Tom Allen wrote:
>
> About a month ago I sent in a negative commentary on plastic
> foundation.Although I have experienced some improvement in my bees reaction
> to Pierco it is still not up to the reaction to a normasl wax foundation. I
> started using it last year and got an almost 100% negative reaction and only
> the slightest depth of comb was drawn on in one super and none on  the other.
> Having listened and read many peoples commentary  I think that Pierco users
> will get best results when the  hive is 100 % Pierco. There is no doubt in my
> mind that Pierco has some long range benefits in durability and certainly
> knocks the effort of assembling rames to zero. This year I used one super of
> Pierco in with two of wood and wax onn either side.  It was far le;s than
> satisfactory .The south side of the frames were hardly drawn out the north
> side
> were fully drawn but v ery irregular. The supers above and below were drawn
> normally and well filled with honey .
> I am also using some Duragilt. Last season was a real tough one here as
> elsewhere. In some of the colonies I found much of the wax on the Duragilt
> eaten away while other parts were used normallly. I was distraught when my
> new colonies did not build on the bare plastic areas, and apparenlty made
> some of them bigger..However as the summer has worn on the bees have fully
> drwan the combs over all the Duragilt and show no preference with respect to
> the plain wax foundation.
> My plans for 1997 include one hive 100% duragilt, one hive 100 % Pierco, and
> the rest in wax. There will probably be five hives next year.While most beekeepers would find the regular interspered method of
introducing ANY foundation acceptable, it comes down to , what ever works
for you.