>Nothing could be further from the truth!  Bees will draw uniform beautiful
>cells on plastic foundation without any wax coating.  In fact, all of the
>commercial beekeepers I know that use the plastic foundation buy it
>uncoated...to save a few pennies...and the bees draw it just fine.
>
>
As a point of interest, we did some pretty involved field testing with
waxed and unwaxed frames over a five year period, involving several
thousands of frames. The conclusions that we arrived at showed that the
bees drew the waxed sooner, with less burr comb, brace comb, and
intermediary and drone cells. With the unwaxed they took an average of
40% longer to draw, and contained around 20% more intermediary cells
(drone, burr and brace). I guess if you are not concerned about the
misdrawing, then it's probably fine, but I felt at the current pricing
of honey, I wanted the frames drawn out and filled as soon as possible.

>
>
>If you want a hive to draw more than one super of foundation (in conditions
>similar to those in the Northeast) plan on doing it by feeding.  One cannot
>count on our flows lasting long enough to do more than fill one super with
>drawn comb plus drawing foundation for another.
>
>
I would like to comment here that if you are feeding to draw,  that's
fine, but make sure you don't extract that honey, there has been enough
adulteration of honey without it being done in the name of drawing
foundation.
Tim Townsend

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>
>
>

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-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and  other info ---
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