# Mann Lake pf 120



## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

I'd say that most who choose to use PF120 combo frames make that choice due to the 4.9mm cell size. You didn't mention that ... so is that what you are expecting?

If you aren't intending to go to 4.9mm cell size, the Ritecell is reportedly 5.4 mm.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Charlie B gave me a box of 100 pf120 last year FOR FREE!! and I can only presume that cheapskate only did so because he had found them so hard to get drawn out. I added wax, threw a nice swarm on them and fed fed fed. I was only able to get 15 frames drawn before they stopped. The brood pattern sure looked nice on them. It is a nuisance to have those undrawn frames in the box and I will have to deal with them soon.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

I've not had too many problems with the bees drawing out comb on the PF-120's I use ... IF they are introduced at the right time. In "spring" and "early summer", swarms or splits jump right on them and draw comb out nicely. During this time period they also work well inserted in between drawn comb in expanding colonies with lots of wax makers. Once past the early summer nectar flows they are not as eager to draw them out, but I also see a similar hesitation at that point with foundation or empty frames.

The frames are a bit flimsy, so colonies that heavily propolyze make it a little more difficult to remove frames during inspections. They are also slightly shorter in height than wooden frames so they end up with a little more burr comb on the top and bottom bars. 

A few cons using them, but the upside is that there is no time spent on wiring or assembly. Just drop them in the box and that's it.


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## laketrout (Mar 5, 2013)

Good point Rader I wasn't sure on that , there standard pf120 doesn't say rite cell in the header but down below it does say 4.9 its a little confusing , I don't see 5.4 sizing anywhere at mann lake .

Od frank it sounds like old charlie B got you you on that one and I'm sure you will get him back for it !! this is what bothers me about going to plastic I don't wan't to deal with bee's not drawing it out , is this why some go to pierco at 5.2 cell size , I would be interested in what you use and feel that the bee's draw out without any trouble .

Mike I've heard some like the benefits of plastic foundation but stay with wood frames , the flimsy frames you mentioned dont sound good to deal with and also more propolis I can't imagine !! as I'm always scraping it off , so would wood frames and plastic foundation be another option .

OK now I see the rite cell is 5.4 !!!!


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Rite Cell in the wood frames might work best for you, unless you are really wanting the 4.9 cell size. Then you could go with 4.9 wax foundation. 

Or as others have done, cut the frames off of the PF-120's and slide them into wooden frames. That adds more work and additional cost, but gives you a sold wood frame with 4.9 plastic foundation.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

laketrout said:


> Been using wood frames and wax foundation for four years now and thinking about switching over to mann lake pf 120 .


Not trying to sway you one way or another but…I’ve used plastic foundation with wooden frames…usually Mann Lake….preassembled for the past seven or eight years. I’ve tried the all plastic, one piece frames but felt that they were too flimsy. Before going to the plastic/wood combo I was wood/wax. It is hard to argue the convenience with plastic.
Having said that, I made a bit of a push to expand this year and….I hope to need a boatload of drawn comb as quickly as possible. My memory of how well my bees drew wax foundation drove me to buy 1500 unassembled frames and wax foundation. 

I thought about buying some of that ‘extra coated’ plastic foundation….but resent the fact that they charge extra to do what they should have done in the first place. 

Long and short…in my opinion….if it’s about beekeeper convenience….plastic all the way. If it’s about getting the maximum comb drawn….and my memory still serves me….wax.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

beemandan said:


> I’ve used plastic foundation with wooden frames…usually Mann Lake….preassembled for the past seven or eight years. I’ve tried the all plastic, one piece frames but felt that they were too flimsy.


same here dan. i once acquired a hive for breeding purposes that came with plastic frames and the flimsiness caused me to cull out the plastic frames. they bend and crack too easily when you really have to apply pressure with the hive tool.

as to getting the plastic frames drawn, i would rather paint on some cappings wax instead of assembling frames and struggling with the delicate wax foundation.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

I have been using Mann lake frames and ritecell foundation and paint on extra wax and it seems to get drawn out faster. You guys are going to love those plastic frames when the beetles get to you.
Johno


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

johno said:


> You guys are going to love those plastic frames when the beetles get to you.


that's the other thing i didn't like about them, too many crevices for the beetles to lay eggs in.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

squarepeg said:


> as to getting the plastic frames drawn, i would rather paint on some cappings wax instead of assembling frames and struggling with the delicate wax foundation.


I understand but I am overly resentful at having to 'fix' something I just bought to make it work as it should. Just some of my weirdness.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

I just love the way bees sometimes just eat big holes in my wax foundation when they decide not to draw it out.
Johno


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## laketrout (Mar 5, 2013)

yeah I get that too my wax foundation looks like swiss cheese !!!! looks like I will keep my wood frame jig and try some rite cell foundation .

Is there any benefit to the regular waxed version if I'm going to add wax to them myself or does it serve as a good base, the unwaxed saves 16.00 per 100









Yeah I get that too my wax foundation looks like swiss cheese !!!


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

personally i would prefer no wax (with possible contaminants) and just use my own clean stuff, especially if it saves $$.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

I've never used the pf-120, ie mediums, but have a significant number of the pf-100 variant, deep frames as well as the -500 and -520 variants. Our experience with frames over the last 8 years.

When we first started, the bee supply shop did a good job of upselling and we started out using the Mann Lake PF-500 frames in our first few brood boxes and the pf-520 in medium supers. Those are the Rite-Cell pro with the metal insert to re-inforce the top bars. In our third year, I wanted to expand more, but spend less, so I bought a few cases of the PF-100 frames, in my mind at the time it was to save some money and I had read about all the supposed benefits of the smaller cells embossed on those frames, thought it was a win-win, how could I go wrong? Answer:- easily.

Today when folks ask me about using the ML plastic frames, this is what I tell them. We never had any problems getting the PF-500 frames drawn out, most of them are fully drawn with good comb, a few have a small piece in the corner not pulled out. I've never had the ear break off of a PF-500 frame when working a heavily propolized frame out of a brood box. We had a lot of issues getting PF-100 frames drawn out, have a considerable number only half drawn, and adding extra wax helped a little, but not really worth the effort and cost (time and wax) of waxing them. I've had the ears break on a number of the PF-100 frames, and they have a tendancy to warp if one gets forgotten in the yard and sits in the sun for a couple days. My final conclusion, our bees like the -500 variants, and do not like the -100 variants. the -500 variants may cost more, but, they stand up far better over time.

For mediums, the majority of our honey supers have PF-520 (rite cell pro with the metal insert) in them, and we've never had a problem with broken ears or extractor blowouts with those. We have a dozen medium boxes purchased with wood frames and plastic foundation. Those are not a 'name brand', purchased from somebody that makes them from scratch. This coming season will be year 4 for those frames, and it will also be their last year in our boxes, starting to have lots of issues with broken ears this year. Over time they have ended up interspersed in other boxes now, but as they come thru the extractor this year they will not go back into boxes, but will be replaced with new frames. I expect to have most of them out during the first extraction cycle and the replacements in those boxes to be drawn out when they go up to the fireweed patches in July.

What are we replacing with, that's to be decided yet. Our local supplier that brought in ML products is not longer in business, so ML frames are hard to get. But just up the road is another supplier that brings in Acorn, so I'm probably going to get a few cases of Acorn frames to try out. I have no interest in wood frames, cannot source them assembled thru local suppliers, and I have no interest in spending hours hammering together little sticks to make frames. I want stuff that I can take out of the box, and put directly into a bee hive.

But in the interest of full clarity, I know a lot of folks worry about SHB and the nooks and crannies of various plastic frames. For us, that's a non issue, we dont have SHB here.

The last tidbit, which is still kind of 'not sure yet', is dealing with some plastic frames that have comb unsuitable for going back into a hive. The bad beekeeper (me) left a couple boxes in the wrong place after dealing with a spring deadout, and by the time we got around to re-cycling those frames (PF-500 variants), between the wax moth damage and mold, they were totally unuseable, so we took a paint scraper and scraped em down to bare plastic. I put some of those into the second story of 4 over 4 nuc starts last summer to see what would happen. I ended up with beautifully built fresh new comb on them. My wife is insistent that we need to do more rotating out of old comb, so we will do more this year, scrape down older frames and put them into expanding fresh new nucs to see if we can repeat this, and get fresh new comb on old frames consistently. Jury is still out on wether or not this is a viable strategy for renewing the comb on plastic frames, but, the first trial did seem to work out for us, so we will try more this upcoming season.

YMMV, but this is our experience with different variants of plastic frames since we got our first bee colonies.


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## JoshuaW (Feb 2, 2015)

Switching to wood frames and plastic foundation and away from the pf-120s because of SHB.


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## laketrout (Mar 5, 2013)

Am I missing it or don't they make black with no wax in medium foundation all i see is black with wax , which is ok just wondering ,Seems like alot of beeks like the black for seeing eggs better .


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## Live Oak (Oct 11, 2008)

laketrout said:


> Been using wood frames and wax foundation for four years now and thinking about switching over to mann lake pf 120 . Price comparison in the quantity I was buying will work out to .16 cents more for the plastic so the cost difference is nothing. I'm only working around 10 hives is it worth the switch to save the work building the wood and wax and risking the problem that I might have with bee's rejecting working the plastic .


These frames actually work well. The big problem with them that I encountered is the plastic frame stiffeners built into each frame are more or less really nice small hive beetle condominiums. 

I finally went with the WW-899 and WW-924. The WW-899 being black make it much easier to see eggs. The WW-925 can be the natural color as well. Personal preference. My experience with these is that the bees will readily draw them out nearly as fast as natural foundation but the comb is usually much more consistent as the bees tend to cannibalize the wax foundation to some extent.


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## Charlie B (May 20, 2011)

odfrank said:


> Charlie B gave me a box of 100 pf120 last year FOR FREE!! and I can only presume that cheapskate only did so because he had found them so hard to get drawn out. I added wax, threw a nice swarm on them and fed fed fed. I was only able to get 15 frames drawn before they stopped. The brood pattern sure looked nice on them. It is a nuisance to have those undrawn frames in the box and I will have to deal with them soon.


I remember this well. Ollie and I were going to meet for lunch and I needed some kind of gift to guilt him into buying. I was giddy to give him these frames because they were the most worthless thing I could find in my shop knowing he had never used them.

Worked like a charm:lpf:


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

I will throw some more swarms on them, sell them as small cell nucs, and make plenty of $$$ to buy you some more Tacos.


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## Charlie B (May 20, 2011)

odfrank said:


> I will throw some more swarms on them, sell them as small cell nucs, and make plenty of $$$ to buy you some more Tacos.


I was trying to remember why I started out with these worthless frames. It was because of the small cell tale I was gullible enough to believe as a beginning beekeeper. I’ve learned since then to experiment on a small scale first to test for yourself if something works or not. 

Oh sure, these frames are fine if you’re on the package treadmill every year to replenish your losses. Packages have no choice but to draw them out after gallons of feed. In my experience, most swarms prefer to ignore them rather than draw on them even in a good spring flow. Once you’re smart enough to get off packages as your main source of deadout replacement, they’re worthless.


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## bison (Apr 27, 2011)

I got some of the plastic frames for free a few years ago and tried them out. Hated them. Too flimsy and I don't think the bees liked them as much as wood with foundation. I've tossed most out.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

bison said:


> I got some of the plastic frames for free a few years ago and tried them out. Hated them. Too flimsy and I don't think the bees liked them as much as wood with foundation. I've tossed most out.


I think in this conversation it's important to note _which_ variant of plastic frames you were unhappy with, they aren't all created equal. I wont buy any more of the ML PF-1xx series, but, we have had great success with the PF-5xx series frames. Not all plastic frames are created equal.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Time in my operation is at a premium, so I gave up on making frames (for the most part) many years ago. I've tried the PF-120 and after a number of years in service, they slowly start failing. I think the foundation is good (albeit slower to get drawn than wax), but the plastic frame is not. I've broken lots of "ears", snapped them in half in my extractor, and ran my hive tool through them as well. Bottom line, I will not be buying any more of these unless it is to cut out the foundation to put it in a wooden frame, but then there's the time issue...


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## Bdfarmer555 (Oct 7, 2015)

Most of my brood frames are the deep black pf120's. My daughter had the job of painting extra wax. Then I ordered mediums, natural color. They were extremely fragile in the ears. 

The experience made me try acorn. Was very satisfied.


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## laketrout (Mar 5, 2013)

I was already to pull the plug on a 100 sheets of plastic foundation and frames and then I read about someone that hates it and will only use wax this guy had all kinds of trouble not only did they not want to draw but they were building crazy comb on it , there are alot of stories on them not drawing plastic they drop wax in and bingo they draw it right out .But thats beekeeping you can find 100 guys that love it and 100 that hate it .


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## laketrout (Mar 5, 2013)

Moved , wrong location


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

If anyone wants to get rid of the plastic frames (and is nearby - South WI), I'd be willing to take the plastic junk off your hands.
Got a good use for them - I gut them and use as foundation-less. 
Bees draw natural comb just fine in the gutted plastic frames. 
Makes for nice starter strips all way around. 
Works great.


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## laketrout (Mar 5, 2013)

I'm going to stay with wood frames probably wasn't clear in my post above heard to many bad reports of them not holding up . Now if I can just take the leap to rite cell foundation !!!!! I would like to buy the 100 at the better price but don't want to be sorry i got them when they won't draw them out .


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

As a many decades wax foundation user, to draw out plastic I:

1.Paint on extra wax with a few drops of lemongrass oil.
2. Use it for swarms or packages that have the necessity to draw it out. Feed feed feed them until drawn. Rotate frames inward as necessary.
3. Use them as honey supers only during a strong swarm. Smear a layer of creamy granulated honey on the extra waxed foundation to draw up the bees and give them the honey they need to start drawing the comb.


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## propet12 (Jun 17, 2009)

I always ask myself when making a decision like this: Is my decision going to be based on what's easier for me, or what is better for the bees? From this point-of-view, I find that it is often easier to make a good decision. It also usually means much more time and effort.

My personal belief is that any advantages to using small-cell foundation, for the most part, has been debunked. If cell size is something you want to focus on (I don't), then learn how to successfully produce all-natural comb in foundationless frames (no small feat). At least it passes the "better for the bees" test - I don't think the PF-120 does.


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## laketrout (Mar 5, 2013)

Yeah , I'm not looking for small cell at this time at all, just trying to save some time and get away from wiring and embedding very time consuming, and its probably not better for the bee's, wax seems to be best they love it !!!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

New out of the box I had no acceptance issues. Certainly less than 5.4mm plastic. Now that they've set and gotten dust on them, I am having issues. I plan to dip mine in wax this spring if I get time. Hopefully I'll have enough help to get that started. I was going to use a drum. Melt the wax in the bottom, dip, then bang against the side. Someone posted a video of that a while back and it looked like a great way to do it.


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## Riskybizz (Mar 12, 2010)

I don't think dipping PF-120's will be the best way to go. To apply wax to them just melt some of your own and use a 4" foam roller. I coat about 10 frames in 90 seconds not hurrying. The medium frames can be coated quickly. One pass of the roller each side. The intent is not to get a lot of wax into the cells. Dipping would be counter-productive to this and the frames will warp if the wax is too hot. Although I still have a few plastic frames in use, most have been sold with nucs for the last 4-5 years. Every time a thread like this comes up you always get numerous comments from people that don't like using them for whatever reason, but nobody comments about issues using wooden frames and ritcell etc. Personally I would never buy plastic frames again.


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## laketrout (Mar 5, 2013)

This looks like a fast and easy way to add wax to plastic foundation but is he adding to much wax , if you look close he is pushing a puddle of wax ahead of the roller and most likely filling the cells with wax .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTGWKxHgIw4


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## Riskybizz (Mar 12, 2010)

Yes the video shows exactly how NOT to do it. He's using a "nap" style paint roller and its hold way too much wax. A 4" foam roller works much better. You don't have to cover every cell on the frame.


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## j.kuder (Dec 5, 2010)

mann lake preassembled wood with rite cell plastic works fine for me. don't like flexible all plastic


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