What did you do in the 'workshop' today

[Mike69]

So far all my stuff has had 2 / 3 coats of Ronseal green 'ducksback' applied by brush which is slow going with so many. I have 60 supers to make up next so I have been wondering if it would spray, if not I will try and rope the wife in and just set up a line of them across the lawn and start one end........... using the 2'' brush.
The 'broods' need finishing yet, bit of filler, few nots to sort and a sand down.
Will get that done in the evenings this week except the sanding which I will wait till I can do it outside............ made a right mess in the garage last time.

Pete D

It will tell you on the container if it’s sprayable or not I’m pretty certain it is but check first.

 

[Anduril]

It will tell you on the container if it’s sprayable or not I’m pretty certain it is but check first.

He was last seen over 2 years ago

 

[Mike69]

He was last seen over 2 years ago

Oh well never mind

 

[JamezF]

At last! After doing an early-morning airport run and having an hour or so's nap to restore my brain to a level close to normal functioning, I finally finished rebuilding my last roof today (for the moment, at least). Oddly the last one had an aluminium sheet roof covering rather than the more common rusty galvanised steel. This whole process has taken far longer than I expected, but other than the roof inners and covers which I managed to re-use in every case, I have been machining all the parts down from whatever timber I had lying about. It's a relief to have it done.

There are quite a few candidates for the next project including a new solar wax melter (which looks to be a highly unnecessary bit of kit right now), more crownboards, more fat dummies and probably some other things I've forgotten about, but on the grounds that it shifts more stuff that's taking up lots of space out of the workshop, I may deal with a few brood boxes first.

One box is one of the first I bought when I started beekeeping, made from pine and has seen better days, but isn't too far gone. Two others are from my "What am I going to do with this?" pile. They're (I assume) home-made boxes with only ½" thick walls and side rails that, rather than being morticed through the adjoining walls, just butt up to them and are screwed through from the other side (using brass screws, no less) into the end grain of the rail. I reckon all of these could be restored to a standard that I'd consider acceptable for a bait hive without too much work, thereby freeing up some other boxes that I'm currently using for bait hives that I could put to use elsewhere. I might paint them too, to make them easily identifiable as "bait hive only" boxes.

James

 

[Andy]

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.

I'll be super interested in the result as I'm sure others will be as well. Is it worth having a separate thread on this topic?

 

[Vanterrier]

Do fat dummies need to be of a size which prevents bees from getting around/under/over them or do the bees just not bother going behind them?
K

 

[JamezF]

Do fat dummies need to be of a size which prevents bees from getting around/under/over them or do the bees just not bother going behind them?
K

I make mine the same width and height as a standard frame, so they have the same spacing between the sides and walls. The bees are free to go around them if they wish, much like a standard dummy board.

James

 

[Swarm]

Do fat dummies need to be of a size which prevents bees from getting around/under/over them or do the bees just not bother going behind them?
K

Give them the bee space same as normal frames or the bees will propolise them to the walls.

 

[enrico]

At last! After doing an early-morning airport run and having an hour or so's nap to restore my brain to a level close to normal functioning, I finally finished rebuilding my last roof today (for the moment, at least). Oddly the last one had an aluminium sheet roof covering rather than the more common rusty galvanised steel. This whole process has taken far longer than I expected, but other than the roof inners and covers which I managed to re-use in every case, I have been machining all the parts down from whatever timber I had lying about. It's a relief to have it done.

There are quite a few candidates for the next project including a new solar wax melter (which looks to be a highly unnecessary bit of kit right now), more crownboards, more fat dummies and probably some other things I've forgotten about, but on the grounds that it shifts more stuff that's taking up lots of space out of the workshop, I may deal with a few brood boxes first.

One box is one of the first I bought when I started beekeeping, made from pine and has seen better days, but isn't too far gone. Two others are from my "What am I going to do with this?" pile. They're (I assume) home-made boxes with only ½" thick walls and side rails that, rather than being morticed through the adjoining walls, just butt up to them and are screwed through from the other side (using brass screws, no less) into the end grain of the rail. I reckon all of these could be restored to a standard that I'd consider acceptable for a bait hive without too much work, thereby freeing up some other boxes that I'm currently using for bait hives that I could put to use elsewhere. I might paint them too, to make them easily identifiable as "bait hive only" boxes.

James

I write, feeding box only, on crap boxes and use them round feeders, I now realise I need to write it on all four sides as I found one full of frames the other day

 

[madasafish]

I'll be super interested in the result as I'm sure others will be as well. Is it worth having a separate thread on this topic?

Well yes: once I have anything to report but despite it being 14C - up 5C from the past few days - it is windy with 30mph gusts.. so no trials yet (and no drones in any volume).
I have actually added another set of cells with 9mm diameter instead of 10 mm so two tries for the price of one.

I do promise to report back on a separate thread.

 

[JamezF]

I write, feeding box only, on crap boxes and use them round feeders, I now realise I need to write it on all four sides as I found one full of frames the other day

Yes, I did think of stencilling some sort of identifier onto the boxes, then decided that perhaps it wasn't that great a plan

James

 

[Vanterrier]

Thanks James and Swarm. That makes the job a lot easier.
K

 

[The Poot]

Refurbed another Abelo floor. Made two dummy boards.

 

[boywonder]

Not the finest piece of carpentry ever wrought by man, but I am chuffed to today have put the finishing touches on my homemade solar wax melter.

Picked up a hunk of Douglas fir and some sweet chestnut staves from the offcut shed of the local sawmill a year ago (for £9 if I recall) and have been meaning to craft it into something ever since. Channeling my inner womble the only single item which was not lying around and I had to buy, was the glazing putty. No plans, and a tad on the small side, but it should suit me.

Tomorrow comes the moment of truth. It's already steaming-up in the twilight

 

[pargyle]

Not the finest piece of carpentry ever wrought by man, but I am chuffed to today have put the finishing touches on my homemade solar wax melter.

Picked up a hunk of Douglas fir and some sweet chestnut staves from the offcut shed of the local sawmill a year ago (for £9 if I recall) and have been meaning to craft it into something ever since. Channeling my inner womble the only single item which was not lying around and I had to buy, was the glazing putty. No plans, and a tad on the small side, but it should suit me.

Tomorrow comes the moment of truth. It's already steaming-up in the twilight

Tidy job ... I use paper clips like this to stretch the j-cloth over the top of the wax receiving vessel so the wax is filtered as it is collected.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/D-RECT-Doc...e&keywords=paper+clips&qid=1714509432&sr=8-10

 

[Fellstoflats]

Once again, I'm playing catch up with kit. Machined up the timber for two brood boxes this evening, ready to assemble tomorrow evening. Also assembled my new to me Kielers, having bleached and scorched them yesterday.

 

[boywonder]

Tidy job ... I use paper clips like this to stretch the j-cloth over the top of the wax receiving vessel so the wax is filtered as it is collected.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/D-RECT-Doc...e&keywords=paper+clips&qid=1714509432&sr=8-10

Appreciate the idea.

I had considered stretching the J cloth over the top of the receiving vessel (an old loaf tin), but was not sure how I would secure it, so that's a good tip, thanks

In the event, I used some old tights *, which are stretched over the tin.

As you can see, I'm using the J-cloth higher up the rig, wrapped around some varroa mesh. I know they filter well, but the absorbency of the J-cloth, and the effect of capillary action means that some wax gets retained in the material **, so I'm on a journey of trial and error to see what works best.

Step one is just ensuring it gets up to temperature, and the wax melts!

(* Not mine , and I had originally been saving these for 'pouches' to put my internal hive monitor in - but quickly discovered that the bees like to chew them to bits

** Make great firelighters, though!!)

 

[JamezF]

(* Not mine ,

Dare we ask what you do with yours?

James

 

[Garry R]

Tidy job ... I use paper clips like this to stretch the j-cloth over the top of the wax receiving vessel so the wax is filtered as it is collected.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/D-RECT-Doc...e&keywords=paper+clips&qid=1714509432&sr=8-10

My drip tray in the solar extractor is a large aluminium tray with an exit slot at the bottom with the tray at an angle. I stuff this with J-cloth and the collecting vessel is a silicone loaf or cake mould which the wax pops out of when cold. The wax is really clean using this and when the J-cloth gets clogged it runs out cleaner still so don't be in a rush to change it - I think it becomes self filtering as it clogs up. I line the bottom of the aluminium tray with a bit of pond liner as it prevents the rubbish sticking to the aluminium and makes the whole thing easier to clean when it reaches that point.

 

[pargyle]

Appreciate the idea.

I had considered stretching the J cloth over the top of the receiving vessel (an old loaf tin), but was not sure how I would secure it, so that's a good tip, thanks

In the event, I used some old tights *, which are stretched over the tin.

As you can see, I'm using the J-cloth higher up the rig, wrapped around some varroa mesh. I know they filter well, but the absorbency of the J-cloth, and the effect of capillary action means that some wax gets retained in the material **, so I'm on a journey of trial and error to see what works best.

Step one is just ensuring it gets up to temperature, and the wax melts!

(* Not mine , and I had originally been saving these for 'pouches' to put my internal hive monitor in - but quickly discovered that the bees like to chew them to bits

** Make great firelighters, though!!)

Stretching the J cloth over the receiving vessel in a double layer means the wax gets cleaned but not a lot is retained in the J Cloth .. I tend not to change the J Cloth very regularly as when you next use the melter the wax retained in the J Cloth re-melts and filters through. When it finally comes to the stage where it can't be used I put them in a bag and when I've got a few saved I put them in a pan of hot water, weigh them down with a stone and the small amount of wax in them can be recovered as it settles as a sheet on the surface of the water when it cools. Not usually a large amount but I'm mean about wax - too expensive to use as firelighters !