At 11:17 AM 10/24/2006, you wrote:
>He found that the colonies on plastic 
>drew out 30% less comb and stored about half the honey of the 
>colonies started on wax foundation. 

I have found that if you coat the plastic foundation with a relatively thick coat of wax they are drawn out quicker than when left with just the very thin coating of wax applied at the factory.  The bees appear to actually use this extra wax to start forming the cell walls.  I suspect the same may be happening with the wax foundation.    I have not tested it side by side, but I would hypothesize that given a thick enough coat of wax, the plastic foundation may have the same yield, if not greater, than the wax foundation.

Maybe the pierco people would give me a small grant to do a study to redeem their product : )

-Tim 

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