What did you do in the 'workshop' today

[Garry R]

Another little project, this time a small vacuum bee vac for tidying up when you have taken a swarm and you are waiting for the stragglers which I find one of the most frustrating part of swarm collection. Also when it gets to honey harvesting time I always seem to get bees in the garage and bee shed. So this isn't a full blown bee vac jut a tidy up. I used a couple of 12V car vacuums attached through the lid of a honey bucket and sealed with silicone sealant. A 32mm vacuum pipe is similarly placed through the side of the bucket below a piece of varroa mesh .The pipe is 4m long to allow a bit of distance from the bucket, The mesh is easily removed when you want to put the bees in the bucket back with the main swarm or to release the "shed" bees. Power source is a 12V battery, Even at 4m hose length is seems to have a reasonable suck ( honestly how heavy is a bee)! Proof of the pudding has still to come. The whole thing excluding battery (it was an old one I had hanging around) was about £30.

 

[Wilco]

Another 50 SN4s using cut comb foundation.

 

[JamezF]

Starting to back up jobs in the workshop... I brought home another two roofs I'd replaced today so now I have four to be repaired. They all need new sides. I'm sure I have some offcuts of cedar gravel boards that I can plane down to do the job. I also brought home hopefully the very last UFE that still needs a vaping rim having moved a colony off it today. I'm starting to pile up a fair bit of old wax from combs I've decided are beyond use, so I ought to get on and build a new solar wax melter. Another thing that came back with me today was a poly brood box that I'd repaired sufficiently using car body filler last year to be usable, but not even got as far as sanding it smooth let alone repainting it before it needed to be used, so that's on the list. And I've all but run out of clear crownboards and fat dummies. Nucs and nuc UFEs are on the agenda at some point, but I'm ok for now. I think that's all for the moment.

The one thing I've not had to do so far this year is make frames: I got through assembling quite a few of those last year.

James

 

[JamezF]

Put the vaping rim on the floor. Started taking one roof apart to do some repairs. It rapidly became obvious that the only bits I was going to be able to re-use were the metal roof cover and the ply underneath it, so it's more of a total rebuild than a repair, really.

James