Which hive tool is best?

[local_beekeeper]

I was wondering which hive tool is best. Some seem to be shaped quite differently from one another. I have also seen one with a wooden handle.

 

[VEG]

Down to preference but I normally use the J type as I find it is easier to get stuck frames out of the hive.

 

[Poly Hive]

Which ever one suits you.

ITLD will tell you that on his bee farm the J type is banned.

I prefer the scraper type and always have.

Your choice.

PH

 

[VEG]

As long as you can get frames out with it then use what you like.

 

[drumgerry]

PH - what's the problem with the J type?

 

[Hombre]

They are very efficient, but particularly early in the season when the wax is cool and the frames well gummed up after winter, there can be a lot of force transferred to the lug of the frame being moved and the one that is being used as the pivot.

So care is required and particularly so when the frames are heavily propolised.

I prefer the J-type tool.

 

[drumgerry]

Maybe I've just never had bees that propolise that heavily. The only problem I can see with using a J tool and applying leverage with it would be if the lugs/top bars were rotten and liable to break. In which case they should have been taken out of service long before. Otherwise I'm not seeing what the issue is with them.

 

[Poly Hive]

I actually would argue I can exert more force sideways with the scraper type to free the frames, and if your frame building ain't so good there is a risk of the top bar being prised from the sidebar with the vertical force using the J type.

There was an RSI isue on the farm I believe.

Again though its down to choice.

PH

 

[Chrisfnvs]

I use stainless steel scraper type easy to use and easy to clean, no rust or flaking paint can`t go wrong Chris

 

[Into the lions den]

This old chestnut again.....................

Like everyone says it all about personal preference and our circumstances are not all tranferrable into an amateur setting.

The biggest single one is to remove the temptation to hook out frames with the J. Its nothing to do with broken or rotten frames, its about what you can and cannot SEE when you shove that J under the lugs, or, as the junior staff are prone to do, worm it into the comb under the top bar and fish the frame out. Apart from the mess, and the annoyance to myself of seeing this done, we would lose queens at a higher rate. Sorry, you DO just lose more queens. Yes its possible to avoid this by taking longer and using more smoke in the lugs area, but why take the extra time when a perfectly good hive tool is already avauilable with fewer complications?

Secondly there is the apparently minor issue of strain injury. You will look at the J pattern and wonder what I am talking about, but the tool is marginally off balance compared to the traditional one and there is a slight tendency to twisting in the hand. We do not discriminate on grounds of gender or muscle power when choosing our technical bee staff. Twice we have had staff off with strain injury. The doc identified the J hive tool as the possible cause. Seem like nothing? try examining 70 hives a day, 7 days a week (ok, 6, they get a day off each), for 10 weeks continuously.

They are relatively inefficient as cleaning tools. I see people slicing away with the point end, of both tyes. Actually you keep the BUTT end sharp, and THAT is the fast cleaner/scraper. The other end is far slower and much more likely to raise up major splinters, which in haste have (occasionally) gone right into the beekeepers hand. The short end is as important a tool as the pointed end, and the J tool aint got it.

The traditional type are faster (saves money), safer, less damaging to equipment and combs, more versatile and have a variety of uses other than in the hive.

 

[Dishmop]

Down to preference but I normally use the J type as I find it is easier to get stuck frames out of the hive.

 

[Firefly]

Regardless of the tool, isn't the first action on each frame to move it forwards/backwards away from the other frames, rather than up out of the box/super?

Or am I doing it wrong?

 

[Poly Hive]

You are quite right but some think otherwise with the J one.

PH

 

[scuttlefish]

Which hive tool is best? The one in your hand.

Regardless of the tool, isn't the first action on each frame to move it forwards/backwards away from the other frames, rather than up out of the box/super?

Yep, that's what t'other end of the J tool is for. I have both types but prefer the scraper.

I prefer to lift the frames out with my fingers after moving them backwards with the HT to free them, just find it easier.

 

[Dishmop]

They are relatively inefficient as cleaning tools. I see people slicing away with the point end, of both tyes. Actually you keep the BUTT end sharp, and THAT is the fast cleaner/scraper. The other end is far slower and much more likely to raise up major splinters, which in haste have (occasionally) gone right into the beekeepers hand. The short end is as important a tool as the pointed end, and the J tool aint got it.

Why do you have them then?

Some people cant even use a knife and fork properly and presenting them which an instrument that doesnt have a keypad and screen is entirely alien to them.

Whatever tool you use, the end lug still has to be levered up...and the point is easy to get under the lug...If the lug doesnt unstick easily and the operative decides to use force equal to that of standing on a wheel brace to undo wheel nuts on a truck, and the frame breaks, its not the fault of the tool. Although that depends on whether you include the user as a tool.

If the lug is well and truly stuck, a little common sense should be applied and the tool (whichever type), is used to ease the the lug free from both sides alternatively, and carefully, and then work on the other end.

 

[Winker]

The traditional type are faster (saves money), safer, less damaging to equipment and combs, more versatile and have a variety of uses other than in the hive.

Aye i've seen what they stir their coffee/tea with, way up there in the fields on the north east coast

 

[susbees]

Multihive tool from German outfit (expect they'll be at Harper in April) - sold in UK but quite a bit more expensive that way. Not used old flat tool or awful (IMO) clunky J tool at all since starting with those. All three hooks have their uses if used with thought.

 

[drstitson]

"Regardless of the tool, isn't the first action on each frame to move it forwards/backwards away from the other frames, rather than up out of the box/super?"

Not if you've got castellations in your brood box!!!!

 

[drumgerry]

ITLD - Interesting info on the joys or not of a commercial outfit. Sounds like a training need has been identified if your junior staff don't know how to extract a frame from a hive without damaging the frame or the bees. Lifting the lug of the frame up with the end of the hive tool sounds like an odd, counter-intuitive way to go about it.

 

[Into the lions den]

Whatever tool you use, the end lug still has to be levered up...and the point is easy to get under the lug....

I think you miss the point...............we NEVER lever under the lug. We do not allow it. Apart from the not seeing what is under the lug (and you DO get killed queens once the numbers you are doing start to climb), in UK frames applying force to the lug causes an attrition rate. Our frames here in the UK are among the weakest in the world at the neck point where lug and sidebar meet, and forcing up well glued in frames by their lugs alone causes some breakages.

I refuse to go into giving hive tool use and frame loosening instructions as it would be just too patronising for words..........but to the poster who thus seems to assume we just yank frames out with no preparatory working...............gimme a break. If I dotted every i, crossed every t, and explained every factor and the reasons for it, and all the little interlinkages that take place, we would be on volume 2 of my book by now. (The book that never will be btw, there are too many books already and many of them are misleading at best, no need for another one.)