What did you do in the 'workshop' today

[Erichalfbee]

Depends which side of the vane you stand

 

[Swarm]

It's backwards compared with the S and whichever side you stand makes no difference because the S becomes backwards. W and E, possibly because W is a mirror so only E will become backwards. Maybe it's an accepted thing that only one letter is affected by angle.
Never mind I thought there might be a common explanation.

 

[JamezF]

Is it a feature that the 'N' on all of them is reversed?

I've never thought about it before, but it looks as though they're made in such a way that the letter to the right is always in the correct orientation.

James

 

[JamezF]

Still haven't found the problem with the electrics in the workshop We thought we'd found a dodgy cable this afternoon, but having isolated it and reset the breaker it still tripped after a couple of hours despite nothing being plugged in. Back to square one...

Fortunately I realised that there are two rings for the sockets, so I can actually get power which meant this evening I could use the steam extractor to melt down some of the comb that I've taken out of hives over the last few weeks (probably getting on for seven boxes worth). I can only really do it after sunset because the bees are quite attracted to it if they're flying and I don't really want steamed bees

Talking of attraction, I noticed the boxes of comb weren't actually quite aligned and some of the comb contains a small amount of capped honey, yet there have been no bees showing any sign of interest in it. I'd have expected them to be straight in there, but perhaps if there's a decent flow on elsewhere they don't go looking anywhere else...

James

 

[Wilco]

Started butchered the reclaimed lumber which I was going to make the now vetoed shed/workshop out of. I've cut most of the parts for two 3-4 hive stands. Also mulling ideas for mini mating nucs from other offcuts.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Still haven't found the problem with the electrics in the workshop We thought we'd found a dodgy cable this afternoon, but having isolated it and reset the breaker it still tripped after a couple of hours despite nothing being plugged in. Back to square one...

Fortunately I realised that there are two rings for the sockets, so I can actually get power which meant this evening I could use the steam extractor to melt down some of the comb that I've taken out of hives over the last few weeks (probably getting on for seven boxes worth). I can only really do it after sunset because the bees are quite attracted to it if they're flying and I don't really want steamed bees

Talking of attraction, I noticed the boxes of comb weren't actually quite aligned and some of the comb contains a small amount of capped honey, yet there have been no bees showing any sign of interest in it. I'd have expected them to be straight in there, but perhaps if there's a decent flow on elsewhere they don't go looking anywhere else...

James

Have you got an insulation tester (Megger or similar)? If your symptom is an RCD tripping it's likely to be something with a high resistance to earth which allows just enough leakage current to flow under humid conditions to trip the protection. Or maybe you have something plugged in which has failing suppression components.

 

[JamezF]

Have you got an insulation tester (Megger or similar)? If your symptom is an RCD tripping it's likely to be something with a high resistance to earth which allows just enough leakage current to flow under humid conditions to trip the protection. Or maybe you have something plugged in which has failing suppression components.

Nothing is plugged into the sockets at all. When this happened before it was a rat that had nibbled through the cabling where it wasn't accessible. That's quite possibly the situation again, but finding out exactly where is proving a little more tricky this time around...

James

 

[Antipodes]

Nothing is plugged into the sockets at all. When this happened before it was a rat that had nibbled through the cabling where it wasn't accessible. That's quite possibly the situation again, but finding out exactly where is proving a little more tricky this time around...

James

Have you checked the RCD isn't faulty?

 

[JamezF]

Have you checked the RCD isn't faulty?

Doesn't seem to be. It definitely looks like a cabling issue at the moment.

James

 

[roche]

Rebuilt the dynamo for the landrover - makes inspections so much easier, driving to the sites.

 

[Moobee]

Getting stuff ready for the out apiary and OH has been hinting about getting rid of all the spare wood I was saving so knocked up a double hive stand.

 

[Moobee]

And a wedge for putting heavy supers back on.

 

[pargyle]

Getting stuff ready for the out apiary and OH has been hinting about getting rid of all the spare wood I was saving so knocked up a double hive stand.
View attachment 31819

Cracking job .... I love recycling - I have some timber gates that are going to be replaced shortly and they are already looking like hive stands to me but I'll have to be quick off the mark as 'er indoors knows my propensity for keeping every bit of timber !

 

[Wilco]

Finished the bulk of the two 3-4 hive stands I started over the weekend. Need to treat/stain the wood and they're not perfect but not bad for scrap wood and a first attempt IMO. Currently deciding whether they'd benefit from a middle strut as well but that can wait for now. Might make some for ebay/auctions too.



Also my almost a quarter ton of fondant arrived today whilst I was at work, wife not impressed... Especially as she disturbed a mouse in my bird feed sack earlier. I like having a bit of wildlife about...

 

[JamezF]

Well, my workshop plans for the day have been well and truly scuppered.

My wife woke me up at 6am to tell me that water was pouring out of the cupboard under the kitchen sink and flooding the ground floor. Fortunately it looks like it had failed quite recently and there was only about an inch of water on the kitchen floor and it hadn't made it too far into other rooms.

After a certain amount of swearing whilst trying to remove the tap in a manner that probably wasn't originally intended I discovered that the problem was a split flexible hose connecting the mains cold feed to the tap. That's my afternoon spoken for then. I've not even finished fixing the workshop electrics yet

James

 

[pargyle]

Well, my workshop plans for the day have been well and truly scuppered.

My wife woke me up at 6am to tell me that water was pouring out of the cupboard under the kitchen sink and flooding the ground floor. Fortunately it looks like it had failed quite recently and there was only about an inch of water on the kitchen floor and it hadn't made it too far into other rooms.

After a certain amount of swearing whilst trying to remove the tap in a manner that probably wasn't originally intended I discovered that the problem was a split flexible hose connecting the mains cold feed to the tap. That's my afternoon spoken for then. I've not even finished fixing the workshop electrics yet

James

I've just replaced the washbasin in our family bathroom ... as I undid the connection to the tap the hose came apart in my hands .... it was a flood waiting for somewhere to happen and there could not have been muhc holding it together. We tend to put these things in and expect them to last forever ... I went round and checked all the other ones .. I got lucky but I feel your pain.

 

[JamezF]

Barring any leaks because I haven't reassembled everything correctly it should all be fixed now Not only that; we have a new tap too, because my wife has never liked the old one. I made her choose the new one so she can't complain about it

Somewhat unexpectedly the new flexible connecting hoses came with different connectors. The hot had the usual tap fitting with a rubber seal intended to fit to a flat face. The cold appeared to have a built-in non-return valve on the end with a standard 15mm compression fitting. No idea if that's standard now as it's been quite a few years since I last fitted any taps, but it wouldn't surprise me.

James

 

[Wilco]

Made some mating nucs from correx, bit of an experiment but I've pinched the BS honeybees idea and they've each got a removeable central divider which means they can take two queens or be expanded to give slightly more space if the need arises. Probably a bit on the small side though. Just need to put some wax along the 'bars' which are each an inch wide and act like a cover board when all in place so each half can be inspected individually.

 

[JamezF]

Very neat. And honey-coloured, too Is correx a "buy it on Amazon/Ebay" thing, or is there an alternative "preferred" supplier?

After the exertions of the day I managed to scrape a bit of time together this evening and have finished making up all my new super frames to the point where I can add foundation. I do have parts for a few DN4 frames left, but I'm thinking I'm going to move to wide top bars everywhere so I'm not really sure what to do with them at the moment. Perhaps just save them to use in nucs and bait hives or something like that.

Also managed to melt down another box of old brood frames. The end is fortunately in sight with these now. I now have two boxes of frames of stores that I've removed from colonies whilst replacing comb this spring to go in the freezer and twenty frames from a closed up deadout that have been waiting for me to recover the wax for over a year plus a bit of brace comb from this year's inspections and then I think I'm done. Possibly I can get that all done tomorrow if the forecast rain arrives and the bees aren't flying. After that I need to collect up all my recovered wax and decide what to do with it next. Probably filter it through a pillow case or something similar and then start making my own foundation and/or starter strips. I am going to need a much bigger steam generator for the filtering first.

James

 

[Wilco]

Very neat. And honey-coloured, too Is correx a "buy it on Amazon/Ebay" thing, or is there an alternative "preferred" supplier?

After the exertions of the day I managed to scrape a bit of time together this evening and have finished making up all my new super frames to the point where I can add foundation. I do have parts for a few DN4 frames left, but I'm thinking I'm going to move to wide top bars everywhere so I'm not really sure what to do with them at the moment. Perhaps just save them to use in nucs and bait hives or something like that.

Also managed to melt down another box of old brood frames. The end is fortunately in sight with these now. I now have two boxes of frames of stores that I've removed from colonies whilst replacing comb this spring to go in the freezer and twenty frames from a closed up deadout that have been waiting for me to recover the wax for over a year plus a bit of brace comb from this year's inspections and then I think I'm done. Possibly I can get that all done tomorrow if the forecast rain arrives and the bees aren't flying. After that I need to collect up all my recovered wax and decide what to do with it next. Probably filter it through a pillow case or something similar and then start making my own foundation and/or starter strips. I am going to need a much bigger steam generator for the filtering first.

James

I got a lot of it from a local printing company that closed down... raided quite a lot of sheet materials with the blessing of the guys emptying the place as it meant more skip space for them. It's also where I got the lumber for the stands I finished yesterday,although I had to remove a lot of nails from that first.

You can get correx from old estate agent signs, speak to local agents and they may be able to put you in touch with whichever company they use to take their old signs down for them.