What did you do in the 'workshop' today

[colinc]

Made a landing ramp as tired of seeing bees with a heavy load bounce off into the long grass.

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[rje66]

Will chipboard be ok in the wet???

 

[pargyle]

Will chipboard be ok in the wet???

It's OSB not chipboard, if it is exterior grade then with a coat of paint it will be OK. It won't last forever but if you seal the edges then it will last even longer.

Chipboard will dissolve in no time once it gets wet - should never be used for any external applications.

 

[wightbees]

My back garden looks like a bee keeping industrial set up lol. Just finished painting the last of the floors. There's 30 complete hives in the garden plus loads of ekes and supers, plus ton of wood for the next stage of building! Certainly keeping me busy!

 

[Fusion_power]

I cut parts to build more Killion Bottom Boards this afternoon. With a bit more cutting, assembly and painting, I plan to have 20 of them ready to go on the hives in the next 2 weeks.

 

[bjosephd]

I cut parts to build more Killion Bottom Boards this afternoon. With a bit more cutting, assembly and painting, I plan to have 20 of them ready to go on the hives in the next 2 weeks.

Would love to see some photos of your newly built bespoke hives Fusion Power.

Still on my langs here. Are your boxes big enough to stay single brood? Do you even use excluders?

 

[ugcheleuce]

Well, over the past two/three days, I've been preparing equipment for use during a starter/finisher procedure. As part of the queen rearing module of an advanced beekeeping course, this coming Saturday all participants will get 6 pre-grafted pedigree larvae. I have chosen to use a starter system that is similar to the one used by a lot of people locally, but using mostly materials laying in the yard. Next year I'll make it from proper materials.

What the starter will look like once the bees are in it:

Removing the lid...:

Removing the larva cup cell holder...:

Removing the sliding door which, when removed, will introduce 10 000 very unhappy bees to the larva cup cells after 3 hours of panic. These three frames are just for show -- at the time, there'll be one frame of pollen, one frame of honey/nectar, and one frame of water.

Of course, first you have to get 10 000 bees into the box. So you add a bit of a funnel...:

Then a queen excluder (no accidents with unexpected queens or drones in the starter!):

And then extend the funnel:

As you can see, most of the equipment consists of old hive bodies that I've been meaning to burn. The sliding door is poorly made, and I'll have to plug the hole after removing the slide (on professionally made models, the slide is a thin aluminium sheet, so the bees can't get out of the hole).

Then, there is of course a finisher. The started queen cells have to be finished in a finisher hive, and if you have a strong colony, you can use a queen excluder to keep the queen "below" while the queen cells are "upstairs", but my finisher (my biggest colony) is small, so I'll hang the queen cells in the middle of the existing brood nest, inside little cages, like thus:

I still have to add a bar inside the frame.

 

[Fusion_power]

Pics? Here are a couple. The first is of two hives side by side. On the left is a queen of my line that is hauling in nectar to the tune of about 5 pounds a day. On the right is a hive with a load of cells nearly sealed from a Buckfast queen. The Buckfast are doing a respectable job but cut back on foraging when I diverted them to producing queen cells. We are in the middle of a very heavy flow. These pictures were taken about 5:00 pm local time. The sound of bees flying in and out is like being in a busy airport.

 

[nantmoel]

Made up 4 clearer boards fitted with the rhombus escapes - all we need now is a summer!

 

[wightbees]

I have often looked at your roofs types in the USA and wondered if we over do things here in the uk :-/

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Did all the cutting for another half dozen Underfloor entrance OMF's, ten Demarree boards and a handful of rhombus clearer boards. Made up ten new crown boards.

 

[wightbees]

You been busy there, with this wet weather I need to start cutting wood. Not sure whether to buy or rip the next batch of frames though, it's a bit of a dilemma really!

 

[nantmoel]

Made up two new roofs from the last of my free aluminium, nice finger joints and all treated, put on a stack of spare kit.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Finished the ten Demarree boards and made half a dozen dummy boards from scraps left over, made up three roofs and painted them still the floors to do but no hurry as yet.

 

[Fusion_power]

I'm building 4 portable hive stands each made to hold 4 square Dadant colonies. In the past, I built permanent stands. Now I need some stands that can be relocated. They are made of treated wood which should last about 20 to 30 years.

I purchased 800 board feet of rough cut cypress lumber a few days ago. I'm stacking it in the greenhouse to dry. In 2 or 3 months, it will be ready for the planer. I worked nearly 3 hours clearing a place, then moving the first 15 boards in and getting them properly stacked with strips to permit air flow. The boards have so much moisture they currently weigh about 8 kg each. They will drop to about 3 kg when dry.

 

[MadAnt]

FP, do you seal ends, or cypress wouldn not split?

 

[wightbees]

Just googled it, wear mask when cutting as it's possible to cause respiratory irritation. Has good qualities though.

 

[Fusion_power]

Cypress is brittle and will split if proper care is not exercised in drying and planing. Cypressin gives it natural rot resistance. It is a relatively cheap rot resistant light weight wood with very good qualities for bee equipment.

The chemistry of cypress will bind certain types of saw blades. I use a 64mil combination blade for rip sawing and a good cross cut blade for other work. As with most wood cutting, it is best to use a dust vacuum to avoid inhaling the fine particles.

Here is a supplier that sells bee equipment so you can get an idea what the wood looks like in bee box form. Note the price of the woodenware and compare that with the rough cut wood I purchased for 80 cents a board foot. it takes 8 board feet to make a square Dadant hive. An uncle has a 16 inch planer that I can use at minimal cost.

https://gabees.com/cypress-hives/

 

[MadAnt]

Thanks for tbe info and link, FP.

Today i will load last trap(cold spring here) and setup last batch

 

[Fusion_power]

Severe thunderstorms most of the afternoon so I've been cleaning up old equipment and cutting out combs from frames that need to be renewed. These are all shallow extracting frames. I am stacking them into new square shallow boxes that were waiting to be used. These frames won't be needed until next year.

I finished one of the four portable hive stands. It is a simple folding design with 2X6 sides and 4X4 legs. Each stand should be capable of supporting about 1000 kg. I can wish 4 colonies would make that much honey!