> ... does the Housel positioning apply to one-piece plastic frames?

Only if you buy into the idea in the first place.  And if you DO buy into
the idea, the positioning doesn't start with a single frame, it requires a
pair of frames which have the down-Y cells facing each other. If you are
standing in front of a 10-frame hive looking at it head-on, frames 1 through
5 (where frame 1 is to your left) will hve up-Y on the left side of the
frame, down-Y on the right side of the frames, and frames 6 through 10 will
be the mirror opposite(down-Y on the left, up-Y on the right).

Aaron Morris - thinking cold fusion!