I hope this is the last question fro today's inspection, but I cannot guarantee it. We have a nuc that will not move up from the first deep. I moved a frame of brood up into the second deep, but this did nothave the intended result. The brood hatched, and the bees filled the frame with honey. They have not, however, seen fit to fill or even draw any of the other frames. I will point out that the nuc came on small cell wired foundation, and the frames in the upper deep which are being ignored are pf-100 plastic. Again, what should I do? It seems that the mixing of the PF series with wax foundation or foundationless yields odd results. Should I put in frames of starter strips? I need this nuc to build up before winter, and they will have serious issues on one deep.
I am new at this but If you spray the plastic with some sugar water by the time they lick it clean they might like it better.
Brian I don't know if you do or not, I roll a light coating of wax to my new PF-120's it seems to really make them take to it faster.
Also I let the new frames air out for about a week before I do this.
I can't believe the manufactures can get wax on that thin, and say it's " waxed "
Bee-Bop
I haven't but I certainly can if it will help. These have been aired for many weeks. I can just go pull them from the box, wax them and put them back in to see how they take to it. Thanks for the advice.
Quote from: Pond Creek Farm on July 07, 2009, 12:02:55 AM
I hope this is the last question fro today's inspection, but I cannot guarantee it. We have a nuc that will not move up from the first deep. I moved a frame of brood up into the second deep, but this did nothave the intended result. The brood hatched, and the bees filled the frame with honey. They have not, however, seen fit to fill or even draw any of the other frames. I will point out that the nuc came on small cell wired foundation, and the frames in the upper deep which are being ignored are pf-100 plastic. Again, what should I do? It seems that the mixing of the PF series with wax foundation or foundationless yields odd results. Should I put in frames of starter strips? I need this nuc to build up before winter, and they will have serious issues on one deep.
Mixing wood and plastic frames can be disasterous. Bees, when given the choice, will usually work the wood frames (whether with or without foundation) and leave the plastic alone. Putting a super of plastic above a box of wood frames means the bees will often choose to swarm, as if crowded, than work the plastic frames/foundation.
The tricks to getting bees to work plastic are, in progressive order, as follows:
1. Air the plastic out asap, the longer the better, buy plastic in the fall for the spring and summer use. Bees hate that new plastic smell.
2. Spray the foundation area with simple syrup.
3. Coating the wax foundation with an additional coat of wax, the manufactures don't apply enough of a wax coating during manufacturing.
4. Spray the foundation with added wax with simple syrup.
5. Go back to wood.
Don't mix, I just had a swarm leave a 5 frame deep nuc because, IMO, it had plastic frames in it. Again, IMO, either start them on plastic and keep them on plastic or use only wooden ware.