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Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #280 on: June 24, 2024, 04:42:04 am »
That?s fine Jim. This is all about making the hive broodless for a while for varroa treatment. My thinking is late summer or autumn (depending n the year) followed by treatment. I will be guided by members advice on this as you guys have the experience in this area.

Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #281 on: June 24, 2024, 09:33:37 pm »
Thought about cao?s reply and had another slight variation for the drone comb with all starter strips. It will be an interesting experiment trying both styles.

Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #282 on: June 25, 2024, 06:26:37 pm »
The final part of the queen cage design was to include an access come release door. The thinking was to cage the queen, place the cage on a drone comb and then sit it in a frame cage. After about a week, the queen could be released to lay out the frame. If you look at the first photo, a piece of wire was attached to the door. This wire is then passed through a hole in the frame cage and bent over. To release the queen, the wire is straightened and pushed down. This opens the door without having to remove anything from the hive and saves a lot of time.

Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #283 on: June 27, 2024, 09:47:59 pm »
I had two more $5 queen excluders that I purchased recently and had a thought about converting those into a frame cage. I wanted to be able to do this by not using basically any extra materials apart from the queen excluders. I was able to cut sides, ends and a base from the two excluders and still have material left over for queen cages if required. Cable ties were used to hold all components together but in thinking about it later on, stainless frame wire could also be used to weave the bits together. A couple of wooden strips and clamps completed the job. All up the cage cost about $12.

Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #284 on: June 29, 2024, 02:18:25 am »
Woke up last night with a design in my pea sized brain and I had to slap myself for being so dumb. The queen cages that I designed using the excluder material should work well but I would need a bunch of them if all hives were to be made broodless. Construction would take days and I wouldn?t really enjoy spending a whole lot of time making the darn things. Then it hit me. What about using the laser cutter to do the job. It didn?t take long to mock one up and here it is. 3mm ply and everything just pushes together with a couple of spots of glue. Wish the brain was in better order earlier on. When cut out, they only take a minute or so to assemble with a spot of super glue added to each joint. A door could also be made from the same material. I did make one mistake with the design. I made the slots too large. They were 5mm wide but they should be a little narrower than that. The queen could squeeze through them as they stand. My digital vernier had a flat battery so I just had a guess as to what was needed. It?s a simple fix so I?m not worried at this stage. I will test it to see if it fits into the frames that were made a few days ago and make a few adjustments if need be.

Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #285 on: June 29, 2024, 08:09:06 pm »
Adjustments to the excluder and a simple swing door was designed. Pilot holes were also added to the frame of the cage and the door which made assembly very simple. A bevel was sanded on the top inside edges to allow a swift positioning of the cage within a drone frame.

Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #286 on: July 03, 2024, 09:29:50 pm »
After experimenting with the laser cutter, I?ve finally figured out a sequence for cutting an isolation cage from 3mm plywood. A good isolation cage can cost up to $120 which is far too much to spend if I need a number of them. The plywood cages will cost between $5 and $6 if I buy a full sheet of ply which will be amazing if they work. I?m quite happy with the design except a couple of areas need a tweak. I?m going to make excluder openings at 4.2 mm which is an average of the spaces in the commercial excluders that I currently have. The other alteration is to reduce the size of the finger joints so that I have more contact points. It will actually make assembly and gluing a little easier. The clips which are made out of galvanised strapping work well and hold everything together. I just had to make sure that some of the holes in the strapping were positioned so that the queen could not escape. The filler blocks that sit next to the top bars have been simplified in design. On earlier designs a rebate was added to go around the end bars. The clips over the top mean that this is no longer needed. Small filler block supports were printed and glued into slots of the excluders. This seams to work very well.  Will post the updated design when I get around to finalising it. If anyone wants a copy of the file, please let me know and I?ll send it to you.

Offline Ben Framed

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #287 on: July 03, 2024, 11:42:37 pm »
Nice work Les..

Phillip

Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #288 on: July 04, 2024, 01:32:00 am »
Thanks Phillip. I?m just running an updated version through the laser as we speak. Just trying to get the design right.

Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #289 on: July 07, 2024, 10:10:40 pm »
A bit of a wet morning here so it was time to get back into the workshop. After making a few frames with starter strips, I decided to make a wooden mould to sit the frames onto  so that I could put a thin guide of beeswax on the end and bottom bars. This tends to ensure that the bees build straight comb and attach it to all sides of the frame. When starter strip frames are placed into a single brood box, quite often the bees don?t draw wax down to the bottom bar which means that you have to be careful when handling the frame. I also tend to wire these frames to increase strength.

The construction process is simple. Cut some flat material such as plywood or MDF and attach it to a larger base. It needs to be at least 19mm thick due to the width of the side bars. Spacer blocks are then glued in place to lift the frame to the appropriate height.
Cling film is then stretched over the mould.

Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #290 on: July 07, 2024, 10:14:53 pm »
Wax is then heated and brushed around three sides of the frame. After about 30 seconds, the frame can then be lifted off the mould. At this stage, the cling film is still attached to the wax. The film can then be carefully removed and the frame is ready to be placed into the hive. The cling wrap can be used a few times before being replaced.

Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #291 on: July 18, 2024, 11:16:50 pm »
Started making a few candles for the markets this Sunday. While the wax was melting and wicks were being installed, the laser cutter was running in the background. I was making a couple of isolation cages from plywood. One file is used to cut the left hand  of the cage side and then a new file is loaded to cut the right hand side. To save time, 4 x left sides would be cut first and then the new file would be loaded to cut the other half. After that, the sides and bottoms would be cut.

Offline Michael Bush

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #292 on: July 22, 2024, 05:31:21 am »
Since I first got an Italian Hive Tool I have liked them a lot.  They are smaller on the hook than the "J" Maxant tool, but still they are hard to get between frames, especially narrow frames.  I have had this smaller tool for a while and liked it, but it didn't have enough length for leverage.  I noticed, though, that the end fit between the frames better.  It's not ituitive that this would work but it does.  So I cut that end on my Italian Hive Tool.  Here is the shorter one I patterned the end off of and the one I modified.  I am really enjoying how easy it is to work.
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Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #293 on: July 22, 2024, 06:04:37 am »
That?s really interesting Michael. It?s funny how you develop a preference for something as simple as a hive tool. I?ve seen beekeepers use hive tools that I don?t particularly like but as you watch them, you can see their smooth and efficient action helps them to manipulate frames with ease. I reckon it comes down to the techniques you develop over time and the muscle memory that allows things to happen without direct thought. The narrow frames that you use could end up causing a bit more frustration without a tool that is specifically designed to suit your situation. Thanks for sharing not only the design but also the logic and thinking behind it.

Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #294 on: July 25, 2024, 12:14:37 am »
I was finally able to get some stainless woven mesh from a beekeeping supplier in Australia. Thought I?d give it a go to see what the quality was like. It?s actually very good. I?ve made a few modifications to the bottom board design to make it quicker and easier to construct. The tray insert now slides on some galvanised angle that is stapled inside the bottom board. It only take a couple of minutes to cut the angle, sit some spacers in place to hold it in position and then staple it in place with the narrow crown stapler. I used some thin gauge wire and some pieces of plastic tubing to secure the plastic tray to the slide in door. I may have to increase the wire thickness but in theory it works very well and is quick to construct. The bottom board will cost about 2/3 the price of a commercial unit but it is far stronger and is made from timber that won?t rot. This in itself means a lot as I?ve heard that you can only expect to get a couple of seasons out of  the factory made units due to the pine that they use to construct them.

Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #295 on: July 29, 2024, 06:07:43 pm »
With the markets coming up on the weekend, a few more decorative jar lids needed to be machined. The lid in centre of the bottom row was made from an old fence post. I wanted to keep the natural, weathered look on the top face but this created issues. Fine cracks permeated through the whole section of the lid which meant every stage of construction required parts to be stabilised with super glue to hold the timber together. This added a lot of time to the turning process as I had to wait for glue to set. It wasn?t a huge issue as there were other projects on the go during this time. I won?t make many lids of this style but they do add a bit more interest to the honey display. A jig has been created to hold lids in the correct location while the bee image is engraved onto the surface. This has reduced setup time considerably.

Offline Ben Framed

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #296 on: August 03, 2024, 01:24:47 am »
Les these are nice.

Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #297 on: August 08, 2024, 01:55:47 am »
Bee boxes, bases and lids after painting are normally given a light rub with beeswax on any surfaces that contact each other. Acrylic paints become touch dry very quickly but they take a long time to completely harden. Newly painted boxes often stick together even a month or so after the paint has dried. The beeswax rub helps to solve this problem. Today I decided to make a hard, beeswax paste that could be used for this purpose. I wanted to be able to apply the paste in a minute quantity using just a rag. I decided to heat up some dirty beeswax for the job and add some vegetable oil to it while it was hot. I started with 100 grams of beeswax and added 100 grams of olive oil and melted them together. When it set, I tried it out but it was a bit harder than what I wanted. The jar was placed in a water bath in a fry pan and another 50 grams of oil was added. This mixture seemed to to work a little better. The wax was still really hard and only small quantities could be removed with a rag. This allowed the finest of smears to be rubbed onto the risers and drawer edges of the bottom boards that I have just finished painting. In reality, a little more oil could still be added to the mix if required. I only used olive oil as it was the first container that was picked up on the pantry. Any vegetable oil should do the trick.

Offline Ben Framed

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #298 on: August 08, 2024, 06:49:59 am »
Thanks Les, A good tip! I learned this form one of your fellow countrymen and a member here which I appreciate; Oldbeavo...

Phillip

Offline Lesgold

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Re: Today I Made
« Reply #299 on: August 19, 2024, 08:38:45 pm »
Just finished another batch of bottom boards. Only a few more to go before they are added to the hives.

 

anything