I use Dadant's wax coated plastic foundation and my bees have built out the interior frames quickly, both brood and the super I just put on last week, but they seem to be avoiding the outer couple of frames in both brood box and super. I read about how you can melt some beeswax and paint it on the foundation and it will get them building comb a lot faster, even though it already has a wax coating on it. Does anybody do this and does it work? Can I move the outer blank frames inside to coax them to start building? Or does it matter right now?
BTW I did a shake test on a super frame yesterday and got a few nectar drops on the frames below, but not a whole lot.
Thanks!
Bees tend to not want to draw foundation on the outsides unless they really have to. Your best bet is to just move them to the center.
rob...
I have found painting the foundation helps out a bunch. at first my bees would not touch the plactic once I applied the wax they drew it out that week
Keith