Which Foundation?

[EvaST-B]

This is my first year - When I bought a starter hive kit from Dadant, it came with coated plasticell and folks told me to switch that to crimp wire. The shallow supers I have came with duragilt, which wisemen on this forum seem to dislike.
So, assuming I am using foundation, what is best for brood boxes and for supers?

[iddee]

Only my opinion...You will likely get others, as well.

Crimp wired foundation and cross wires embedded into the foundation for brood boxes and supers that are to be extracted. Pure wax without wire for comb honey and crush and strain.

[Michael Bush]

I'm more interested in cell size. If you put the wax foundation in at the last minute, and the bees draw it quickly it works fine with or without any wires. But you can use a lot of different things and the bees are willing to accept them eventually. I'm enjoying the Mann Lake PF120s (medium) right now but they also have PF100s (deep). They are 4.95mm. They have been well accepted. They are inexpensive. They are very little work as they are already waxed and are one piece frame and foundation ready to go in the hive.

[thesurveyor]

Michael,

Will the Mannlake PF 500 go 11 frames in the brood chamber?

thx

[Michael Bush]

>Will the Mannlake PF 500 go 11 frames in the brood chamber?

I've never had any PF500s. They are 5.4mm cell size. I have been using the PF120s. I CAN if I really want to, cheat one or two of them all the way in opposite directions and bypass the spacers and get 11 in a ten frame box. But I don't see that it's worth it as it cheats the space on only the one or two.

[Jeffzhear]

This is my first year - When I bought a starter hive kit from Dadant, it came with coated plasticell and folks told me to switch that to crimp wire. The shallow supers I have came with duragilt, which wisemen on this forum seem to dislike.
So, assuming I am using foundation, what is best for brood boxes and for supers?

I guess I'm old school in that I use crimp wire foundation with cross wires on mediums and full depth...however, I do use 4.9 mm vs 5.4.

I got my last 4.9 medium crimp wired from Betterbee and all my 4.9 full depth crimp wired foundation from Dadant (no shipping - they are close).

[honeyman46408]

I started with "plastic" and I will stay with plastic, I am lazy so I dont see any advantage to doing more work :D

[iddee]

Some times more work= more return... :D

[EKW]

I started out with crimped wire foundation, wooden frames, and cross wires. Lost a bunch of (improperly) stored combs several years ago during an extended cross country move, which I replaced with plastic foundation in the wood frames.

I much prefer the wax/wood (and so do the bees). Now I am thinking that if I can get a work space set up before next winter I will be switching back to wax/wood for next year.