[Don Klinger]

Hello,

I get so much great info from this site. For someone just starting out with bees it is a great help.

I started with two nucs this spring. One was hit by a bear, but the queen survived. They are building up slowly as compared to the other hive. I don't know if it is the lack of bees in that hive or not, but they are drawing their foundation very poorly. I am using all plastic pierco frames. For example between frames they are drawing out one frame very deep into the space of the next frame and not drawing out the next frame at all. Or they are building what looks like big mushrooms. It is a pedistal attached to one frame and then flattens out so they wax can be worked from both sides. Or in areas they are makeing snakes. They drawn comb down the foundation an inch wide in a winding stip but not touching any other parts of the frame. What should I do. Scape it off. Let it go. I am feeding 1:1 syrup to help with comb building.

Thanks
Don

 

[Michael Bush]

Do you have the frames tightly together in the center of the box? If you give them room they will use it to mess up.

 

[Don Klinger]

I have 10 frames evenly spaced in the box.

Thanks

 

[peggjam]

"I have 10 frames evenly spaced in the box."

You need to push the frames together as tight as possible, even if it leaves some space to the outside of the box.

 

[Michael Bush]

>I have 10 frames evenly spaced in the box.

There's the problem. Tightly in the middle is correct. Evenly spaced is not good with new foundation.

 

[MichelleB]

Yeah, but what if I've squished all the frames closely together, and still have the exact same problems as Klinger? (though so far, no bear raids...)

I've tried spraying with syrup water. I've tried asking the bees nicely. Still getting all sorts of Alien Nightclub stuff going on in there.

Strangely enough, they seem to take to black Pierco better than white, as in I've had none of this mess on the black stuff.

 

[peggjam]

Try sandwiching your undrawen frames between some drawen ones, sometimes you have to draw them pictures LOL.

 

[Michael Bush]

>Yeah, but what if I've squished all the frames closely together, and still have the exact same problems as Klinger?

With plastic it can happen. You just have to stack the deck as much as possible. If they would make the end bars 1 1/4" you could get them even tighter and be even more assured of them not build one in between, but that's a lot of table saw work on plastic...

>I've tried spraying with syrup water. I've tried asking the bees nicely. Still getting all sorts of Alien Nightclub stuff going on in there.

Still the tighter the space (down to 30mm between combs) the more likely they will have no choice but to build on the plastic to get a usable brood comb.

>Strangely enough, they seem to take to black Pierco better than white, as in I've had none of this mess on the black stuff.

I've heard people say both black and white enough that I tend to think it's the time or year, the flow or some other factor besides the color.