What did you do in the 'workshop' today

[JamezF]

It's been grim outdoors today: grey, dark and near-continuous drizzle. No chance of getting anything useful done outside, so I've made up everything that I need for the colony in the tree branch and put it in the car for tomorrow. I had a couple of frames of stores with broken lugs so I hammered some nails in the ends and put them in the brood box too in the hope that it might encourage them to move up.

As I worked through poly hive boxes that needed repainting earlier in the week I found a roof or two that also could have done with a coat of paint. I got most of one done yesterday and left the last side (that it was resting on) until today. It's been six hours since I painted the rest and did most of the second and the paint still isn't dry despite taking barely an hour earlier in the week when it was sunny. Quite frustrating as I want that all done and out of the way so I can get on with the next jobs making up some clear crown boards and UFEs.

I noticed some mesh floors with grooves cut for trays stacked up when I was shuffling kit about. I reckon I could turn those into mesh UFEs (with trays), but I can't decide yet whether it's worth the bother.

James

 

[Superlativesoul]

I have just got 3 national hives preloved and I'm in the process of repairing small damage ,Repainting the hives and getting ready for the Autumn, managed to pick up a bargain from Gumtree for a table saw that mitres as well for £5 cost me more in fuel Lol .Aim to build some nucs with downloaded plans next week glad I'm retired so have the time now .Going with my lecturer from the course to visit her Apiary for her first inspections weather dependant on Saturday cannot wait .the hives shown are not in their finished position .
Have a great day everyone

 

[JamezF]

I counted up the mesh floors that I have which could be converted to mesh UFEs (plus varroa tray, which I'll leave in pretty much permanently) and found twelve, so this afternoon I decided to see how difficult it would be to take one apart with a view to remodeling it. Not very, as it happens, and using them will save me a lot of time cutting and machining timber. They appear to be held together using stainless pozidrive screws, so I grabbed the first four and started dismantling them. I managed to snap the heads off a few of the screws that held on the rails above the mesh (that give the height for the entrance block to go in, and which I'll keep in place for a potential vaping opening), so had to sacrifice two, sawing either side of the wrecked screws, removing the wood and then using mole grips as a screwdriver

Hopefully I can get them finished tomorrow morning, ready to be scrubbed and treated.

James

 

[JamezF]

Well, I didn't get them finished in the end as other things came up, but here's the one that I got done prior to cleaning up.

A friend who is a builder let me drag a few bits of timber out of his "firewood, sometime" pile a couple of weeks back, including some old floorboards that had been "shaved" on the underside to allow for joists that weren't level. I didn't want to put them through the thicknesser because there's always the chance of catching a nail you didn't see, but the unevenness of one face was no problem for making the front piece of the floor and the landing board for these.

Once they're treated I just have to cut a piece of correx for the varroa tray and I'm sorted.

James

 

[Newbeeneil]

Just spent an hour knocking up 3 supers worth of frames and started contemplating why do people clean frames when they are so cheap?
If I had to get a burco boiler out, plug it in and get a solution of soda up to temperature, boil them for an hour or so then take them out, dry them, carefully remove the wedge and one bottom bar, scrape out the side bars just to get back to a frame that is probaly inferior to the new one I buy for 54p, dispose of the mucky water and put it all away I think would give up beekeeping!
I price my labour out for beekeeping at about £20/hour so I can't believe it would be worth my while when you add in the cost of electricity and soda.
Has anyone worked out a cost for doing this?

 

[blackcloud]

Masochism is priceless.

 

[pargyle]

Just spent an hour knocking up 3 supers worth of frames and started contemplating why do people clean frames when they are so cheap?
If I had to get a burco boiler out, plug it in and get a solution of soda up to temperature, boil them for an hour or so then take them out, dry them, carefully remove the wedge and one bottom bar, scrape out the side bars just to get back to a frame that is probaly inferior to the new one I buy for 54p, dispose of the mucky water and put it all away I think would give up beekeeping!
I price my labour out for beekeeping at about £20/hour so I can't believe it would be worth my while when you add in the cost of electricity and soda.
Has anyone worked out a cost for doing this?

It's worth it when you run foundationless .. if I had to faff about removing wedges and bottom bars etc. I would not bother.

It takes very little time to do them for me .. I put three or four into the boiler once it's up to heat, one gets scrubbed off and comes out to be dunked in a clean water bath and then hung on a rack to dry and another one goes in and one comes out. Less than a minute or so for me and a few seconds painting a bit of beeswax on the timber starter strip. In the time I'm scrubbing and rinsing and hanging the next frame is boiled and ready.

Once cooled and any wax skimmed off the top (not usually much as it saponifies) the water goes down the foul drain.

 

[Newbeeneil]

It's worth it when you run foundationless .. if I had to faff about removing wedges and bottom bars etc. I would not bother.

It takes very little time to do them for me .. I put three or four into the boiler once it's up to heat, one gets scrubbed off and comes out to be dunked in a clean water bath and then hung on a rack to dry and another one goes in and one comes out. Less than a minute or so for me and a few seconds painting a bit of beeswax on the timber starter strip. In the time I'm scrubbing and rinsing and hanging the next frame is boiled and ready.

Once cooled and any wax skimmed off the top (not usually much as it saponifies) the water goes down the foul drain.

I can see it might be worth it when foundationless and I have been known to cut out a wired frame, give it a good blast with a blow lamp and fix another starter strip in when I've be short of a frame or two but just the cost of the soda and energy must be significant (I calculate about a tenner)
But to be honest it would be the time and mess that puts me off. How many frames could you treat in an hour including set up and putting away?

 

[JamezF]

I can see it might be worth it when foundationless and I have been known to cut out a wired frame, give it a good blast with a blow lamp and fix another starter strip in when I've be short of a frame or two but just the cost of the soda and energy must be significant (I calculate about a tenner)
But to be honest it would be the time and mess that puts me off. How many frames could you treat in an hour including set up and putting away?

I've been pondering on the same sorts of questions myself over the last couple of years and more so in the light of current electrickery prices. I'm struggling to see that running an electric steam generator to recover wax and then cleaning up the frames is worth the cost in power and time any more.

I have been thinking about using the steam outlet from my beer boiler to render the wax from frames so it would effectively be zero cost. Or having some sort of tank I can fill with water and stick in a bonfire when we have one, generating steam for rendering. Beyond that it's looking more and more as though the resulting frames are best broken up and used for getting the woodburners going in the winter (especially if I put one in the workshop, meaning I could use it for longer in the winter).

James

 

[pargyle]

I can see it might be worth it when foundationless and I have been known to cut out a wired frame, give it a good blast with a blow lamp and fix another starter strip in when I've be short of a frame or two but just the cost of the soda and energy must be significant (I calculate about a tenner)
But to be honest it would be the time and mess that puts me off. How many frames could you treat in an hour including set up and putting away?

At the speed I work ... probably about 30 ... I treat it as a fairly leisurely exercise. I could probably do more. Setting up doesn't take long and whilst I'm waiting for the Burco to heat up I'm usually doing something eles - getting the old comb out of the frame for instance.

 

[BigAshW]

My long suffering other half was chucking out an old ikea drawer unit. Unfortunately for her I spotted it before the bin men came.




Now on a test run to see if it will get up to temperature.

 

[JamezF]

That looks excellent.

James

 

[Erichalfbee]

My long suffering other half was chucking out an old ikea drawer unit. Unfortunately for her I spotted it before the bin men came.

View attachment 35759
View attachment 35760View attachment 35765
View attachment 35766
Now on a test run to see if it will get up to temperature. View attachment 35761

Very clever Ash.

 

[BigAshW]

Very clever Ash.

Thankyou. If I find a dehumidifier that works with the control unit i may be able to use it to lower water content as well.

 

[pargyle]

My long suffering other half was chucking out an old ikea drawer unit. Unfortunately for her I spotted it before the bin men came.

View attachment 35759
View attachment 35760View attachment 35765
View attachment 35766
Now on a test run to see if it will get up to temperature. View attachment 35761

Looks too well made to be IKEA !! Very innovative though .... like it.

 

[JamezF]

It's been "difficult" weather-wise here today, so I've worked my way through all my remaining mesh floors converting them to UFE. All the woodwork is done now and I just need to cut some correx to go under the mesh. That gives me twelve spare floors (though three will be required to replace OMFs that are "out in the field" already, but those will in turn be converted). If I need all of those this year I shall be pleasantly surprised.

Next on the agenda is more clear crown boards, though I might intersperse those with demaree boards.

James

 

[Erichalfbee]

worked my way through all my remaining mesh floors converting them to UFE.

Have you made them solid, James.
I’ve had Stan convert a few. I have three colonies on solid UFE through winter. All three floors are clean and dry. They must use all that dropped pollen too. Aren’t bees amazing?

 

[JamezF]

Have you made them solid, James.
I’ve had Stan convert a few. I have three colonies on solid UFE through winter. All three floors are clean and dry. They must use all that dropped pollen too. Aren’t bees amazing?

I haven't, no. Just cut the mesh back to about ¾ of the depth of the floor and made it solid from the entrance slot to the front. I do have some completely solid ones and these newly-converted ones will have the correx tray in all of the time so they'll be effectively solid from a weather-proofing point of view, but I wanted some that gave me the opportunity to monitor the falling cappings as the hives go into Winter so I could get some idea of how much brood might be emerging over time.

Depending on how things go further down the line I may buy some poly nucs in the sales and make solid UFEs for them, or if prices are stupid then I might just make the entire things from timber. I'm unconvinced that there's really any value in having a mesh floor on a nuc. And if I make more floors for full hives they might well be solid too as I don't feel the need to monitor brood emergence in every single colony in the apiary.

I've not got to the point of opening up the hives and pulling them apart to replace frames and suchlike yet, but on first impressions those that I switched to solid UFEs last year do seem to have gone through the winter very well. (Though to be fair it's hard to make a definite judgement as everything seems to be so much later than the last few years.)

James

 

[Newbeeneil]

Started making a new roof today but realised I didn’t have any OSB the right size so decided I didn’t actually need it and just glued insulation to the wooden edges.

 

[BigAshW]

Have run the cabinet for four hours today and it's got from 18c to 31.5c.

So I've ordered a second tube. Hoping 120w will be enough.