[Peter]

checked an overwintered hive, Russians again, that I cleaned up the 2nd deep about 4 weeks ago.
Found that they had built the usual little islands of comb, not so little this time, on the duragilt. Also chewed holes in the the new wax foundation and cglued everything together with the isnads and burr comb between the duragilt and the new wax. Unfortunately a downpour started and I had no spare deep foundation with me so moved all the duragilt to one side of the top deep and all the new foundation to the other. There are 4 frames of duragilt, 2 frames damaged wax and the other haven't been started. There is 20-30 lbs of capped honey on the duragilt islands and at the bottom of the islands it looks like they are trying to raise brood, none capped. They are also drawing and storing nectar on the plastic frames in the honey super above the top deep (hive is a few miles away so only wanted to visit every 3-4 weeks)

What should I do now? I still have some new new deep wax frames and am inclined to scrap all the duragilt and restart the 2nd deep as there is no capped brood there. If I do that how would I salvage the honey on those frames? Am open to suggestions so long as they don't include the use of Duragilt.

 

[mike haney]

put the capped honey on top of the inner cover, lid on top of that. scratch a few cells open with a fork. they'll move the honey below the inner cover into your top brood box. they may be a tad slow if your flow is still on, but they'll get'er done! good luck,mike

 

[suttonbeeman]

I have another name for duraguilt.....but cant put it on here so here is a another term
dura-crap

 

[Chick]

I have found that the bees build burr comb on duragilt and plasticell. I don't like either one.

 

[honeydreams]

Welcome to the club. i hate dura-crap too. biggest waste of money.

 

[Kingfisher Apiaries]

To quote my friend Jan, "Duragilt should be outlawed". I love plasicell, hate the flat sheets of plastic w/ wax on them. Oh they only have wax for a while.

 

[Chick]

I guess I should have said I hate anything foundation, other than standard wired beeswax foundation.

 

[honeybeekeeper]

I will never buy duragilt again....Peter, i would say clean it up and let the bees do it over but you know what????...I did that and they came right back and done the "Exact" same thing again! Pretty much wasted a mths worth of time, so i pretty much left it and went on. If i had the chance to redo it i would of liked to of tried the foundationless frames and absolutely make sure that all the frames are tight together in the center of the deep hive box...Thats all based on everything i have read about those here on beesource.com that had alot of success with foundationless plus i have a top bar hive and of course thats foundationless and i have the most perfect comb inside that hive that you would never believe! For the honey on the frames i have seen them clean it up so you could always let them take care of it slowly if there is alot of it or build acouple swarm frames and just put them back in the box (build plans are on here) or use the honey yourself! Which ever fits your needs at the present time! Good Luck