Duct tape - a warning

pargyle · Aug 24, 2014

I use Kingspan or Celotex for insulating my hives, I also use it for hive dividers and dummy boards. It's an ideal material, excellent insulation properties, easy to work with, to cut and shape and the bees seem to leave the silver foil surfaces alone. But, if you leave a square millimetre of the foam core exposed or the foil surface gets damaged the bees will be into it like rats into a sack of corn. I found out, some time ago, when I failed to cover the cut edges of some additional insulation I put in the hive and the bees tore it apart.

Since then I've been using aluminium foil tape to seal the edges .. the same sort of tape that the professionals use to do the same thing and join sheets of Kingspan together.

A couple of weeks ago I had to replace a dummy board in my Long Deep Hive - the existing timber one was not a good fit and it needed to go. I discovered that the roll of alumnium tape I had only had a few inches of tape left on it... but, no problem, I had a new roll of Duct tape. I've used Duct tape for just about everything over the years ... incredibly versatile stuff - strong and very sticky - I figured it would be fine to seal the cut edges of my new dummy board in the absence of the 'proper' stuff.

What I didn't realise was that the adhesive on the duct tape is impregnated with strands of woven cloth of some kind ... might even be glassfibre ?

Anyway, I opened the hive today and found that the bees had either gotten under the edge of the duct tape or I had left a smidgeon of Kingspan core exposed and they had attacked the foam core with a vengeance. This, in itself, was not a problem - I've got lots of Kingpan hoarded from skip diving.

What I was not prepared for was to find a dozen or so dead bees caught up in the sticky remnants of the strands of cloth and another half dozen live ones struggling to get free. I managed to release the live ones but I was pretty devastated that my stupidity had caused the death and suffering of some of my bees. I have no way of knowing whether it was just the ones I found that had died or whether these were just the latest and others had already been cleared away. Although you might be thinking "it's only a few bees out of many thousands" it doesn't lessen my feelings of guilt.

I know many of us use Kingspan and the like for insulation and probably for dividers and dummy boards, as I do, so I thought a warning was in order.

So .. whatever you do .. DO NOT USE DUCT TAPE INSIDE THE HIVE ..I've remade the dummy board properly with aluminium tape and I won't make the same mistake again ... You can see the results here of my error and the remade dummy board ... here -

Little John · Aug 24, 2014

Very useful cautionary tale - thanks.

I don't use Kingspan myself (not enough skips around these 'ere parts) and anyway I've got a small mountain of bog standard expanded polystyrene sheeting which I keep etching away at. Because expanded polystyrene will wick moisture in-between it's granules over a long period of time, I've been wrapping it in sheets of old polyethylene sheet (ex-polytunnel) when making dummy blocks - using polytunnel repair tape to secure - which has worked ok so far. No need to wrap when above the crown board, of course.

LJ

madasafish · Aug 24, 2014

I use Duct Tape inside all hives with no problems.

I just paint it with masonry paint or Hammerite.. No bee wants a mouthfull of either. :icon_204-2:

I also paint exposed edges of Celotex with masonry paint - as used on Polyhives..

Torq · Aug 24, 2014

I've read a few posts on bees chewing through unsealed Kingspan but I've yet to see it myself. Any unsealed sheets I've used have been untouched.

But I will admit that I've started using the aluminium tape to seal them now.

Maybe "kingspan chewing" is another trait that should be bred out of bees just like aggression and swarminess etc.