Comb honey. A journey of learning

[max2]

Good to see that "one handed Les" can manage.
I wish I had a young helper.

I took some honey off yesterday including a few 1/2 frames I will cut into comb honey.

We definitely have a good flow on and pretty well prefect weather again.

I was mowing this yard early this morning (around 7AM on the first day of the year)  and the bees were very calm, coming in with heavy loads.
Often they are not too happy with the smell of petrol and the fast movements in front of the hives.

If the weather hold I plan to take more honey off tomorrow.

One question: how do you burn your name on the side of the boxes?

[Lesgold]

Hi Max

Happy new year to you and all forum members. I can?t mow around my bees without upsetting them unless there is a good flow on. Sounds like you have plenty of nectar coming in. Good luck with it. We did the markets yesterday and saw good crowds coming through after a slow start. Wish I had some comb to sell as people asked for it. Looks like it?s becoming a bit more popular, especially at this time of year. I had a brass stamp made for the mini frames. I just came up with some simple artwork and sent it off to a company who machined it out of a solid block of brass using a CNC router. I then attached the brass to a handle and the jobs done. The brand is heated with a propane torch.

[Michael Bush]

I bought the branding iron from Mann Lake originally, but I bought additional irons from Nova: https://www.novatoolco.com  The beehive ones are here: https://www.novatoolco.com/Brandingiron-BeeHive.htm

Can't say if they will ship to Australia or not... but I often buy things in Australia and have them shipped here.

[Lesgold]

Hi Folks,

With the markets coming up, I thought I?d have a quick peak into the hive carrying the mini frames. On inspection, about half were fully capped. As you would expect, the frames in the centre of the box were done with most of the outer ones getting close.

When I first started using this system, I would wait until the frames were fully capped and then pull the whole box at once. As time went on, I started to take capped frames as required and replace them with with new frames. The problem with that method was that the bees would draw new comb in an uneven manner and the frames would end up being lop sided. The solution was quite simple. If I took 10 capped frames and then placed any new frames in one block, the bees would draw out the new comb evenly. This does require a bit of frame manipulation but that only takes a couple of  minutes.  The centre block was setup yesterday so that I could take what I needed today.



If I was organised, the whole process could have been carried out in one operation but unfortunately I only had a few frames constructed and had to jump in and build some more and add foundation to them.

[Lesgold]

It was a simple task to take a couple of mini boxes down to the hive in prep for the rob.

The centre block of frames was removed and replaced with new empties.

The frames were quite good considering the small flow that we had over the summer.



Even though the bees were quiet, I wore gloves to protect my injured hand. I should be able to repeat this process in a couple of weeks if the Black butts continue to flower.

Cheers

Les

[Lesgold]

With the season coming to a close, it is now time to start experimenting with comb honey frames again. The mini frames that I have been selling at the markets are quite popular and the bees seem to work them slightly better than the other designs that were shown early in the thread.They also require a little less work than the other methods. One criticism of the mini frames is the size. A smaller frame would suit some people and also keep the purchase price down a little. With this in mind, I started experimenting with a couple of designs.

The first frame is one of the mini frames that I currently use. I can get 30 of those into a specially made 10 frame box. The second frame is a cut down version of the first frame. 50 would fit neatly into a custom box. The third frame is a smaller frame utilising a slightly different design. It would be a frame that is held by the base  into small slots with bee space on all sides. This design would allow only 45 frames to a box.

Regardless of size, each frame cost less that 20 cents each to produce. At the moment my preference is for the cut down frame as it would give a better financial return per super but the appearance of the last frame is a little more appealing. I would be interested in your thoughts.

Cheers

Les

[Lesgold]

After quite a bit of thought, I decided to use the cutdown mini frame as it has a few advantages over the smaller frame. The main reasons are:
1) The cutdown min frame will fit 50 frames to the box rather than 45 of the smaller frames. ( this is due to bee space design)
2) End bars are concealed and do not get a build up of propolis and wax which makes cleaning a quick task before packaging.
3) This method works and modification of the design is only a minor task
4) unit cost is only about 5 cents more than the smaller frames

I just finished building and painting a box to hold the frames.

Material used was 120x19 pine. The ends of the box have rebates cut to a depth of 8mm.
Dividers are dropped down 8mm from the top of the box.

[Lesgold]

The dividers are lifted 9mm from the bottom of the box to give bee space to allow horizontal movement of bees above the excluder.

Spacer blocks were used to keep dividers accurately spaced to ensure precise fitting of frames. You will see that some of my marking out was not correct which was corrected by the spacers. The next job will be to construct frame making jigs.

[Lesgold]

Just finished making an assembly jig for the new frames. The jig holds pieces in place for the stapler.

This ensures that the frame is square and allows the nose of the stapler to sit in exactly the right position.

Next job will be to cut material to size and make 50 frames.

[Lesgold]

All the remaining jigs were constructed yesterday.

They include a plug press for pushing and holding foundation in the frame, a jig for holding the frame while the hot stamp engraves the frame and two templates for cutting foundation to size. I bought two 8 foot length of 3x2 non structural pine from my local hardware store and cut and assembled all frames. This material may contain a knot or two (which is cut out) but the timber is only about 30 to 40% of normal untreated pine. I had enough material to make 60 frames plus a lot of the jig components. Unit frame cost ended up at 16 cents which is more than reasonable. Foundation was trimmed to size using the templates and a pizza cutter. It will be inserted into the frame during the next honey flow in the spring. All jigs did their job and cut assembly time considerably.