Problems with Plastic

House 004A couple weeks back, I added empty honey supers to both the hives, since it seemed that they were getting close to full (and Hive 1 was in fact completely full). I went in to see how they were enjoying their new digs a couple days ago, and found that they hadn’t started to draw (or build up wax on) the new frames at all. This is sucky because it means that they have nowhere to put their industriousness. The picture to the right shows two frames. Guess which one they haven’t been working on.

The frames were more of the plastic ones that seem to be all the rage these days (or at least, it’s becoming the default order type on the beekeeping supply web sites), and I’d read if you spray the foundation down with sugar water, it helps to get them onto and acclimated to the plastic, so I gave it a whirl. Hopefully, that’ll do it.

If anyone has other suggestions, please leave them as comments (and to all the folks who have left comments, thank you! It’s nice to know this is read.)