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Hi! I purchased English Garden hives with pre-assembled foundation from a local supplier. Today when I started staining my hives I removed the frames from the supers for the first time and noticed that the foundation is not flush to the sides of the frame on both sides. This is wired wax foundation on medium frames. The gap on either size appears to be about 3/8" so I was wondering if this is normal or is my foundation incorrectly assembled? (I have to exchange a hive stand and 10 frames of wax coated plastic with the supplier next weekend and was hoping someone could answer this soon so I would know whether or not I need to return the entire set of frames....hoping to not have to make two trips) I cannot remember seeing space between foundation sides and frames on any of the examples I have seen in person or in books and am concerned this will affect the strength of the foundation. Please advise. THANKS so much in advance for any help!

The wired wax never reaches the end bars of the frames. Most beeks add cross wires when they assemble them. The space makes it easier to cross wire. Also, not all frames are exactly the same distance between end bars, so a little play room has to be left.

Don't worry. The bees will fill it from end to end.

THANKS! I wondered if the girls would just fill it with propolis...I suppose I should always assume they will fill any void with propolis! I appreciate the info.

Propolis is good and some hives will use more propolis then others. The bees tend to use propolis like people use caulk, to fill in voids and cracks mainly between two pieces of wood to keep drafts out or places where SHB may hide. On frames propolis can be used where the top bar rests on the lip of the box. Where foundation needs to be extended to the end bars the bees may just use wax and build comb to fill the voids or leave voids or holes in the foundation to walk through.

I figured these questions can fit in this thread:

I'm getting ready to buy some foundation for shallow supers. It looks like crimp wire is out of style. Are there any cons to using plastic?

I was thinking about trying a super of thin comb foundation. How does one put that into frames? Wires?

If you are talking about using plastic foundation in your wooden frames, the disadvantages are that the bees seem more reluctant to draw out the plastic than they do the natural wax foundation, and you obviously cannot make cut comb honey. You can spray sugar water on the plastic foundation as you install it to encourage the bees to come to it and draw it out. If you have bees wax that you have collected and the coating of wax on the plastic foundation seems thin, you can melt your spare wax and use a small paint brush to brush a thicker coat of wax on the foundation. This may also encourage the bees to draw it out quicker. The advantages of plastic are that once drawn out, you can use it in an extractor without having to wire frames and can spin out honey at pretty high speed.

I have mostly plastic foundation with wooden frames in my mediums and am moving toward crimp wire wax in my deeps. I don't plan on extracting honey from the deeps and hope that between using more wax and moving to solid bottom boards, the bees will more readily move into the deeps and more readily draw out those frames. Most of my plastic mediums do get drawn out, but there must be a really good flow going or heavy sugar water feeding with the bees feeling they need the additional comb space.