>>And, finally, I was hoping for a pointer to some information and 
some anecdotal info on wax vs. plastic frames (I am guessing it is a 
perennial topic).

It was recently reported that Tom Seeley's experiment showed that 
bees started with wax and plastic foundation produces more honey with 
the wax foundation.  It remains to be evaluated if there is a 
difference in honey production bet. colonies on drawn plastic frames 
vs. drawn wax frames. 

I've only used plastic frames in my hives because they are easy for 
the beekeeper.  The bees draw out waxed plastic fairly well although 
one can 'see' a delay in getting started and a strong flow is needed 
to keep them going.

I once gave several colonies uncoated plastic frames and they did 
everything but draw them out.  They 'hate' the plastic and will only 
draw it out when pushed very hard.  Time and again they will try to 
build parallel comb between the plastic frames.  It must be very 
frustrating for them to work on uncoated plastic.

I said bees 'hate' plastic but it's probably more that they 
don't 'see' the cell embossing.  Besides the cell base geometry there 
probably also needs to be wax present for them to 'see' it.

There may also be another factor in plastic vs. wax.  There seems to 
be evidence that bees vibrate the comb as part of their 
communication.  The plastic is likely to have a different vibratory 
response resulting perhaps in distorted communication...

Waldemar

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