Laurence Edwards sprayed plastic frames with propolis tincture instead of wax and checked them three days later. The bees started drawing wax onto the frames immediately, faster than they typically do with standard waxed frames. He learned the technique from a YouTube comment and plans to follow up later to track honey storage.
So this is the nuc where we sprayed the plastic Friends and Feeders frames with propolis tincture as opposed to waxing them up. It's only been 3 days. I just wanted to give you a real snapshot update to show you what the bees have done to them. Maybe they've completely just left them alone, but I wanted to give you that 3-day update to see if they've accepted them or to see if they're completely rejecting them. Let's get inside, take a look. So you can see I've interspersed a couple of frames in there. Both of those frames were sprayed with propolis tincture all over. I put them in the middle of the colony. It's not the biggest colony in the world. It's only a double nuc, and they're not even filling out that top box completely. But you can see, look at those frames. They are definitely interested in them, and they're not just neglecting them and focusing on the wood. Really positive so far. Let's pull out the frame and see what they've done. So I have to say, I am so, so impressed with that. Look how well the bees have taken to those frames. Absolutely no wax has been put onto this frame. I've just sprayed it with propolis tincture, that's it, and the bees have already accepted the frame. As soon as we get a good flow on here, I have no doubt whatsoever that they're going to completely draw all of that out. Really, really amazed to see just how quickly they've gone on to it. It really is remarkable. Like, I don't even think the waxed ones were that quick after 3 days for them to get going, and this colony here isn't even really the strongest colony either. And you can see on that frame there, 3 days later, they've probably taken, say, 50% of that and started to put wax on it and started to draw that wax out. Absolutely amazing. Can't believe the technique works. Goes to show the power of YouTube. I had no idea about this. Someone commented, I thought I'd do the video, and it definitely works. I'll do a follow-up video later on in the year, hopefully showing a little bit more wax being drawn out, maybe some honey stored in it as well. But for the time being, I can safely say that spraying your frames, your plastic frames, with propolis tincture is definitely a viable method.
