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.