Which hive tool is best?

[Dishmop]

Prizing up under end lugs,especially long ones, can snap the lugs off,plus the end you prize up can push the side bar on that end of the frame against the inner side wall of the box,and crushing any bees on the side walls, or frame side bar in the process.

Granted that will/can happen but only because the lug is lifted too far upwards.
My understanding of the operation is that you pry the lug only to "free" it of any adhesion and then go and do the same at the other end, and lift the frame out verticaly. One could of course use two hive tools, leaving one in postion at one end while working to free the other end, or just leave your finger under the first end like I do.

 

[Ely]

I tried to buy their capping knives - but they said they had stopped making them. I hope they can stay in business as I guess there is a lot of overseas competition for what they make, but it is great to see a British company still making traditional tools and knives etc., in Sheffield, even if they don't do capping knives any more!

My family are all originally from Sheffield, my grandad and his dad were 'little mesters' grinding steel during the war etc and making tools. Such a pity most of the steel industy has gone now (sold out to the Americans. It was the best in the world. Now we eat with knife and forks that bend. What happened? How can we go from using our own steel that is the best in the world to using foreign crap? Cheaper I suppose. This country has no loyalty to itself

 

[Luminos]

My family are all originally from Sheffield, my grandad and his dad were 'little mesters' grinding steel during the war etc and making tools. Such a pity most of the steel industy has gone now (sold out to the Americans. It was the best in the world. Now we eat with knife and forks that bend. What happened? How can we go from using our own steel that is the best in the world to using foreign crap? Cheaper I suppose. This country has no loyalty to itself

Happens to Uri Geller all the time

 

[scuttlefish]

Happens to Uri Geller all the time

 

[Into the lions den]

I'm still at a loss to see how your people remove the frames without using a tool under the lug. I've never seen it done any other way.

OK...........

We prize the frames apart an inch or two IN from the sidebars. There you can see exactly what you are levering against, and once you have squeezed the frames a bit to make a gap, you use the corner of the long end of the hive tool levering off one top bar down the side of the next one, work the end up a bit, do the same at the other end, and lift carefully straight out by hand. No tools allowed to go under lugs. J tools temp them to do that when the bosses are not watching.

We do not go for the outside frame first for various reasons, also it is never the last frame put back. As one post mentioned, reduces or eliminates rolling and crushing. With black bees and the tendency to run the queen has, we avoid as much as possible doing the first out/last in being at the sidewalls, plus as first out, there are often burr comb adhesions to the wall which make a rare old mess under some conditions.

 

[scuttlefish]

We do not go for the outside frame first for various reasons, also it is never the last frame put back. As one post mentioned, reduces or eliminates rolling and crushing. With black bees and the tendency to run the queen has, we avoid as much as possible doing the first out/last in being at the sidewalls, plus as first out, there are often burr comb adhesions to the wall which make a rare old mess under some conditions.

Good tip, thanks.

 

[DanBee]

I use a Taylor's Eye Witness scraper type hive tool in the apiary. Made in Sheffield, they are superb tools.

Not a hive tool, but have had a number of items of that brand, some items now 50 years old...knives especially. A brilliant and reliable old make.

Agree with you both, they are excellent tools. My immediate response to the OP's question is: anything with the Taylor's Eye Witness brand.

I have a number of both scraper and J tools by Taylors, the aforementioned uncapping knife, table cutlery, kitchen knives, penknife, pruning & grafting knives, plus several of pairs of scissors - a pair marked "1943 ^" are on my desk now and far superior to modern scissors, even those orange Fiskars ones. The company is still going in the same premises in Sheffield since the 1800's, but their cheaper items are now made in China of course.

The strange thing is that these top-quality hive tools cost the same (£5-£8) as the competition, but you have to hunt to find them. I ordered a pile of Eye Witness tools from Modern Beekeeping last year for teaching with, and they are the only ones I know who list Taylors tools by brand name.

 

[Dishmop]

We prize the frames apart an inch or two IN from the sidebars.

Well if you say it works for you I will have to believe you but I'm inclined to think that if anything was going to break it would be more likely to happen using that method, rather than by levering at the point where the frame is likely to be glued down. Think of a weight lifting bar bending when lifted off the ground.

Still rather suprises me tho that even with your dislike of the J tool that you supply your workers with them!

 

[alanf]

O

The queen can be anywhere at any time. Especially with A.m.m. types, which are much more likely to be runners, it is not at all uncommon for the queen to be moving between combs or just making a rapid exit from the working area, by using the gap between the end bars and the side wall as transit route. If she is in that area and you shove a tool of ANY kind in there without seeing exactly what is going on you risk nipping bees, one of which might just be the queen.

Bear in mind that, relatively speaking, we are doing vast numbers and see things many of you may never see in a lifetime, or at least over a large number of hive seasons.

Introducing a J (or any for that matter) tool into that area HAS resulted in dead queens. Not many, but it does not need to be many to make the economics skewed against the practice.

No bees get under the lugs? try working bees, esp black ones, with bare hands for a few weeks, and see how many nips you get on your fingers when you encounter a bee that has wandered into that area.

What type of hive tool you, as an individual, might use is entirely up to yourself, it is not a big deal. As with so many other aspects of bees the effect of a certain item or its use vis a vis an alternative only become apparent over a large sample size. Over small numbers you do not notice or it is insignificant.

There are so many examples of that, where what is on offer or is conventional is actually not the best, and only over a big sample size does the truth emerge.

Things most will never notice include such things as hive tool type and minor queen loss factors. If it happened to say 20 hives only.............less than 1%.......the cost is into 4 figures.

The biggest single benefit was doing away with the National hive unit we had.............working bottom bee space boxes costs time and money, a team could do between 20 and 40 less hives in a day at the same cost, and the attrition rate of long lugged frames ran at about three times that of short lugged. All items of gear less simple and higher cost. Primarily in time and fuel, but it cost £7.40 extra to run a National as compared to a Smith for a season. Not a vast sum.........but multiply that by 500...........then the penny drops about apparently small things that add up to a lot over a big sample. On an amateur scale none of this matters as you are not into having to think of time/cost analyses. As soon as you go commercial these things all count.

The list of things of this nature is a long one.

ITLD, maybe I'm being slow. I see how long lugs can add cost that you could do without. I can see how bottom space makes items like crown boards more complex. What I don't quite follow is how top space saves time. Is it just that there are fewer breakages to fix or am I missing something obvious?

 

[Hivemaker.]

If hoffman frames, then it may not just be glued down under the lug,but all the way down where the frame side bars make contact,so glued in another four places on the first frame, if taking the second or third one in,lots of upward force needed to break a seal like this, if trying to pull straight up.

 

[Dishmop]

Moving away from the hive tool but staying with stuck lugs, can anything be used to stop them getting stuck, like vaseline, butter, cooking oil?

 

[tonybloke]

vaseline

 

[tonybloke]

OITLD, maybe I'm being slow. I see how long lugs can add cost that you could do without. I can see how bottom space makes items like crown boards more complex. What I don't quite follow is how top space saves time. Is it just that there are fewer breakages to fix or am I missing something obvious?

have another read of Ted Hoopers book, it'll become clear

 

[Hombre]

If you can spare the time, then clean the lugs early in the season and try not to allow too much of a buildup and they will generally be OK. It's particularly early in the season when the wax is cooler and even having separated the frames as best as you can, there is often still a lot of resistance first thing in the season.

As ITLD says, it's often not a case of making more, but reducing costs. The devil as always is in the detail and only becomes significant when scaling up the operation.

I believe that vaseline is a mixture of wax and FGMO (liquid paraffin), but don't know if it is considered to compromise the wax if not applied with great care. Clean your lugs

 

[alanf]

have another read of Ted Hoopers book, it'll become clear

All I can find in Hooper is that bottom space means a super box placed across the corners of the one below won't crush bees on the top bar or slice them if then slid square.
Not having used top space, doesn't it have the same problem with bees hanging off the bottom of frames? That the bees underneath are crushed by the crosswise box? Except with bottom space you have a better chance to see them on the top of frame and can always place them square (strength and height permitting). Or are the numbers on the bottom of frames assumed to be so much fewer than on top that it isn't a problem in practice?

Genuine question, there are very few top space enthusiasts round here.

 

[Into the lions den]

Still rather suprises me tho that even with your dislike of the J tool that you supply your workers with them!

?................ We don't, and I do not understand where you got that idea. We supply the scraper style ones ONLY. If a J turns up here it is because the staff member or visitor has brought it with them.

In addition, lugs being 'glued down' is rarely an issue. They can be a bit resistant to shifting at first inspection in the spring but no big deal. Most of the adhesion between the frames that requires levering apart is the wax/propolis where the frames meet and the brace comb that they join them together with.

OK so there may be some minor adhesion at the lug itself, but you lever under the lug and as well as that to resist there is all the full weight of the comb, and possibly the breaking of adhesions, all the force going through that tiny weak neck. UK frame necks should not be subjected to much in the way of force, they are only for frame positioning and manipulation. As PolyHive mentioned, I think they are so feeble and so cripplingly expensive that I NEVER buy them, having our own spec made abroad instead, with nearly three times as much wood in the neck, and with the right angle eliminated by a chamfer, as these are snapping points.

As regards where we lever against? Well it the way we do it whether it can be visualised or not. It works, its fast, it does not break lugs, it does not nip bees under the lug.

 

[Into the lions den]

If hoffman frames, then it may not just be glued down under the lug,but all the way down where the frame side bars make contact,so glued in another four places on the first frame, if taking the second or third one in,lots of upward force needed to break a seal like this, if trying to pull straight up.

Now there speaks a man who knows the subject of which he speaks. I touched on that in the last response, but yes, ALL our brood frames are Hoffmans, and (as it reduces cross attachment between the top bars) ALL are wide top bars. They do tend to get quite well attached at the shoulders.

I have had the error of my ways pointed out on several occasions, that I would be much better using DN1 style with castellations or metal/plastic ends.
Those making that sort of suggestion just dont get it. If you want just ONE statistic (there are more) to show why not, add up the time over the season adding and removing metal/plastic ends............it would be something like 10000 boxes...........maybe more..........so over 500 man hours. DN1 and SN1 go to the bonfire.

 

[Into the lions den]

Genuine question, there are very few top space enthusiasts round here.

Crushing is a risk irrespective of where the bee space is.

Speed and simplicity of operation is where top bee space wins hands down. Far less scraping and cleaning, all of which takes time.

If a top bee space hive has some wax or propolis or whatever in the frame rest area, the frame will sit a tiny bit high...............but it is still well within the confines of the box, so the next box, or the cover board or whatever can sit down on it without any big issues. Wax etc on top bars, unless exessive, can just be squashed down a bit and the boards etc placed with bee leakage etc.

If it is bottom bee space than you have to keep you frame rest areas scrupulousy free of debris, as a frame resting on anything at all then rides high in the box (above the top edge), as there is no come and go with that. The extra time spent scraping and cleaning adds up. Seems like nothing, but over the numbers it is a real pain. And if you scrape wax and burr comb off you have to clean it up............all knocks on.

 

[alanf]

If it is bottom bee space than you have to keep you frame rest areas scrupulousy free of debris, as a frame resting on anything at all then rides high in the box (above the top edge), as there is no come and go with that. The extra time spent scraping and cleaning adds up. Seems like nothing, but over the numbers it is a real pain. And if you scrape wax and burr comb off you have to clean it up............all knocks on.

Thanks for clear explanation, appreciated. That makes a lot of sense, not only in terms of beekeeper time but in reducing the time the hive is open. I imagine it all makes a difference when time pressure means you have to stick to a schedule whatever the wind, temperature and rain.

 

[oliver90owner]

Re- top bee space

Some, I think, are ignoring, or not considering, the simple fact that bees generally tend climb upwards and not downwards, so it is more likely bees' heads chopped by sliding the boxes than bees' ar**s.

Many fewer hang downwards - and there is far more room at the bottom of the frames (bottom bars are much narrower than wide top bars, per eg). Legs are on thorax and bees will be more likely to be pushed to one side, if they hang down a little. Further an awful lot out there will be sliding over a slotted Q/E - even worse for any heads above the parapet.

I like TBS and would not change back to BBS, I just have to a little more careful where the boxes are set down after removal, that's all. I mostly lift out the frames by the lugs, once I can get hold of them and often it is fingers on one end of the frame and J tool under the other, but sometimes use a frame lifter, if I don't want sticky fingers. I don't prise against the lug, only lift with it.

Lugs on Th*rne seconds are a weak point and especially so with the bigger 14 x 12 frames. I test my new top bars for weak cross-graining before being put into use, but still lose the occasional top bar by dropping that last cm and breaking the lug. Usually it is a full frame of stores close to the edge of the box that is the failure - few bees, in a hurry (perhaps). It happens.

RAB