Permacomb acceptance in supers

[Sherpa1]

I have ordered two cases of Permacomb to try in supers. One beekeeper has told me that he has tried Permacomb in supers for 2 years, on 4 different hives, and that the bees failed to produce any honey in the Permacomb. He said that he followed the suggestion of spraying the permacomb with sugar syrup. He indicated that the same hives produced honey with wax comb in the supers. Before I order any more Permacomb, I would like to hear from people who have actually used it in supers. Did your bees accept the permacomb? If so, did they produce as much honey with the permacomb as with wax comb? I plan on doing a side by side hive comparison in the Spring with Permacomb vs. wax comb in supers. Thanks.

[ December 05, 2006, 04:56 PM: Message edited by: NoviceBee ]

[dward]

I'm a first year beekeeper, started out with 2 3lb packages. I ended up harvesting about 8-9 gallons of honey.

I used permacomb in some of my supers this year. I also used wax-coated plastic foundation in the supers.

My wax-coated frames were about half drawn when I received the permacomb shipment.

I put supers containing the permacomb above super containing the wax-coated plastic frames. It took the bees about a week before they started using the permacomb at all, but after that they seemed to prefer it.

I *did not* follow the instructions regarding honey-b-healthy, nor did I coat the permacomb with sugar syrup. Perhaps the bees would have accepted it a bit more quickly, but it did not seem like much of a lag.

In one of the hives, after I extracted the permacomb super, I left the wax-coated plastic super in the hive. The next morning I put the permacomb super above the inner cover for the bees to clean. A couple of days later, they had taken the nectar *out* of the wax-coated plastic super, carried it above the inner cover, and into the permacomb. That's why I think they preferred it.

One thing I wish I had done differently - the instructions mention using 9 frames of permacomb in a 10 frame super. I (sigh) put 10 frames in the supers.

The spacing of the frames was such that the bees capped many of the permacomb cells flush. This made it hard to open them with a knife and capping scratcher. I therefore had a hard time extracting them. Probably left > 30% of the honey in the frames. I should have read the instructions more closely, I think smile.gif

[edit - Writing this made me think a bit more about how much honey I harvested. I gave a lot of it away and so can't count for sure, but the harvest was probably closer to 3-4 gallons of honey. Seemed like more until I thought about it... ]

[ December 05, 2006, 09:30 PM: Message edited by: dward ]

[MountainCamp]

I have Permacomb, Plastic foundation, and wax foundation. The bees take to Permacomb just fine.

[AstroBee]

Same here. Never bothered with sparying sugar syrup and the bees took to them very well. However, I do wish I had cut off those darn tabs on the bottom of the PC frames before putting them in service. Makes scraping with a hive tool difficult.

[db_land]

About 2 years ago I installed 110 frames of permacomb. I did the honey-b-healthy thing and smeared beeswax on all frames. I used the 9 frame spacer and made up 12 supers that I placed on hives in 4 separate locations (honey yards). Bottom line: the bees just wouldn't use the permacomb unless nothing else was available and they needed the space. In most hives they plugged the broodnest before working the pc; they bridge combed the pc to the top of the brood frames and would skip over the pc if I put a wax framed super above it (even if foundation only). Eventually I got maybe 2 or 3 full supers of pc. Even though I used 9 frame spacing, the cells were capped almost flush with the plastic - I bought a hackler honey punch just to extract the pc. So now I have 110 pc frames that are "accepted" as long as there's no wax frames available. I pulled all of it off and am thinking of making up PC only hives next season OR selling all of it. The PC has definite advantages in terms of durability and wax moth resistance, but definite disadvantages in terms of weight and acceptance. Some beeks do great with it. I suspect the secret to success is to force the bees to use it. :cool:

[Bee Lover]

Hello All, In a previous thread MB shared his experiance heating PC in an oven then coating it by brushing on ( if memory serves correctly ) melted bees wax. His objective was to produce Small Cells for his bees, +/- 4.9mm with the wax coating. My apologie though I don't have a link.

[Michael Bush]

Actually I dipped it in wax and then shook it all back off.

[dickm]

Tried it. Hated it. Gave it away.

Dickm

[Bee Lover]

>> dipped it in wax and shook it off << MB, did you hang the frames upside down while they cooled so as to let the excess wax run out of the cells?

[Bee Lover]

MB, one more question, how well did your bees accept it?

[Michael Bush]

The wax dipped PermaComb got the same acceptance as drawn wax comb.

[Sherpa1]

Well it seems that they do fine or that they do terrible. Wonder why the two extremes. MB, do you have to heat the Permacomb before dipping it to get the wax to coat the comb evenly. Thanks.

[Michael Bush]

>do you have to heat the Permacomb before dipping it to get the wax to coat the comb evenly.

Yes. I heat it to 210 F or so in an oven before dipping it. Otherwise it just clumps up.

NEW permacomb and NEW plastic foundation are like getting the bees to use an excluder. You have to give them no choice and some incentive. If you spray the PermaComb with syrup it will help. Honey Bee Healthy syrup will help more. Having nowhere else to put the honey will help. Having no excluder will help (which will help anytime you want them to move into the supers). Wax dipping pretty much solves it, but it's a lot of work and I only do it to get small cells.

Once the bees have used the PermaComb it's just drawn comb to them.

[BULLSEYE BILL]

>Well it seems that they do fine or that they do terrible. Wonder why the two extremes.

I think it is mainly impatience by the keeper waiting for the bees to use it.

I have over 1oo hives with all PC and have seen variations in regards to 'acceptance'.

Not all bees are created equal. They don't all expand at the same speed. It takes time for the bees to prepare the new frames for use. The lower box has to have a bridge built connecting it to the frames above, and the new frames have to be cleaned and propolized and made ready for the queen or to be filled with honey or pollen.

But most importantly, they have to have a need for comb. They have to need storage space or brooding space, if they don't need it they will most certainly not move into it.

I put a used frame in the #4 and 6 position when adding a new box and they always move right into it like it was any other comb. If you don't have any used PC, you can take some honey comb, (with honey in it) and mix it into a paste and smear a streak across the frame and it will work as well as having used PC.

And I always prepare my frames by trimming the tabs off the bottoms on a table saw before I use them for ease of scraping while extracting.

[Brent Bean]

I love it I won’t use anything else. Mice or wax moths can't chew it up. It won’t crack and fall apart in cold weather, it won’t collapse in the extractor. I coat it with bees wax using a double boiler to melt the wax and brush it on. I have not had anymore trouble with bees drawing it out verses wax foundation. If the bees or wax moths make a mess out of it just scrape it off and reuse it.

[Michael Bush]

>Mice or wax moths can't chew it up.

I've seen mice chew it up. They do have to work at it though and the frames are still useful. smile.gif

[Sherpa1]

Bill, Thanks for the honey and comb trick.
Brent, How do you avoid the wax cooling on the brush when you brush it on the combs. Thanks.

[kenpkr]

Here's a good discussion on PC and dipping PC frames.
Permacomb discussion (http://www.beesource.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=007034;p=1#0000 07)