For every person who says plastic frames are fine, you'll find one who says their bees won't touch them.
The only plastic frames I have are a couple of the green drone frames. Our bees took their own sweet time drawing them out. One hive finally made some pretty drone comb on one side and laid a lot of nice drones for us to make dronesicles of. The other side was a few mushrooms of partial comb, filled with honey.
The other hive put off drawing the drone comb until they had done almost all the wax foundation deep frames. But as of yesterday it was prettily drawn out and full of perfect drone-sized cells full of honey. They never laid a single egg in it.
I should note that the queen in that hive also refuses to lay in a cell on wax foundation that has a wire in the bottom of it. She leaves these nice, straight rows unfilled.
The problem is, they sell these things to beekeepers, but never put instructions on them for the bees.
Our mentor has the darndest collection of frames, including plastic, plastic foundation,, wax foundation, and foundationless. Eventually, the bees draw and use it all. It may take a while. One thing that helped my plastic foundation and frames was to melt some of their burr comb down and paint the foundation with it. They'll start messing with the painted part fairly quickly. Honey Be Healthy in sugar water is also supposed to get them interested. And they won't draw anything if they're hungry. If there is no nectar flow, feed them to make them draw.
The only plastic frames I have are a couple of the green drone frames. Our bees took their own sweet time drawing them out. One hive finally made some pretty drone comb on one side and laid a lot of nice drones for us to make dronesicles of. The other side was a few mushrooms of partial comb, filled with honey.
The other hive put off drawing the drone comb until they had done almost all the wax foundation deep frames. But as of yesterday it was prettily drawn out and full of perfect drone-sized cells full of honey. They never laid a single egg in it.
I should note that the queen in that hive also refuses to lay in a cell on wax foundation that has a wire in the bottom of it. She leaves these nice, straight rows unfilled.
The problem is, they sell these things to beekeepers, but never put instructions on them for the bees.
Our mentor has the darndest collection of frames, including plastic, plastic foundation,, wax foundation, and foundationless. Eventually, the bees draw and use it all. It may take a while. One thing that helped my plastic foundation and frames was to melt some of their burr comb down and paint the foundation with it. They'll start messing with the painted part fairly quickly. Honey Be Healthy in sugar water is also supposed to get them interested. And they won't draw anything if they're hungry. If there is no nectar flow, feed them to make them draw.