Beesource Beekeeping Forums banner

Equipment Maintenance

4K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  Dee A. Lusby 
#1 ·
I am sure there are many ways of doing hive woodenware maintenance for tops and bottoms, supers, frames, foundation, inner covers, division boards, etc

I hope everyone wants to post their favorite way and exchange ideas for all to read...

To start I am going to talk about embeding foundation, but I could have started with making the frames or repairing the frames.

Of course, following this, I probably need to discuss maintenance on the super the frames go in. The start of a vicious circle for work never stops. Maintenance is a continuous process.

START:

When I get done making and sizing the foundation for our frames I then start
wiring. I like to use 5 horizontal wires in our deeps. We use two eight tanginal extractors in tandem and find no blow out problems using 5 wires, but we also gear to 200 rpm also for slinging out our desert honeys.

I also like to wrap and tie it the old way without nails so I don't slam myfingers for faster speed, doing an under and over, wrap and tie, on opposite ends.

Then I take an austrailian wire crimper (I think they make the bestin the world - all alumunim, with hardened steel gears that don't wear out)and crimp my wires to tighten and spring load tension. It also helps to makethe wire take current slower so when I hook up and attach my elect clips on the wraps I can embed all five wires at the same time for speed.

To keep the wire from digging into the wooden frame I use a handgun stapler(could use electric stapler) and shoot 3/8 staples just below or above the holes the wire will be going through rather than eyelets. I like
the faster speed.

To embed I use an old flatiron imbedder with clips (could use a good battery charger in place). I use a toggle on/off switch for speed also rather than on/off button.All I do is hit the current for 2-3 seconds and let the foundation sink onto the crimped wires.

With wrap and tie continuous wiring I figure It's good for averaging embedding 8-10 supers an hour for our 5-wire system. I figure we also average 6 sheets to lb on our wax made for sinking the wire in.

Further comments.......How do you do things?


Dee A. Lusby
 
See less See more
#3 ·
Howdy -

Finally got around to cleaning all my supers and frames today. Found quite a few (12) wax worms that were just starting in on the comb so I got out my steel scriber and started stabbing. Hardly any damage was done to the combs yet. That's what I get for leaving a bunch of supers stacked outside for a week before I brought them in. I don't let brood get into my honey supers so I never have much of a problem with wax worms. Supers get stored inside and I usually check through them once during the winter for worms.

Getting ready to redo the frames with new foundation. 4.9 of course! Will get set up also and start running my table saw for box joints as I want to make a bunch more mediums. I'll be cutting my deeps down also as I'm making the break from using deeps. Just too much weight to deal with. Plan to run 3 mediums for brood chambers.

Every couple of years I like to go through and clean the honey frames and supers. Makes them a bit easier to work with when extracting. Not much maintaining to do this year, just building new.

-Barry
 
#4 ·
Howdy Barry --

Welcome to Medium Supers. I assume that you will be using them exclusively for brood areas as well as honey storage.

I have used this system for many years and would never return to deep brood boxes.

I learned this when I worked one summer with S.E. McGregor (1939) when he was doing experimental work with AFB and natural resistance by various strains of bees. If is a pleasure to have every frame and every box interchangeable anywhere in the operation.

Pete
 
#5 ·
Using triple medium chambers for a brood nest seems to be more and more popular. I haven't made the switch here (yet?); seems it would be a pain to search through three sets of combs to find a queen. (For swarm control, divisions, requeening or what-have-you.) There are certain mgmt. operations when you need to know where she is.

Dr.C.L.Farrar preferred the mediums years ago (although his held 12 or 13 frames, and were square). Evidently he didn't see the increased frame wood and gaps in the brood nest as hindrances to the queen's laying pattern. Others have claimed it is not ideal.

For equivalent brood nest volume, mediums are more expensive than deeps, but it sounds like those who prefer them think it is well worth it. Eh?

Any further comments, pro/con? Anyone using mediums for brood and surplus, without using excluders? Can anybody vouch for the claims that overwintering is more successful in mediums?
 
#6 ·
This is in reply to Joel's post of Jan 31,2001, 11:58 AM

Joel wrote:

Using triple medium chambers for a brood nest seems to be more and more popular. I haven't made the switch here (yet?); seems it would be a pain to search through three sets of combs to find a queen. (For swarm control, divisions, requeening or what-have-you.)

Reply:

Three mediums for a broodnest is certainly better than one deep super for same; and three deeps for a broodnest is better yet for unlimited broodnests to let the queen do her thing. However I can understand that mediums are easiler to lift for some, should one have to.

Unlimited broodnests were common until after the turn of the past century, then bigger and less bees became more popular per area of comb, and stores were lifted out into super above to overwinter, rather than pack the sides for insulation from cold (or heat).

Joel wrote:

There are certain mgmt. operations when you need to know where she is.

Reply:

For divisions, swarm control many times it is not necessary to find the queen. You can clue in on other signals to know where she is or just split and go with it, though the methods are older that do this.

For changing queens, finding the old one is not really necessary in all applications, i.e. virgin queen drops does not require the looking up of the old queen before introducting the new virgin. Also introducing cells does not actually require it either.

Joel wrote:

Dr.C.L.Farrar preferred the mediums years ago (although his held 12 or 13 frames, and were square). Evidently he didn't see the increased frame wood and gaps in the brood nest as hindrances to the queen's laying pattern. Others have claimed it is not ideal.

Reply:

This is true of Farrar. I liked Fararr and his unlimited broodnests. Learned a lot reading his stuff.

Yes, if frames fit in supers properly, the space between the supers is no hinderance to a queens movement, of moving brood frames up and down the center gut, when one knows the triggers between drone and filled honeycells on frames for movement.

Joel wrote:

For equivalent brood nest volume, mediums are more expensive than deeps, but it sounds like those who prefer them think it is well worth it. Eh?

Reply:

It saves the back as you get older, but then many older (like me) don't lift full supers. We work with a brush the old way, one frame at a time and look and listen to the bees, to see what is happening in the colony. You can see a lot looking with little smoke and using a brush, and no dopes to mask what signals from the bees you are seeing (They behave quite differently really!).

Joel wrote:

Any further comments, pro/con? Anyone using mediums for brood and surplus, without using excluders?

Reply:

Excluders have always been called honey excluders and barbecue racks for meat here; or better used as swarm includers, or bee includers for new divides until the old queen is stable again, expecially after a shakedown.

Joe wrote:

Can anybody vouch for the claims that overwintering is more successful in mediums?

Reply:

Good question. Multiple mediums right? Yes it would be more successful.

Now Joel, come on over to the queens and breeding section and join Clay and Robert and me on breeding discussion. Clay is from NY also, and that is where I was born and raised early on.

Regards

Dee
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top