Abelo crown boards

Hi,
How do people configure their Abelo poly hive crown boards?
The one I have has five round holes with a round poly disc that fits over the hole and a plastic round grill that clips into the hole.
I overwintered the bees in a poly hive with the crown board on with only the poly discs over all holes. I opened the hive today to add a second brood box and found the bees had built comb between the top of their bars and the crown board, particularly into the recesses under the poly discs. This made lifting the crown board off tricky as it pulled up some frames as I lifted it off.
Abelo had closed for the day when I thought to ring them to ask them some questions. In the meantime, how do people use them? With both plastic discs and poly discs, and do the plastic discs lift up from the top or pushed out below?
I’m not sure which way up the board should go, the black plastic bit inside the holes is closer to one side than the other.

Here’s hoping someone has worked this out!

Thanks

Courty

What I would do it throw the toy to one side and make a proper solid CB.

Problem solved. KISS

PH

Poly Hive said:

What I would do it throw the toy to one side and make a proper solid CB.

Problem solved. KISS

PH

Click to expand...

I see your wisdom. I have bought two Abelo poly hives with crown boards so maybe I could close the holes leaving one for a feeder. It seems odd that they went to all that design trouble if it didn’t have an optimal set up. Do you think it is over designed?

Courty

What I did was cut the rim off the four corner discs and siliconed them in with the grills in place below them, there is no call for them really and they can get lost easily.

The middle hole is useful as you can remove the grill and disc and let them gain access to the roof to a feeder or fondant or even put on some type of clearing device and use it as a clearing board.

As for the correct way up, it is the way that you can remove the grill from above the board.

If they have built comb underneath the board; instead of lifting it vertically off the hive give it a twist and them remove it.

Courty said:

Hi,
How do people configure their Abelo poly hive crown boards?
The one I have has five round holes with a round poly disc that fits over the hole and a plastic round grill that clips into the hole.
I overwintered the bees in a poly hive with the crown board on with only the poly discs over all holes. I opened the hive today to add a second brood box and found the bees had built comb between the top of their bars and the crown board, particularly into the recesses under the poly discs. This made lifting the crown board off tricky as it pulled up some frames as I lifted it off.
Abelo had closed for the day when I thought to ring them to ask them some questions. In the meantime, how do people use them? With both plastic discs and poly discs, and do the plastic discs lift up from the top or pushed out below?
I’m not sure which way up the board should go, the black plastic bit inside the holes is closer to one side than the other.

Here’s hoping someone has worked this out!

Thanks

Courty

Click to expand...

You can block up all the holes apart fom one in the middle - and that one should only be opened for feeding. Saw them at the tradex last year - wasteful gimmicky nonsence. you should only have about 6-8mm clearance between the board and the top bars.

Thanks Angry Mob, twisting, such a simple solution. As for fixing the discs, would it be any better to fix them from below do you think? There is room for it. I suppose the grill is useful for collecting propolis?

Courty

No experience with the crown boards but everything else is spot on with Abelo..maybe a little thought and common sense may help..

jenkinsbrynmair said:

You can block up all the holes apart fom one in the middle - and that one should only be opened for feeding. Saw them at the tradex last year - wastefull gimmicky nonsence. you should only have about 6mm clearance between the board and the top bars.

Click to expand...

There is 7mm depth between the poly crown board and the plastic edging that sits in the plastic edge of the brood box.the design seems to create a gap and the bees want to fill it. I’m not sure of the gap between the top of the brood box and the top of the bars. It does seem to be an unnecessary space.
The discs protrude 7mm when in the holes, so I could glue them in underneath.
Less recesses that way.

Thanks

Courty

I did mine like so.





As for 7mm bees consider that beespace and they (generally) shouldn't build comb across it.

Courty said:

Thanks Angry Mob, twisting, such a simple solution. As for fixing the discs, would it be any better to fix them from below do you think? There is room for it. I suppose the grill is useful for collecting propolis?

Courty

Click to expand...

and travelling screen for me

Poly Hive said:

What I would do it throw the toy to one side and make a proper solid CB.

Problem solved. KISS

PH

Click to expand...

Easiest solution.

Chuck it away

Courty said:

Hi,
How do people configure their Abelo poly hive crown boards?
The one I have has five round holes with a round poly disc that fits over the hole and a plastic round grill that clips into the hole.
I overwintered the bees in a poly hive with the crown board on with only the poly discs over all holes. I opened the hive today to add a second brood box and found the bees had built comb between the top of their bars and the crown board, particularly into the recesses under the poly discs. This made lifting the crown board off tricky as it pulled up some frames as I lifted it off.
Abelo had closed for the day when I thought to ring them to ask them some questions. In the meantime, how do people use them? With both plastic discs and poly discs, and do the plastic discs lift up from the top or pushed out below?
I’m not sure which way up the board should go, the black plastic bit inside the holes is closer to one side than the other.

Here’s hoping someone has worked this out!

Thanks

Courty

Click to expand...

They are a bit awkward but where designed for overwintering 4 1/4 nucs above a colony. The heat rising through the plastic discs. But few in the UK do this.
I run mine with the plastic discs in and also use frame nails to keep the round poly inserts in place above, giving you a solid crown-board where the discs don't fall out when you examine.
They really come into their own when you are moving hives. You just removed the poly bits and you have ready made travel screens.
I think they would be better with a single central hole rather than 5 holes.

Courty said:

Hi,
How do people configure their Abelo poly hive crown boards?
...
I overwintered the bees in a poly hive with the crown board on with only the poly discs over all holes. I opened the hive today to add a second brood box and found the bees had built comb between the top of their bars and the crown board, particularly into the recesses under the poly discs.

... In the meantime, how do people use them? With both plastic discs and poly discs, and do the plastic discs lift up from the top or pushed out below?
I’m not sure which way up the board should go, the black plastic bit inside the holes is closer to one side than the other.

Here’s hoping someone has worked this out!

Thanks

Courty

Click to expand...

Courty,

Which way up? Well, with the poly discs at the top, and ventilation discs in place below them. In that set-up, there's no need to push the poly discs out from below, and they obviously won't become stuck with propolis. You'll also avoid the brace-comb problem you've experienced.

I use the poly crown boards as feeder boards. Remove the disc and clip out the ventilation disc; add foundation into the hole and to the sides of the hole, and cover with a see-through tub. The advantage of having five holes is that you can choose to open a hole nearest to the cluster.

I'm astonished that people would suggest using a wooden crown board on a poly hive (particularly if it is used as a feeder board) and thereby losing some of the benefits of poly by having heat escaping through the less insulating wooden crown board. KISS?? No, not really.

PS: Which way up? With the plastic discs in place, the side with the deeper hollow is at the top as the poly discs fit into that - and the poly discs should be at the top.

I have been using ply crown boards on poly for over 25 years. The air gap between the ply and the poly roof works very well to keep them cosy as evidenced by the bees not in cluster at minus C figures.

I do not have heat escaping holes in my CB's. So yes indeed KISS.

If it don't work I don't talk about it.

PH

The Abelo hives are excellent, the roofs even better, but the crown boards are a pain. If you put a wooden board under the Abelo roof the heat loss will be negligible.

Poly Hive said:

...The air gap between the ply and the poly roof works very well to keep them cosy ...

Click to expand...

thorn said:

T ...If you put a wooden board under the Abelo roof the heat loss will be negligible.

Click to expand...

If the roof covers the crown board, then the heat-loss effect might not be that bad - but if you've added a super above the crown board to use as an eke for feeding, then the roof won't cover the board, and there will be heat loss.

thorn said:

The Abelo hives are excellent, the roofs even better, but the crown boards are a pain. ...

Click to expand...

Where does this 'pain' lie? In the discs? Then just glue them shut as many people on this thread are already doing. End of pain.

Mellifera Crofter said:

Where does this 'pain' lie?

Click to expand...

The Abelo CB is a weak point in an otherwise decent product and I do not buy them, but use a 460mm sheet of thick plastic as recommended by B+, or leave poly feeders on as CBs all year.

As ITLD and others have pointed out, UK poly National is a small and fragmented market in which nearly all designs have faults, and neither the manufacturer nor user is willing or able to improve matters: the manufacturer is wedded to an investment made in a flawed product, and the end-user has Hobson's choice and must fiddle a workaround.

Practically, it would be better to have one central feedhole which could be sealed, perhaps with a screw-thread lid. Lyson do sell a socket and lid for poly feedholes but instead the Abelo National (designed and made by Lyson) bombards the buyer with unwanted bits of plastic and poly. As BF pointed out, not many in this country over-winter four nucs in one box, and a look at the Lyson catalogue shows that in Poland they have very different ideas about hive design, with multiple roof vents and little blocks to stop them up (my bees helped with that job, and permanently).

In other words, the five-hole CB set out to answer a question no-one asked, and while we can glue this and saw that and bodge a solution, it would be even more useful if beekeepers picked up the phone and discussed it with Damian at Abelo. Bear in mind that the supplier may be unaware that what might work with Polish methods in a Polish summer might be unnecessary in the UK, or that what they thought was a buyer's bonus is in truth redundant, or that up and down the land growling beekeepers chuck some bits away and glue in the rest.

I recall ITLD referring to the ability of a few hobby beekeepers to influence manufacturers with pet ideas, and emailing Abelo with more may seem that again the tail is trying to wag the dog, but a start must be made and a sensible manufacturer ought not undertake a re-design on the basis of a few trade show conversations or phone calls.

Perhaps it's time for the dog to wag the tail: if Abelo were to survey every previous customer a complete picture would emerge which might result in a better product. The door is already ajar, because in conversation I discovered that Abelo themselves were re-evaluating their crownboard design.

Thinking about the likely manufacturing process I wonder if the crownboard moulds have detachable hole dies? If they do it shouldn't be a massive expense to take them out for a product test run. This blind crownboard might become a popular selling item.