# Not Drawing on Plastic Foundation/Swithing to wax



## John Banta (Jun 23, 2015)

I gave up on using foundation about 6 years ago. I started out with plastic and it was apparent the bees didn't like it. I switched to wax foundation - but wasn't happy with the way it was fastened and held up. Given an adequate starter strip and a nectar flow or 1:1 the bee's do a great job of building - they sometime mis-build with cross comb or over or under build - but I've gotten pretty good at managing that. I've also been experimenting for several years with frame separators that use bee space to keep the bees building straight even comb. I've got some YouTube videos that deal with this. Search word CombForms.


----------



## suburbanrancher (Aug 5, 2011)

Adding more wax to the plastic can help. Someone posted a video on here showing how you can do it more easily than brushing it on. Essentially you pour beeswax into a block (empty paper towel tube or some such mold), let it harden. When ready to wax your plastic frames, heat one end of the wax block and rub that softened end onto the plastic. Extra wax added lickety-split.


----------



## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Just processed about 3# of wax from cutouts and some honey I crushed and strained and am using it to coat plastic foundations. That along with spraying each frame with HBH prior to installing into a hive will encourage the bees to build combs and the materials are already there. I'm painting it on thick. It has the right smell and that HBH is so yummy to bees that they are on the frames within minutes. If they need the space they'll start pulling that wax out.


----------



## sr73087 (Mar 25, 2015)

suburbanrancher said:


> Adding more wax to the plastic can help. Someone posted a video on here showing how you can do it more easily than brushing it on. Essentially you pour beeswax into a block (empty paper towel tube or some such mold), let it harden. When ready to wax your plastic frames, heat one end of the wax block and rub that softened end onto the plastic. Extra wax added lickety-split.


So you are running foundationless?


----------



## sr73087 (Mar 25, 2015)

aunt betty said:


> Just processed about 3# of wax from cutouts and some honey I crushed and strained and am using it to coat plastic foundations. That along with spraying each frame with HBH prior to installing into a hive will encourage the bees to build combs and the materials are already there. I'm painting it on thick. It has the right smell and that HBH is so yummy to bees that they are on the frames within minutes. If they need the space they'll start pulling that wax out.


The plastic came coated from the factory and the frames were sprayed and they still do not want to draw on them.


----------



## burns375 (Jul 15, 2013)

maybe its the nuc...not ready to draw. I've never had issues w/ wax coated plastic when a flow is on. The key is to make sure the plastic has a good coating. Sometimes if you leave plastic on the hive...during a dearth they will pull off the wax to use for capping and then they won't touch the plastic. Other minor problem is they sometimes don't always draw to the very bottom of the frame. In some cases there is 0.5-1" undrawn section at the bottom


----------



## AL from Georgia (Jul 14, 2014)

I only use plastic, wax coated foundation...never had a problem.


----------



## suburbanrancher (Aug 5, 2011)

SR73087- I run small-cell wax in the brood chambers with foundationless for supers only (in between drawn comb). I also have plastic from the beekeeper who gave me my bees.
The wax applied on the factory frames is quite minimal. Some folks state their bees have no problem drawing it out, others report problems. I suspect a heavy nectar/sugar syrup flow greatly contributes to the success of plastic comb. If you are providing this and still experiencing poor comb drawing then adding wax would be the next step (if you are interested in keeping the plastic).


----------



## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

AL from Georgia said:


> I only use plastic, wax coated foundation...never had a problem.


One of the club ladies I help has colonies (packages) that started with bare foundations. I'm kind of proud because she fed them well and they've done great. Filled up their two deeps (each) with beautiful combs with almost no burr combs. That lady is lucky or I am. Her bees did so much work in the last two weeks that they filled a deep up and were about to swarm in one of the hives. Made a split and now it's 3. Wish we had some drawn combs in honey supers to give them to work on. More bare foundations. ;(


----------



## Thershey (Mar 12, 2014)

You have some time but now is the time to be worried about winter. The sun is headed south, the bees know it and it gets harder to recover as the bees naturally slow things down to conserve fuel for winter. There may be several other factors involved here but the first I would look at this time of year is food and bee density. Are you in a dearth? If so, are you, have you been feeding them a steady supply of 1:1? Do they have stores or are they just barely treading water to maintain numbers/weight? If you are feeding them or have a good flow, they don't have mites and there are lots of bees you might try swapping out one frame of plastic for a frame of foundationless next to the brood nest and see what they do.

You might do some searching of Walts posts (wcubed) as he explains it better than most but basically wax drawing is the first thing that stops when food is scarce.


----------



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

All things have a season - and in the south the season for getting foundation drawn is pretty much over. We have about 6-8 weeks centered around May when bees naturally build comb - because that is when they NEED comb. And needing it is the key. It's possible to do it in high summer, but hard, and expensive and with some real trade offs - robbing for example. THAT is probably some of your problem. If so - if they don't need comb - they won't draw out wax either - or foundationless. 

And btw putting empty frames in the brood nest to try and force them to build comb they don't need is stressful at a time when they often have other stress already.

While bees may prefer wax foundation to plastic - once the have started to draw it out the least little bit they are essentially the same thing.

Do you have enough comb to winter on? If yes then don't worry about THAT. Plenty of other things to worry about. 

Feed for nutrition and try to get them to grow the population if you want - maybe then they will NEED more comb, and they will draw some out.


----------



## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Feed them and they need somewhere to put it. If they don't have anywhere to put it they will either quit feeding or build somewhere to store it. 

Back in the good old days I'd take honey about now, quickly extract it, put the supers back and get a fall crop too. 

In late-July and August they're fighting over resources here so why not give it to them? Let them store away some sugar when it's easy to give it. If they need storage room they'll build it. I'm cranking up and getting ready to start feeding all my weaklings and give them some foundations to work on hopefully.


----------



## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

I have a lot of foundation out there and it is all plastic coated with wax or one piece frames coated with wax. We are fast drying out and the bees will soon quit drawing the foundation and will start taking wax off it to finish up odd jobs because there will be no nectar coming in and no wax automatically secreted and used. Worst case, I will take a block of wax and rub a new layer of wax back on when I give the incomplete plastic frames back to bees next year. 

IF I was trying to get beeswax foundation drawn, the bees would be chewing big holes in it to use for those odd jobs and totally ruining it! As others have said, comb is drawn when the bees are expanding. With the God given gift of granulated sugar, you can make that possible any warm season of the year. Those who regularly use plastic foundation seem to get it drawn. Ask yourself why you can't.


----------



## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

My bees pull out plastic just fine if there is a flow and instinct tells them to pull. Once that drive stops they slow down, use what they have and don't pull anything regardless if plastic,wax or open space.
I have tried feeding dilute syrup but really that hasn't made a lot of difference.


----------



## larryh (Jul 28, 2014)

All my hives (and me) are new this year. My frames in progress are just in suspended animation right now. I just today figured out what WBVC above has figured out- that feeding isn't helping get them drawn. So I say to my bees, NO FEED FOR YOU!

I built half of my frames with Laurie Miller style half sheets of black plastic ritecell, and my bees prefer to draw out the plastic before doing the foundationless sections.


----------



## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

larryh said:


> All my hives (and me) are new this year. My frames in progress are just in suspended animation right now. I just today figured out what WBVC above has figured out- that feeding isn't helping get them drawn. So I say to my bees, NO FEED FOR YOU!
> 
> I built half of my frames with Laurie Miller style half sheets of black plastic ritecell, and my bees prefer to draw out the plastic before doing the foundationless sections.


Feed them. If they don't take it, stop. Get some HBH and they'll take the feed. Try and stop them.


----------



## sweatybetty (Apr 24, 2015)

all of my frames are plastic. i brush all of them with a coat of wax before putting them in the hive and have had no problems with the bees drawing on them. most of the wax i use is older and somewhat dark.


----------



## Thershey (Mar 12, 2014)

aunt betty said:


> Feed them. If they don't take it, stop. Get some HBH and they'll take the feed. Try and stop them.


Haven't used HBH for a few years as it seemed to attract intense robbing from every bee within 100 miles. If you use it, I would highly recommend installing air tight robber screens several days beforehand and using internal feeders of some sort combined with a screen that you can pour through to fill and/or only feed at night.


----------



## larryh (Jul 28, 2014)

I have no intention of using it, but thanks for the warning!.


----------



## lowhog (May 5, 2015)

No problem here with the cell-rite wax coated plastic foundation from mann lake. My bees are drawing it out just fine.


----------



## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

The robbing thing makes sense. I've been lucky so far and have not started a war in the back yard. It's gunna happen eventually. HBH is very attractive to bees and they will go get it. If I want a colony to feed I put the hbh in and they suck the container dry. One of my colonies ...I over did it and the whole hive smells like HBH when I inspect. It's a tool and isn't new. I know I saw a recipe somewhere for this stuff back in the late 1970's. Never fed bees back then because the habitat here was divine. Those days are over.


----------



## sr73087 (Mar 25, 2015)

One thing I have not tried is shuffling the frames. The center frames are from the original nuc, they are drawing those out but not touching the plastics, except for a few. Should I move those nuc frames that are being drawn to the outside and the other frames to the center to entice them to draw comb?


----------



## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

If you have bees wax melt some and paint the bare foundations with it. 
Double boiler you don't ever use would be nice to have.
I use an old metal pie pan on top of a pot of boiling water that just fits.

Bees never do what they are told and when I tried sticking bare plastic foundation in between brood frames they built burr combs that were parallel and barely anchored to the foundation like they don't want to touch it.
Have had them do it perpendicular as well. Sometimes they just dont want to touch that plastic.
I think because it's colder than everything else at times. 
The engineering thermal properties of wax and plastic are not at all the same. 
Somehow they deal with it but not always.


----------



## Thershey (Mar 12, 2014)

Again, this time of year, the root of the issue could very well be lack of food. This is not comb building season. They WILL NOT build comb on anything if there is no flow and you are not feeding beyond what they need to raise brood and put away stores. Do you have a flow or are you feeding enough for them to have a surplus?


----------



## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

My bees don't seem to like to draw it as it comes from ML. Or at least it was less than excitedly accepted enough that I have been putting more wax on the plastic than what it comes with and they are accepting it far more readily now. It seems like they just stripped the wax off of a good portion of the plastic when I first put them in. A bit of a learning curve, but it beats the dog-snot out of dealing with foundationless.

I will also add that the all plastic frames are much more likely to be outright rejected and stripped of wax than wood frames with Rite Cell. In my very brief foundation experience that is. I swear I have swapped plastic frames 2-3 times with fresh coat of wax each time only to have them strip it again. I think I've settled on wood frames, rite cell, and a good coat of wax before it's placed in the hive.


----------



## sr73087 (Mar 25, 2015)

Thershey said:


> Again, this time of year, the root of the issue could very well be lack of food. This is not comb building season. They WILL NOT build comb on anything if there is no flow and you are not feeding beyond what they need to raise brood and put away stores. Do you have a flow or are you feeding enough for them to have a surplus?


We still have a flow however I am feeding.


----------



## Colobee (May 15, 2014)

jwcarlson said:


> My bees don't seem to like to draw it as it comes from ML. Or at least it was less than excitedly accepted enough that I have been putting more wax on the plastic than what it comes with and they are accepting it far more readily now.


I paint the ML plastic frames with a good coat of double-boiler melted cappings wax, and the bees seem to love it. They tend to balk at the micro thin coating supplied. No problems if they are painted. They've drawn out dozens of nice new frames this spring/summer.


----------



## sr73087 (Mar 25, 2015)

I switched out the plastics (nothing on them) and put wax. Its been a week and they have not touched them either. The hive is fairly busy for most of the day and the queen looks to be in good health. Not sure if a week is enough time but I am getting nervous since they basically have only worked on the nuc frames.


----------



## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

I have to go back to the earlier comment about building comb during a flow or feed. Comb is space. Space for brood, space for nectar, space for pollen, etc. If they don't need the space, they won't build comb. While I no longer buy and proactively use plastic (for a few different reasons), I always end up with a frame or two here or there from purchased nucs, etc. In my experience, the bees don't prefer it over pure wax but they'll use if it they need to.

Even if you have a flow and you're feeding, if they have existing space they'll usually use it before they draw fresh comb. I agree with many of the posts here that describe ways to prep the plastic in order to make it more accepted but in the end, the bees will decide when to do it.


----------



## Blamo (Jun 4, 2015)

aunt betty said:


> Just processed about 3# of wax from cutouts and some honey I crushed and strained and am using it to coat plastic foundations. That along with spraying each frame with HBH prior to installing into a hive will encourage the bees to build combs and the materials are already there. I'm painting it on thick. It has the right smell and that HBH is so yummy to bees that they are on the frames within minutes. If they need the space they'll start pulling that wax out.


I wonder...has anyone ever heard of heating up the Wax and, while still hot, add in HBH as if you were making hand lotion. So, instead of adding olive oil or coconut oil, you add in HBH? Might give that a try. If it comes out with the same consitancy as hand lotion, you should be able to slather it on the plastic frames easier than painting it on. Thoughts?


----------



## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Ravenseye said:


> I have to go back to the earlier comment about building comb during a flow or feed.


I'll add to that. You need a flow, or feed in it's place, and you also need a good crop of healthy young bees to build a significant amount of comb. If a young nuc is overfed, they will backfill most of the brood nest, then you wont have enough young bees emerging for the population to move onto new undrawn frames and start drawing. You need the existing frames to be mostly open or capped brood, so the population is expanding as brood emerges. If the existing drawn frames are not boiling over with bees, then there isn't enough bees to be moving onto new frames and start drawing them out.

Feeding is not enough to get the bees building comb, you also need a growing population that covers the existing frames and is boiling over onto the new ones. If they dont have that, then they dont need the space, and they wont move into it.


----------



## NonTypicalCPA (Jul 12, 2012)

suburbanrancher said:


> Adding more wax to the plastic can help. Someone posted a video on here showing how you can do it more easily than brushing it on. Essentially you pour beeswax into a block (empty paper towel tube or some such mold), let it harden. When ready to wax your plastic frames, heat one end of the wax block and rub that softened end onto the plastic. Extra wax added lickety-split.


That's a great idea. What do you use for a heat source?


----------



## the kid (Nov 26, 2006)

suburbanrancher said:


> SR73087- I run small-cell wax in the brood chambers with foundationless for supers only (in between drawn comb). I also have plastic from the beekeeper who gave me my bees.
> The wax applied on the factory frames is quite minimal. Some folks state their bees have no problem drawing it out, others report problems. I suspect a heavy nectar/sugar syrup flow greatly contributes to the success of plastic comb. If you are providing this and still experiencing poor comb drawing then adding wax would be the next step (if you are interested in keeping the plastic).


my girls will do nothing with plastic ,,,, if its put in they will build between but nothing on ,, top to bottom never touch the plastic ,, they go from the top of the frame


----------

