Gaps between boxes in old wooden hives

[Courty]

Hi,
I recently acquired a couple of old wooden national hives with the intention of cleaning them up and revamping them. There are noticeable gaps between the boxes and the floor, and the supers, mainly through wear and tear and age.
I have only had new poly hives before, which have no gaps.
Do I need to worry about the gaps? I presume the bees will propolis them.
For those of you who have used old wooden hives, how do you deal with the wear to corners and edges of the boxes?

Thanks

Courty

 

[Anduril]

The bees will propolise the gaps, or you could add filler. If the gaps are big enough you will find the bees will use them and you would be doing temporary fixes with grass or twigs.

 

[pargyle]

If they are really raggy round the edges thin laths nailed and glued on to the mating faces and a few dabs of filler to take up the gaps will sort them out. If you have a table saw you can sacrifice one box to repair the others. You can also use a table saw to cut the raggy edges back before adding new strips. Very useful bit of kit if you are a beekeeper ... if you don't have one .. fleabay.

 

[enrico]

I sometimes cut old wood out and glue and tack a new piece in. Just be careful, wasps will use it to rob your hive if they can get through!
E

 

[drex]

Just been to put clearer boards on. The bees have not had my full attention this year, as the rest of life got in the way. Anyway, I opened up an old WBC, which I only have as was given to me and I run out of interest. Prised the crown board off and out came a cloud of wasps. Hive totally decimated. They got in through a crack in one of the inner boxes. Beware.

 

[Courty]

The hives had old comb in them. I put them outside with the entrances blocked. I realised the problem with gaps when wasps appeared and multiplied. I did my best to block holes but couldn’t keep them out. Then a large amount of bees arrived and took over from the wasps.
I eventually managed to get everything off the combs and store them in my cellar while I clear everything out.
I can probably mend the boxes to a certain extent but having seen how old some hives look, I wondered if it was usual to have gaps between the boxes fro hive tool use and wear and tear and them not be a problem.