Addressing my previous comment:

>I intend to stick with wood frames & wax foundation,
>but I have to admit that the convenience is nice.

Waldemar asked:

>What is the reason for your decision to remain with wood?

Fewer problems with wax & wood.  I've never my bees do oddball things like filling a brood nest with longitudinally oriented comb with wax & wood.  They don't seem to propolize and brace as much with wood.  Even after I figured out what I was doing wrong with the Pierco plastic frame spacing and got my act together I still consistently had much more propolis and brace.  Pulling two boxes apart is sometimes quite an adventure because of all of the brace between the bottoms of the frames in one box with the tops of the frames in the box below.  I'm not going to say that it's never happened with wood, but it *always* seems to happen with plastic (either plastic against plastic or plastic against wood).  And I don't seem to have as much trouble coaxing them to draw wax foundation out under marginal conditions.  As has already been noted by many, you have to have a strong flow on to get them to accept it.  I also don't want to have to deal with "interoperability" issues in exchanging brood combs in my apiary.  Mixing wood & plastic in the same box is asking for it owing to size and spacing issues, so I would prefer to have all of the same thing in all of my brood chambers so it's not an issue.

And, doggone it, wood & wax just smells better (in my opinion)!  There's nothing quite like the smell of a fresh box of foundation to lift your spirits on a cold winter's day while you're inserting and wiring into frames, which I consider excellent therapy in and of itself.  I just don't get as much satisfaction from dumping 10 Piercos into a box.  But I openly acknowledge that many beekeepers have better things to do with their time than building and wiring frames, and are overjoyed at dumping 10 Piercos into a box and being done with it.  To each their own.  Call me a traditionalist (here at A&M we're just like that I guess).

I'm certainly not planning on purging my Piercos.  I just won't use them for brood or starting packages any more.  And I'll continue to experiment with plastic frames & foundation in the future.  I may even change my mind.  Perhaps it's different if you use 100% plastic and you've gotten used to the differences and changed your practices accordingly.  I enjoy experimenting and I'll continue to do so.  That's part of what make beekeeping so much fun for me.

BTW:  Has anyone any experiences to report with the Dadant plastic frames (I think they were called Plastiframe)?  I notice that they've disappeared from the Dadant web site catalog, and were shown as a clearance item in the last paper catalog.

Happy Holidays!

Take care,


Lance Parr
Network Specialist II
Physical Plant Telecommunications
Texas A&M University
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