Dummy Boards

[oliver90owner]

Yes, JBM. Some dummies are far thicker than the average. Interesting that they still judge the explosive strength by comparing to dynamite.

Our engineering tech always used the measurement of thickness as 'if brains were dynamite he couldn't blow his hat off'. So, like the guage of railway lines being related to the width of two horses' *rses, dummy thickness and dynamite are all connected in a similar way, it seems.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Interesting that they still judge the explosive strength by comparing to dynamite.

And the power of the internal combustion engine by comparing to horses.

 

[victor meldrew]

Comparison in my part of the world is "if wit were s**t you would be constipated "
VM

 

[Drew]

Comparison in my part of the world is "if wit were s**t you would be constipated "
VM

"If wit were sh*t you couldn't' fart" is in fairly common use round here too.

But if someone says "You are full of sh*t!!"

Is it a compliment??

 

[Dusty Rhodes]

But if someone says "You are full of sh*t!!"

Is it a compliment??

Not in Lancashire - but clearly, for some places further east and south, it would be an improvement.

Dusty

 

[MuswellMetro]

and then add ad standard flat dummy then see wide gap,,,it does not say that in the book..

Question, MM, might arise as to: How thick is a dummy? Clearly one doesnt need a really thick dummy to pad out the almost 12th frame in a National.

To be honest I prefer much dividers to dummies and most of my boxes have that 12th frame anyway, even on 14 x 12. I reckon dividers are far more useful than dummies.

agree with the width issue but most new beekeepers get their dummy boards from the main suppliers and they are 12mm normally, i have some that are 2mm correx, others that are 50mm sealed kingspan

dividers, never tried them in main hives as i have OMF floors of varying up-stand depths from 2mm through to 28mm...even my attempts at a twinstock box failed because the divider dd not seal, but more due to me than the design

i have also used 12 frames but only as a last resort to increase space if out of supers , end of the day and not coming back for a few days...then of course as they are bees it ends up being 100% brood when all the books say the never lay in the end frame. but i prefer to run 11+d especially on the few ItalianX i have as they collect propolis in excess compared to my other bees

 

[Black Comb]

Not in Lancashire - but clearly, for some places further east and south, it would be an improvement.

Dusty

 

[Hivemaker.]

Use Hoffman 38mm spacing in the s national brood box.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Use Hoffman 38mm spacing in the s national brood box.

Do you make them....cos although i have one Pair of 37mm sides i have not found a supplier of 37 or 38mm ...think the ones i have where EH Taylor of Welwyn

 

[oliver90owner]

dividers, never tried them in main hives as i have OMF floors of varying up-stand depths

In this context, I only mean on three sides, or even just two. For over-wintering a smaller colony or introducing a nuc-sized colony to a full hive in spring, top side needs to be a close fit to the crown board (relatively easy with a flat crownboard) to avoid heat loss.

Unless installing more than one colony in a hive (I only do that in nuc hives - apart from the Dartingtons for increase or A/S), the bottom is not so important as heat rises. The two vertical contacts do get propolised a bit, but generally it is not a great problem.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Do you make them...

Yes, i much prefer them from the narrower spacing in nationals.

 

[user 6228]

dividers, never tried them in main hives as i have OMF floors of varying up-stand depths

..top side needs to be a close fit to the crown board (relatively easy with a flat crownboard) to avoid heat loss.
...

To add emphasis to the above statement

From a thermal perspective it really needs to be sealed to both to the roof and sides to be effective i.e. reduce the overall outside surface area of the heated space. As the temperature differential drives the heatloss the priority is the top and the sides nearest the top. An unsealed dummy board will impede the heat flow but not as effectively as a sealed one.

 

[Little John]

Part of the disconnect may be in regarding approx 8mm as 'one' beespace. Its actually the double beespace that the bees choose to leave between facing brood combs - to allow nurse bees to work simultaneously on both sides of the space.
Fully drawn stores combs (like in a super) will be drawn out further, to leave just one approx 4mm beespace - as the bees don't need to work both faces simultaneously.

I don't disagree with anything you've said - but here's a bit of fun ...

Width across the outside of National boxes = 460 mm

Width across standard National frames = 356 mm

That leaves 104 mm

The ends are in Imperial: 1 3/4" x 2 off = 3 1/2" or 89 mm

Leaving ..... 15mm, or 7.5mm (more-or-less 2 bee-spaces) between each frame side and the hive wall. My pre-war professionally-built-by-the-look-of-it hives are even more generous, leaving 8-9 mm bee-spaces.

So - why would 2 bees want to work back-to-back down the side of a frame ?

Answers on a postcard please.

LJ

 

[Hivemaker.]

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/bsp.html

 

[Little John]

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/bsp.html

One of Dave Cushman's less convincing pages: he starts off by saying that the bee-space is not a variable quantity: it's either one dimension or the other - and then goes on to list just about every mark on a tape measure !

LJ

 

[Hivemaker.]

Ha ha ha...well that's just like beekeeping.

 

[Nose Ma]

<begin pedantry and off topic note>
There's a note above that dynamite (which is usually based on nitroglycerine (1,2,3-Trinitroxypropane)) is used as a measure for explosive strength.
It's not.
TNT (as in trinitrotoluene or 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene) is the explosive used as the metric. Hence megaton(ne)s of TNT being the phrase for (usually) nuclear explosions. The two are close in terms of explosive BANG, but not the same. Of course, energy released in Joules would be SI way to do it.
As you were, everyone.
<end pedantry>
Back on topic...
In error I ordered some plastic dummy boards a few years ago, which are a uniform width of about half a frame. I use them at each side of the brood box as a little more insulation over winter. It seems to work, as in I've not lost a colony where I've done that, but anecdotes are not evidence and all that.

 

[Little John]

Ha ha ha...well that's just like beekeeping.

Isn't it just ...

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Sometimes I use dummy boards, sometimes not. If the bees need more space I use double brood rather than a brood and a half.