"But I can’t see how plastic would be an impediment, any more than a wall between two warm rooms would be."

Heat transfer, at normal environmental temperatures, between air on one side of a solid and air on the other side of a solid sheet has next to nothing to do with the thermal conductivity of the solid.  For example, if you replaced the glass in your windows with aluminum sheet and measured heat transfer you would find out that aluminum transferred no significant excess heat compared to glass.  It would make it rather hard to look out the window however.

The reason this is the case is heat transfer from air on one side to air on the other side has three resistances to overcome.  First there is the film of air on one side of the solid and the heat transfer coefficient across that film is very low unless the air is moving a lot.  The same is true on the opposite side.  Then you have the rather high heat transfer coefficient for moving heat from one surface of the solid to the other surface of the solid.  Compared to those two film coefficients moving heat thru most any solid is dirt easy.  In my case of a glass window versus aluminum window under 1% of the resistance to heat transfer is due to the heat transfer coefficient of the solid regardless if it is glass or aluminum.

So, using plastic foundation versus wax foundation is not going to make a bit of practical difference in heat distribution in the hive.

Dick

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