Does drone foundation work for you?

[Bill W.]

I have a plastic drone frame in each of my hives.  They don't bother to use it for anything, but put drones just about anyplace else.  I'm on all plastic, so I don't think it is a material preference.  I have it at the outside edge, where they do have some brood, but not a lot.  Perhaps they prefer to have drones closer to the center?

I'm seeing more mites, so I would like to get a drone removal program going, if possible.

[Robo]

Bees just hate drawing plastic, and will build burr comb instead if they can.   Pull the plastic frame and replace it with an empty frame (no foundation) and they will fill it with drone comb.  Drone foundation is another gimick to make money.   Do a search on "foundationless" here and you will see that anybody that tries to move towards natural comb will get a frame of drone comb when they start.

[Michael Bush]

You might have better luck with an empty frame in the brood nest.  But this is the time of year when they are usually finishing up on raising drones in any great numbers, at least here where I live.

[Bill W.]

Just an update.  Since I already have the green stuff, I decided to leave it a bit longer and see what happens.  Two hives (of 8 with drone frames) have decided they like the stuff, drew it out, laid some drones, and stored some honey in it.

The rest are still ignoring it, but maybe it will turn out not to be totally useless.

[my-smokepole]

Mine started to fill it with Honey. In the one box. For the time beeing I have pulled it.
My-smokepole