and the bees were pretty thick on the center five frames but had not drawn the rest. The bees were busily moving up and building comb on the underside of the hive top feeder and probably have a frames worth of wax up there

Since the clover is starting to bloom, I've stopped feeding so I removed the hive top feeder. I alternated the drawn and undrawn frames in the brood chamber.

Temperatures have been in the 90's a few days but are not lower that 60 at night.

Did I do the right thing to alternate the drawn and undrawn comb?

Thanks


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Yes you did the right thing.
I do not like plastic foundation and other than the drone stuff (green) wouldn't help unload a whole semi load of the stuff if it were free.
I found that swarms with nothing but plastic will draw it out some what in a couple of days. after they get enough for the queen to lay in they just do burr comb all over the place.
Even the drone comb they don't draw out very far but expand the frames next to them by about a 1/2 inch.

 Al


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## MichelleB (Jan 18, 2005)

I've found that the plastic stuff is indeed a pain to get them to draw out. I've been spraying it with sugar water and a few drops of lemongrass oil, and that's helped, marginally. 

To of my hives are from nucs, with old drawn comb. I've found that staggering drawn comb with bare plastic foundation is the way to go--keeps the girls from making funky comb, or overdrawing one side into the next frame's space. 

One thing I've found is that they seem to draw the black Pierco faster and better than the white, but one factor might be that my white Pierco was older (secondhand but never installed before I got it) and the wax coating may have worn off in storage. 

I'm not sure I'll be buying more Pierco in the future. Rather, I may use starter strips in empty frames. 

I think that starting a hive on wax foundation or starter strips is better than hiving a package/swarm on bare plastic. My guess, based on my experience, is to introduce plastic into established colonies, between drawn comb. 

But I've spoken with several beekeepers who have had nothing but success with the stuff...so it's a crapshoot.


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## Jack Parr (Sep 23, 2005)

is all I purchase and use. I have some wax foundation that came with nucs but all I ever bought is plastic Pierco. I am one year & 1/2 into beekeeping and I don't have any preconcieved ideas about anything. I prefer to not fool around with wax foundation and chose the Pierco one piece. I do lotsa reading and observing what goes on in my hives. 

I have found that the bees will draw comb if and when they need it. I have not had any luck with trying to make bees draw any comb otherwise. If the resources are there, honey flow, or, need to build brood in anticipation ,the bees will draw comb, and, plenty of it. Otherwise they won't. They draw beautiful comb in the medium honey supers using nine frames that are a pleasure to uncap, which, I just did, yesterday, 13 June. 

I recently bought some black Pierco and installed a box of nine frames over one box deep brood. At the same time I installed a nine frame box over one deep brood box in a sister colony. Both colonies were purchased as nucs, the same day, from Charley Harper, Carencro LA. 

Both colonies/hives were about at the same population numbers, or so it seems. Both boxes received an extra frame of brood and clinging bees from another colony as a boost. This occured around Easter.

In the box with all black frames the bees had drawn out all the frames, filled most of the cells with honey, capped some of it and the queen layed brood into some of the frames. In short all nine frames were being used for beework  

The box with all white frames :shrug: about 6 square inches of comb is all they did. 

I also did a combination stocking another box in a different hive with a mix of black and white frames and the black was mostly all drawn and not the white to any extent :shrug: 

I am wondering about this phenom and have not found an answer yet. However this event has taken place within the last six weeks or so.

Bees will draw all manner of crazy comb and they will do that on pure wax foundation also, when starting out. I go into my hives frequently and cut out comb that I don't like and that seems to help. Otherwise the boxes get filled with crazy comb causing you, the beekeeper lots of grief. So I keep up with it. 

I also swap frames around and trim some of the honey filled puffed out comb
which intrudes in the other frames space which interferes with the proper bee space. I use a sharp knife and let the honey flow. The bees lap it up right away. 

The black Pierco I got from Rossman and it has had a lavish application of wax and it seems more so than the white. Dunno if that has anything to do with what I just experienced. 

I have two hives with Russian Queens, four with Minn. SMR hygenic Italian and three with feral/captured bees that are meaner than mean. 

Jack Parr


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