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

 

[JamezF]

Made up the new sides for one of my roofs this evening.

Looks rather nicer than the lump of scrap that I started with

James

 

[Superlativesoul]

Made up the new sides for one of my roofs this evening.

Looks rather nicer than the lump of scrap that I started with

James

Certainly does James ,like your corner clamp fixtures ,cheap to produce and effective .I have made a basic jig to align everything up useful if loads to do .What is the timber ,Cedar ?
John

 

[Garry R]

Made up the new sides for one of my roofs this evening.

Looks rather nicer than the lump of scrap that I started with

James

Sash cramps too - in beekeeping one of the most useful tools there are due to hive dimensions.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Sash cramps too - in beekeeping one of the most useful tools there are due to hive dimensions.

I have quite a selection, I used to have quite a few more, some six feet long, left to me after my Uncle Evan John (also a carpenter) died, unfortunately my grandfather, assuming I had no use for them now I was a customs officer gave them to my grandmother's little brother who had a hobby doing up old tools and selling them at car boot sales still got enough to cramp up three boxes at a time though

 

[JamezF]

Certainly does James ,like your corner clamp fixtures ,cheap to produce and effective .I have made a basic jig to align everything up useful if loads to do .What is the timber ,Cedar ?

I know we had some cedar gravel boards -- I think the local saw mill used to cut "left over" cedar with their normal gravel boards and you'd just get the luck of the draw. But these ones smell right and there's no sign of rot after almost ten years, so I'm going to assume that's what they are.

The corner jigs are really useful. I can't take the credit though. I saw some on YouTube and had some scrap 18mm ply lying about so I glued two thicknesses together and copied them

James

 

[JamezF]

Sash cramps too - in beekeeping one of the most useful tools there are due to hive dimensions.

They are indeed. And I'd have more if I could justify the cost, though there are also 20" and 24" F-clamps available that look as though they'd be quite useful, but they don't have quite the same clamping surface area. One of the more tricky things about the sashes is that you often need three hands to work them.

James

 

[madasafish]

Got down to my last two wooden brood boxes to repair today -- the ones that I had a swarm move into a few years back. I think I'm going to declare them beyond repair though. I'm not sure that even if I broke them both up there'd be enough decent parts left to reassemble into one good one.

So I only have a poly brood and roof to sort. It's clearly been leaking water in somewhere, but I can't find how at the moment. I suspect water puddles on top and then slowly makes its way through into the hive.

Perhaps just another coat of paint might do the job.

James

A soaking in Wood Hardener (Wickes) will make them repairable with woodfiller.. Been there, it works,

 

[JamezF]

A soaking in Wood Hardener (Wickes) will make them repairable with woodfiller.. Been there, it works,

Thanks. I'll give that a go if I end up really needing more boxes this year

James

 

[Antipodes]

A soaking in Wood Hardener (Wickes) will make them repairable with woodfiller.. Been there, it works,

What is it madasafish, as is what is the active ingredient?

 

[madasafish]

What is it madasafish, as is what is the active ingredient?

https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Wet...yz3ysApsrh79ogiaoxoC0akQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds#

and
https://media.wickes.co.uk/is/content/wickes/R9608_600075_COSHH_0

 

[pargyle]

What is it madasafish, as is what is the active ingredient?

It's basically activated resin in a solution of acetone - penetrates the rotten wood well and then cures leaving a surface that will adhere to proprietary wood fillers - the branded version made by Ronseal is very good but far more expensive than the Wickes own brand version.

It's best to dig out the really rotten bits first before applying the wood hardener.

 

[pargyle]

What is it madasafish, as is what is the active ingredient?

Looks like you have something similar down there ...

https://www.desertcart.com.au/produ...water-resistant-stainable-and-paintable-20131

 

[Antipodes]

Looks like you have something similar down there ...

https://www.desertcart.com.au/produ...water-resistant-stainable-and-paintable-20131

Thanks.
I hadn't heard of it before now.

 

[JamezF]

It struck me today that working with PU glue is a lot like making love to a beautiful woman working with honey: similar golden colour, very sticky, gets everywhere, and won't run easily if it's too cold. Oh, and your other half goes bananas if you get it all over the kitchen floor

James

 

[madasafish]

I read The Apiarist on an irregular basis and occasionally take up his great ideas (tilter for jar filling as an example).
He has recently written a couple of articles on bigger better Queens. See Part 2 https://theapiarist.org/bigger-queens-better-queens-part-2/

So I decided to have a go at making bigger queens.
Made about 40 10mm diameter cell cups from beeswax using a 10mm dowel.
Decided to make them compatible with my Nicot system of cups /cages so fitted cups to small piece of wood glued to a Nicot cup.
Fitted the wax cups into a cut down -used-National topbar reduced in width by half,
Drilled 13mm diameter holes in the bar so the wax cups could fit through like a Nicot cage,
Installed into a National Brood frame (which fits into a Lang jumbo frame with a few mods to the frame. changes) - my production hives are Lang jumbo.

Added a QE for enclosing Q in to allow her to lay in cups.

Waiting for better weather to try it out.

 

[Antipodes]

I read The Apiarist on an irregular basis and occasionally take up his great ideas (tilter for jar filling as an example).
He has recently written a couple of articles on bigger better Queens. See Part 2 https://theapiarist.org/bigger-queens-better-queens-part-2/

So I decided to have a go at making bigger queens.
Made about 40 10mm diameter cell cups from beeswax using a 10mm dowel.
Decided to make them compatible with my Nicot system of cups /cages so fitted cups to small piece of wood glued to a Nicot cup.
Fitted the wax cups into a cut down -used-National topbar reduced in width by half,
Drilled 13mm diameter holes in the bar so the wax cups could fit through like a Nicot cage,
Installed into a National Brood frame (which fits into a Lang jumbo frame with a few mods to the frame. changes) - my production hives are Lang jumbo.

Added a QE for enclosing Q in to allow her to lay in cups.

Waiting for better weather to try it out.

They look excellent!