In this first‑person beekeeping video, Laurence Edwards revisits a hive where he installed ten plastic frames six days earlier—nine with a light starter‑wax coating and one left uncoated. Despite cold, wet weather and no smoker, he inspects the hive entrance, notes the high bee traffic, and opens the hive to examine the frames. He observes that all wax‑coated frames have begun drawing out comb, storing nectar and pollen, and developing a regular top‑down pattern, while the uncoated frame shows only minimal activity. He highlights that the plastic frames prevent drone cell placement, making them ideal for worker‑brood colonies and potentially boosting forager numbers. Edwards plans to leave the uncoated frame in the hive to see if “crazy” wax formations develop, and later will demonstrate a crush‑and‑strain honey extraction method using these plastic frames. He ends with a call to subscribe and consider channel membership.
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Right, we're back here at the hive where I put my plastic frames and feeders frames in this box here about 6 days ago. Check out the entrance of this hive. A couple of colonies like that here, really jam-packed full of bees. It is cold, it is wet, it is drizzly today. I've not got my smoker, I might get absolutely battered. I think the bees were not too bad in here though. Just going to quickly whip it out, take a look at the frames, see if the bees are laying in them, see if they're drawing the wax out. But check out how many bees are at that entrance. This box here is going to be full to the brim with bees. So hopefully you can see it's not a flying day. I shouldn't really be going in, but even now they're not really that bad. These are pretty calm, these ones. Let's get inside, see what the bees have done. So as I said, it was only 6 days ago that I put these frames in. If you remember that one there that is turned upside down, that was not coated in wax. Let's see if it's made a difference. You can already get a little sneak peek through there that the bees have been doing something. A lot of those frames are looking in good condition. I'm really excited to get them out and see what's going on. We'll save that one that's not been waxed right until the very end. I have to say, I'm really, really impressed. Like, there was only a really light coating of wax, just like you can see in the corner there. So the bees aren't necessarily drawing out the wax, but they're producing their own wax. You're just giving them the starter, whereas foundation will be done a lot quicker than this because there's more volume of wax that's actually put in to start off with, but you don't get the benefit of being able to scrape it back. Look what they've done, that's amazing. Really, really impressed with that. Going through the frames here, there's about 8 or 9 that are like this. I'll pull out a couple of the ones where they've not really started doing it huge amount, but they've still definitely had a go starting it. And as you can see there, they're already Storing nectar, storing some pollen in it as well. Can't ask for more than that really. 6 days in, they've taken to the plastic, they're drawing it out, and we're going to have really good usable frames. So they're all really, really similar, drawn out very similar pattern. They're starting at the top, working their way down. That one there is one of the ones that's probably not drawn out as much on that side, but give them time, the bees will draw these out no problem. And what's really nice is that there's nowhere for them to put any drone cells. Makes it so much easier in terms of using it within a worker brood colony. And it means that you get a really good boost in numbers if you do it at the right time of the year for actual foragers as opposed to drones. So that's the one there that they've really not started on that much. But you can still see they're having a go. They're drawing it out. That's just a matter of time. And then over to the one that wasn't waxed. Haven't started on it really, but guess what? Look, there's tiny little signs that they're actually going to start drawing that out. Now please do not take that that you don't need to wax up these frames. You definitely do, and I know if I left this one in here you'd start to get some crazy wax formations. So guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to leave it in here with no wax and we're going to get some crazy wax formations. Might take them a few weeks to do it. They might completely ignore it. We just have to wait and see. But it's interesting, isn't it? Every single one, all 10 that had the starter wax on them, they've started drawing them out. The one single frame that didn't have any starter wax on, they are completely ignoring it. So there we go. I'm happy with the progress that these bees are doing on these frames in 6 days. I'll follow it up later on in the year, maybe once we've got some brood, maybe once we've got some capped honey on there as well. I'll definitely show you with this colony here how to do a crush and strain method using a plastic frame. That's where I think these will come into their own. Also on the heather as well. You want to see those videos, definitely subscribe to our page, maybe consider becoming a channel member.
