# White plastic foundation



## Lowdown (May 24, 2007)

We have a couple of hives and have had good success with the black plastic foundation on wood frames for 3 of the deep bodies. We had heard and seen the warnings against using plastic, tried these and haven't had a problem with the black plastic. 

Now the white plastic seems to be a whole different ballgame. 

Our girls filled our 2nd hive body's (with the black plastic on wood frames) so quick that we put shallow supers on around the first of May. The 2nd hive body with the full size black plastic frames were chock full of honey in the process of being capped. 

Well, we used plastic again for the shallow super frames. This time all they had was a white plastic that they claimed was great for honey production. 

Month and a half later and there is one small spot where you can see yellow wax on any of the 30 frames, that's it!!!

I missed most of the good nectar flow due to this. The girls were putting it away like mad and all the signs were there/are there of a decent nectar flow still. Heck some of our fruit trees still have blooms on them- although most have medium to full size fruit. 

Has anyone had this problem with white plastic? Should I ditch them? Do they make a BLACK plastic foundation for shallow frames?

We just got started beekeeping in March but we are hooked, they are very fascinating little things...

TIA

Lowdown


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## off_da_grid (May 22, 2007)

I use all Mann-Lake wood frames with rite-cell, wax-coated
plastic foundation. It has worked great for me and the price
is very reasonable. And I don't have to assemble or wire 
anything  I also always spray the frames with sugar
syrup before I install them. I think it gets them motivated.
These are the ones I use. http://www.mannlakeltd.com/catalog/proddetails.asp?pg=page10.html


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## foxtrapper (Dec 23, 2003)

Interesting. I'm running the same scenario as you, with exactly the same problem.


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## Lowdown (May 24, 2007)

Thanks for the link, I didn't see shallow super sized frames. There site could use a search engine to make things easier. I will call them, thanks!


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## matt_man (Feb 11, 2006)

We are having a problem with the white plastic frames as well. 

They were drawing it out but not like they should be. We had to scrape it all off so they could start over.


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## foxtrapper (Dec 23, 2003)

Hmm. Any of us bothered to spray the white plastic foundation down with sugar water or such? Or perhaps recoating more heavily with wax?


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## rmaster14145 (Mar 14, 2007)

good to see you got the problem fixed lowdown :baby04: 

rm


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Have 10 frames of Dadant plastic foundation. Couldn't get the girls to draw it out at all despite spraying it with 2:1 syrup. After two weeks I placed it in a donate to the club pile. They (girls) drew out in gang buster style the wax foundation I gave them in a week.

Year latter a swarm call found me short of frames with foundation. Grabbed that Dadant stuff coated it with honey, that swarm has had it over a year now and they still have a quarter of it to draw out and I am doubting they ever will.

 Al


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## Lowdown (May 24, 2007)

good to see you got the problem fixed lowdown "

Not quite yet, but thanks for the positivity!

I've been feeding one of hives hoping that might further stimulate wax production. Removed the queen excluders from two of the hives. Basically want to get it narrowed down to "yep tried this, yep tried that, your product doesn't work" when I call the supplier. 

Bad thing is I already have 30 more frames sitting in the box :Bawling:


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## Lowdown (May 24, 2007)

Well some good news. Opened up one of the hives today and they are just now starting to draw out a very small section of one of the frames and filling it with honey. The section is about half the size of a dollar bill. 

I sprayed all the empty frames down with sugar syrup as you all advised. Hopefully this also will help. 

A new colony less than a month old has built out and stocked about 4 (full size) frames already, so I don't think nectar is a problem.


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