I have been corresponding with another beekeeper who shall remain
anonymous here, but I thought some of the exchange might interest the
list:
 
> Before we all went off to get on with our active seasons we had a brief
> exchange regarding Pierco frames... We are planning to put a good number
> of new deep bodies into service next year, and this year we used Dadants
> plasticell in American wooden frames, with good success (the bees still
> prefer the wax foundation). Although it is an immense saving in time on
> using cross wires and wax it still requires making up the frames, and
> Piercos could save this at a relatively minor extra cost.
 
Exactly: it's not the cost for us that is the ultimate deciding factor; it
is the labour and management and the time delay involved in getting frames
together as well as the fact that there are always some wooden frames that
come apart the first time they are used that bother me.
 
We enjoyed not experiencing these annoyances after switching to Pierco
this year, and I think, for us, the dollar cost was very competitive. With
the Pierco, we simply ordered, and two or three weeks later the frames
arrived -- having been made to our specs (black plastic with wax
coating)-- and we started putting them into hives.
 
We were a little late getting the frames, as there was a problem with a
trucker and, as you know, a week can make a huge difference in the
spring. Therefore, we did have more come back from the field undrawn than
we had hoped, but we don't worry; they stay in the supers until the bees
get around to them next year or the year after.  We could not be doing
that with wax foundation.
 
> We found the wood/plastic gave us much better results than the old
> Piercos did, especially when used in our small experimental unit of
> polystyrene hives.
 
We found little overall difference in acceptance using (freshly) waxed
Piercos, and what advantage we saw  was in Pierco's favour. They were
accepted quickly and I saw little of the comb spurs and parallel comb that
we saw with waxed Permadent and another similar product.
 
Our only complaints about the Pierco are tentative and aesthetic.
Hopefully the black colour should help overcome the dirty look that white
frames get.   The feel of the plastic edges on bare fingers takes getting
used to.  I personally haven't handled enough of them to decide what I
think.
 
I like the 15% extra useable area, but the sharper edges and the flexing
are a bit disconcerting.  I guess that It will be a few years until I
really know what I think.  I hope to move them increasingly into the brood
chambers and go to single brood chambers during the operating season.
Pierco should self space better than wood and stay flat, allowing the bees
to function very well in singles.  With wax, we have too many brood combs
that are sub-optimal.
 
> However, if the new ones are better than the old it would be quite a
> bonus... Making up all these frames even at a modest 4 boxes per colony
> is truly daunting task.
 
True.  We expanded to 3,000 colonies this year and the 10,000 Pierco
frames helped.  I'd love to put solid boxes of Pierco on for seconds, and
tried it on one single split this year.  Results: a box of perfectly drawn
frames full of honey and brood.  I'm a bit leary about doing it wholesale
until further tested, but for some jobs, such as pollination, it might just
be the ticket.
 
> We use a Dakota Gunness uncapper, and I understand that this could have a
> bearing on our choice as some respondents have reported these as
> 'trashing' Piercos, although poor adjustment and flails going round too
> fast might be a factor here.
 
I have concluded that most people do not know how to set their Dakota.
Many have to replace flails often, however in two years of heavy use, we
never did see any wear.  The quick adjust feature is a waste of material,
because we just set it once and forget it.  The only adjustment required
is the flail speed, and we always set it as low as we can and still get
good uncapping.  We have to change it a bit as the season progresses.
 
We had problems with the Dakota pulling end bars off new wood frames of
plastic foundation if they were not well drawn and the staples were a bit
off centre.  We had added 10,000 wood frames with Permadent and I guess the
damage was minor, amounting to a hundred or so frames, but I found it
annoying.  I have not seen damage to Pierco with the Dakota, but until now,
we have not used many of the Pierco.  I understand that the Cowen system
has a problem keeping the Pierco moving along because they are slippery.  I
think that Dave has conquered that now though.
 
Actually, we did not use the Dakota this year -- and rather hand scratched
everything.  We thought we'd have less broken frames, but the result is
about the same and the labour was about double.  3,000 colonies is too many
to scratch.  Just before I decided that, someone bought my Dakota, so I
have to decide once again what system to buy.  We've used a number over
the years: Knife, plane, McFadgen, Penrose, scratching, & Dakota.  I think
we may go to a Cowen line this time -- maybe with a flail conversion
instead of knives.  That means I'll have to get a cappings handling
system.  Ugggh.  Don't get me wrong, I still think the Dakota is the best
uncapper.  It's just that the Cowen system loads the extractor
quickly -- almost as part of the uncapping -- and has a de-boxer that is
sublime.
 
In summary, if nothing changes, I doubt I will ever buy anything except
Pierco again.  We are entirely happy with it.  There is some learning to do
(What do you do with a destroyed frame?  Landfill?  I hate the thought.)
however I think the convenience outweighs many other factors.  I am really
tired of supervising construction and maintenance activities.  I want to be
a beekeeper, not a carpenter.
 
> 1998 has been a very poor honey year here... We worked plenty
> and got our bees into fine condition indeed, but the weather just never
> obliged us with any settled spells after mid May. We started extracting
> earlier than usual with our rapeseed (Canola) around 15th May, but after
> about 9 days we stopped again and did not need to run the machines again
> till July. we ended up with about a one third of a crop on our normal
> honeys, and about half normal from our heather. A failure of both crops
> to this extent is very rare and represents the poorest harvest for at
> least a decade, with only 1985 rivalling it in recent memory. It was just
> cold almost every day and we also got 300% of normal rainfall in each of
> June July and August.
 
Well, we wound up with about 65 pounds, which is about 5 pounds over my
budget plan, but well under our usual yield which is 100 to 120 pounds.
Most others had a bumper crop, but we decided to put 1,800 of our hives
into pollination right at the main flow and sacrificed honey for cash
money.
 
It was an excellent bee year in almost every way;  we only had 5% winter
kill, by far the lowest I've had in 25 years, and then a warm spring that
allowed (forced) us to divide and increase.  It turned out to be an early
honey season here and we had to move heavy hives into the pollination right
off an intense flow as we could not pull the honey fast enough to stay
ahead of the requests for "bees now".   We then had to pull the honey on
location and truck it back up here (150 miles).  The only fly in the
ointment?  The entire summer was very hot, with few reprieves, and there
was not a large August flow in most locations.
 
All in all I am pretty happy, although this pollination and expansion all
at once is the hardest thing I've ever done.  Pollination work sucks the
soul right out of a person.  Fortunately the soul is a most resilient
component and I feel my humanity returning -- even if my back and hip
remind me that I'm aging.
 
Allen
 
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