What Type/Style Of Frame Do You Use And Why?

[Michael Pawelek]

(1) Wedge Top/Divided Bottom
(2) Wedge Top/Grooved Bottom
(3) Grooved Top/Grooved Bottom
(4) Foundationless Frame
(5) Top Bar
Why do you use the type you use?
Ease of assembly/disassembly?
Strenght While Harvesting/Spinning?
Other?
Thanks...

[Vance G]

I use one piece plastic mostly. Cheapest way to go. When I buy wooden, I get wedge top grooved bottom with holes for wire because they are versitile and can be used for any other application, foundation type or foundationless.

[certaut]

Foundationless from day one, works for me

[psfred]

Wedge top, divided bottom. No problems with foundation being too long for the groove, I wire everything these days, and they work fine for foundationless with just nailing in the wedge sideways.

My buddy likes the slotted top frames because its' easier to just drop the foundation in, but I find it can fall out too easily in the heat before the bees get it stuck down.

Peter

[casinoken]

I agree with Vance, so far I only use the Pierco plastic frames, and have no problems with them.

[BeeCurious]

I have grooved top /bottom and pf-120's

I like working with the wooden frames but I like the ease of simply grabbing some frames from the Mann Lake box and placing them in a hive. There is clearly less bridge comb with wooden frames.

Many of my frames are cut down to 1 1/4" width...

If you are interested in using narrow frames W. T. Kelley will start manufacturing them this fall.

I might consider mounting the cut out pf-120 "foundation" in the new narrow frames. I enjoy running a table saw more than I enjoy wiring frames. The narrow frames would only be used in the brood nest ....

Having said all of that, had I never bought anyting but pf-120's, I think life would be good (except for the bridge comb ).

[Barry]

Are you cutting them down like I am to fit in wooden frames?

[mgolden]

Am having considerable problems getting the bees to properly draw year old pierco. Tend to build their own comb attached to it BUT parallel to the foundation. Keep removing it, spraying with sugar syrup, aligning adjacent frames with warps in the foundation the same way.

[BeeCurious]

Are you cutting them down like I am to fit in wooden frames?

I may if I order some narrow frames. The combination would be a "Cadillac" of frames imo.

[TheBuzz]

Plastic 15% more surface area.

[BeeCurious]

Plastic 15% more surface area.

What is being compared to come up with the 15%?

Honey Super Cell would have the greatest surface area of any plastic frame I know of.

[Michael Bush]

>(1) Wedge Top/Divided Bottom
>(2) Wedge Top/Grooved Bottom
>(3) Grooved Top/Grooved Bottom
>(4) Foundationless Frame
>(5) Top Bar

All of the above...

[schmism]

you use divided bottom bar when you want to slip the foundation up from the bottom... usually for wired foundation retained by a wedge top bar.

groved top and grooved bottom is used to retain plastic foundation. you assemble the frame and pop in the plastic foundation... no fuss

you can use 2) instead of 1) you just have to feed the foundation down into it, I think it gives a stronger frame as there is more material in the bottom bar... but takes longer to assemble a complete foundation frame.

4) any frame with some sort of starter strip... when i dont want to pay for full foundation or i want to encourage small cell or natural cell building.

5) I thought was only used in top bar hives which is entirely different paradigm of bee keeping than langstrom frame style keeping.

wax foundation or even foundationless is usually cross wired unless you plan on takeing cut comb honey. I have a tangental extractor that has a mesh basket so im not worried about the strenght of the comb when extracting as the forces on the comb are low compaired to radial version with unsupported comb.

plastic foundation comb is not wired because the plastic has enough rigidity on its own to support the comb during extraction.

I use wedge top grooved bottom for my wired foundation and foundationless

[jaybees]

I use Grooved Top-Grooved Bottom for plastic foundation. Its faster and
I am moving to plastic due to the labor savings. I prefer wax foundation but
it just takes too much time.

[Vance G]

I cut the plastic frames down to 1 1/4 being careful to take the material off the same side on both end and use a sharpie to show the direction so they all face the same way. I draw them out 11 to a box and they are drawn well after the bees are habituated to them. I run the 11 in the brood chambers and use 9 of them in the extracting supers. Tight space is the key to proper drawing.

[psfred]

Vance:

How does 11 frames in a box work for you? I'm converting one of my swarms over by leaving the first deep standard size but all the rest of the brood nest boxes 1 1/4" frames that I made, and when I do splits in the spring I will switch to 1 1/4" in the original deep, too. Didn't have enough narrow frames made when I collected the swarm. I do now, so next time I collect one I can start it on narrow frames.

What they have drawn on the narrow frames so far looks better than the comb on the wider spaced frames -- nice and flat (crosswired), all worker brood depth, even those frames with honey in them, and very even. I left them two foundationless frames in the hopes that they would make some nice drone comb and not make drones between boxes and in the honey supers.

In the one frame the queen has laid up, she laid from top to bottom in a very nice, even brood pattern. Should be capped when I check tomorrow morning, and since they are still working soybeans, I'll stick another empty frame of foundation next to it if they've not drawn them all out yet.

Peter