Author Topic: Finally was able to order the observation warre hives! (Read 21927 times)

Barbarian · « **Reply #20 on:** November 20, 2014, 11:42:26 am »

Vosse .... How about a bit of confusion ? As the saying goes ---- " There is more than one way to skin a cat. "

The first image shows a dummy board on the left. The Hoffman frames are pushed together and the space at the end is filled with a loose dummy board. The board helps to stop the bees building brace comb in the gap between the end frame and the wall.

The lower image shows two more ways to space the frames. The slide-on plastic ends on the frame lugs won't help you since your frames have short lugs. I am now using the fixed metal spacing strips (castellations) to space the frames in my brood boxes. If you look carefully you can see a slight gap between the Hoffman shoulders. The castellation is set at a slightly wider spacing. It seems to work OK. The frame shoulders don't get glued together as hard. I am in the process of phasing out my Hoffman frames and replacing them with straight sided frames.

vossejongk · « **Reply #21 on:** November 22, 2014, 12:02:28 pm »

Not really fond of the dummy boards, feel like it's a waste of space when they're not needed. The metal spacings seem like the best option imho

Perry · « **Reply #22 on:** November 22, 2014, 01:35:18 pm »

I have a bunch of of those 9 frame castellation rests and hope to convert most of my honey supers to 9 frame in order to speed up the uncapping process. Not too sure how easy it will be to pry frames out of the boxes as there is less room to "wiggle" them to free them up.

LazyBkpr · « **Reply #23 on:** November 22, 2014, 05:27:09 pm »

Perry, Thats the only thing I dont like about them.. you can pry those frames UP and thats it.. there are pros and cons.. breaking a frame loose side to side can squish bees... but, when you do an end frame that has few bees its a lot easier to pop it loose sideways, and less chance of breaking the frame.

Perry · « **Reply #24 on:** November 22, 2014, 08:09:54 pm »

I have to agree. One of the big keeps I inspected had these metal ones in a lot of their hives. Thankfully this outfit insisted on having one of their employees remove the frames from the hives being inspected till he found frames with brood on them, and then hand them to me. They do not want anyone else potentially rolling queens etc.
I saw more frames being broken (top bars pried right off) than I ever care to see. One of the problems with the uber large outfits is they do not get the opportunity to go through their hives on a consitant basis and keep their frames cleaned up, so they get propolized to death.

apisbees · « **Reply #25 on:** February 25, 2015, 03:28:26 pm »

Comercial guys like them because a lot of times the hives are worked and equalized prior to moving the hives for pollination or honey flow. The frames are loose when the hives are moved so the spacers keep the frames from shifting and squishing bees and possibly the queen.

vossejongk · « **Reply #26 on:** April 14, 2015, 01:34:54 pm »

Did some painting today, only a month before the bees move in

Halfway done, the other hive will have to wait till tomorrow

Jen · « **Reply #27 on:** April 14, 2015, 01:38:51 pm »

Sweet! I do hope you will take plenty of pics as this project proceeds

LazyBkpr · « **Reply #28 on:** April 14, 2015, 08:49:31 pm »

awwww..... Sniff... cry.... I remember the days I could assemble.. ANYTHING in the house...

Looking good! Looking forward to more pics!!

vossejongk · « **Reply #29 on:** April 20, 2015, 02:25:01 pm »

Lmao lazy, wife won't let you anymore? Maybe show some bees how mean she is to you

Anyway I had some other stuff that was more important to do so I got a little delayed, but hive 1 is now finished!

My craftsmanship isn't the best so the roof isn't perfect, but it will do good enough. Maybe the 2nd roof will go better haha

Rear:

Roof:

LazyBkpr · « **Reply #30 on:** April 20, 2015, 08:59:15 pm »

Looks like it will shed water to me! Looking forward to seeing bees in those!

riverbee · « **Reply #31 on:** April 21, 2015, 10:36:25 pm »

thanks for the photos vosse! very, very cool! looking forward as scott said to updates with bees in!

vossejongk · « **Reply #32 on:** May 17, 2015, 11:01:28 am »

Today was the big day!

Ready & waiting

Hive that'll donate bees & queen

Syrup on it for them to build comb. I took an old frame, heated the wires so the comb fell out, split and melted it back in to 2 warre frames so they have at least a small head start for storage and the queen can start laying right away.

Still a bit chaotic but they'll settle down

Checking out her new front yard

Edit: Half an hour later, they've found the syrup lol

Jen · « **Reply #33 on:** May 17, 2015, 02:59:35 pm »

Voss!! I call that a 'Bee Feat' I don't know if I could have put that whole thing together. You Rock!

LazyBkpr · « **Reply #34 on:** May 20, 2015, 02:03:03 pm »

Looking good so far! Well done!

vossejongk · « **Reply #35 on:** May 24, 2015, 05:27:54 pm »

They're doing quite well! They're building new comb really fast and the queen is happily laying eggs. Started a treatment with with beevital hiveclean today to kill off as many varroa as possible before the brood is capped. This evening it was time to melt some foundation in the frames, i guess it won't be long until they need them.

vossejongk · « **Reply #36 on:** May 26, 2015, 07:04:48 pm »

Little happy bees building comb like there's no tomorrow

LazyBkpr · « **Reply #37 on:** May 27, 2015, 09:18:18 am »

Looks like they are going to town!

riverbee · « **Reply #38 on:** May 28, 2015, 11:22:07 pm »

cool photos vosse! thank you!!!

blueblood · « **Reply #39 on:** May 24, 2016, 08:48:43 am »

How are the bees doing now?