Free hive lid plans

[joanne613]

www.miteaway.com (http://www.miteaway.com)
Check out this website to receive free plans for the Mite Away Migratory Lid. This lid can be used for various honeybee health treatments as well as for feeding pollen patties.

[Ian]

What about the bur comb that will be build up? If the plan is to flip this lid to the flat side during summer, how will the rain water get away?

[joanne613]

Hi Ian,

To address the question of the bees building excessive burr comb in the space above the top bars, testing has shown that as long as the colony has adequate drawn comb available, the bees build very little to no burr comb in the space. This is the case when using the Mite-Away Migratory Lid on the brood chambers when feeding or when the lid is placed on honey supers during a flow.
Should there be a burr comb build up you can use a Rubbermaid 68 liter tote box (24x16x16.5) for hive scrapings. They are the right height, have great hankles so they are easy to drag around the yard and when full don't weigh too much. You can then put them in a large solar wax melter, close the lid and remove beautiful blocks of was in a couple of days. This easily turns the wax into an asset.

As far as summer rain drain, this does not seem to be a problem. The rain just runs off the side.

This Migratory Lid is useful when applying soft mite treatments such as Mite Away II, ApiGuard and ApiLife Var as well as making the feeding of pollen patties very fast.

Joanne


Joanne

[Dave W]

I find the "get yours now" to be misleading.
When I clicked the link, a screen popped up ask for information I would rather not provide.

>testing has shown . . .
Can we review the test?

>as long as the colony has adequate drawn comb available, the bees build very little to no burr comb in the space . . .

What happens about apple-blossom time?

[Ian]

>>testing has shown that as long as the colony has adequate drawn comb available, the bees build very little to no burr comb in the space

"as long as" , kind of restricts the tops use to certain conditions.
In a heavey honeyflow, I tend to get behind from time to time. My bees would fill that space in no time flat!! Infact, they would fill that space in jsut about any time there is anyfeed on the hive, or any type of flow as the hive developes with lots of young bees.
In my operation it is a must for us to flip our lids to the flat side, shim side up to prevent all the mess.
Sorry to be critical, just pointing out a problem I see with the lid. Your lid design would hold lot more comb and honey than my innercovers would!

[ January 03, 2007, 07:24 PM: Message edited by: Ian ]

[joanne613]

> get yours now...asking for information I would rather not provide

You don't have to provide personal information. You can just put in xxxxx's for required fields and the plans can still be downloaded. However if you want them e-mailed or sent by snail mail you need to provide contact information.

[David VanderDussen]

Perhaps I can answer some of theses questions since I developed and tested these lids.

Ian, if in a heavy honey flow the lid is filled with comb and honey there were two things I did:
1) just set it on top of the supers. The lids are dripping with honey and the bees clean up all those drippings. Next time you come by the bees may have relocated it down into the supers or eaten it. Or you can skip #1 and go right to 2) which is to harvest it by scraping everything into a tub and running it through your cappings system. Since you missed getting the crop in your supers, you can get it out of the lid. With that 1 1/2 inch depth there can be a substantial volume, so it's worth the effort. Your bees needed the space, so the lid gave them an outlet and perhaps prevented swarming. All that virgin wax production being put to good use.

About using an inner cover, piece of plywood, grain sack, piece of carpet, or any of those things beekeepers use under an outer cover, note that the lip that goes down the front and back of the super is 1" deep. This means you can still have an inner cover or whatever under the lid, and as long as it is not more than 1" thick the MAML lid will stay in place. By using planed 2X3's as the stock for the end pieces this lid is very solid.

About feeding bees with the rim down, the bees don't do much comb building in the space until the brood chamber combs are full. This was a bit of a surprise to me too, but proven by 11 years of feeding in the fall with that deep rim space above the brood chamber, in single, double and 1 1/2 story hives. Same in the spring, the years that the bees needed spring feeding.

Dave W., you asked about apple blossom time. I loved moving the hives with the deep rims! The bees really liked to cluster up in that space during the move, instead of hanging out on the boxes. Very impressive if you're with a grower and can pop a lid and bang a few pounds of bees on the ground in front of a hive! I often moved hives with the MAII pad on, although I would make sure it had been on the hives at least a week before doing so. The treatment would finish off during bloom time and when the hives came out of the orchards they were ready for queen work such as making up nucs or splits.

Good questions, I hope this information answers them. dv.

[Ian]

>>the lid gave them an outlet and perhaps prevented swarming. All that virgin wax production being put to good use.


Thanks for your response. I can sure see its usefulness during early spring pollen feeding and your organic formic treatments.

We have extreem heavey flows up here, perhaps you designed it for lower moderate flow conditions. Scraping 600 lids spring, and fall seem to be much too much work.
Bur comb a honey loss? Perhaps yes, but its a trade off, bringing in 40-50lbs of honey/box rather than 20-30lbs. When dealing in hundreds of lbs/hive, the logistics makes more sence to bring in slightly heavier boxes

[David VanderDussen]

Hi Ian;

perhaps I wasn't clear.

Our flows often hit hard and fast too. It varies from year to year. If you have honey supers on in time it's a non issue, the bees ignore the space in the MAML. The honey in the lids only shows up if you're not getting your work done in time. When that occurs its not a bad thing for the bees to have a little extra space. However, I also prefer to have the honey in the supers! dv.

[Dave W]

joanne613 and David VanderDussen . . .

Excellent answers to "normal" questions.
We like that!

Thank you.