Ok folks, here’s what I came up with…
The slatted rack I built has a solid board in the middle (pic #0024),
to prevent cold drafts from blowing up through the center of the brood chamber.
Hopefully the queen will lay all the way to the bottom of the frames now.
The Clustering Super will not be duplicated with dowel rods in the future (Joseph
was right, too expensive) next design will be boards with long slots cut with a router.
I’m working on it now.
I like the way the entrance turned out on the C.S., it sticks out from the front of the
hive about 4 inches and the entrance could be placed any where in the stack of boxes.
It’s larger opening is easier to “hit†in the Texas winds, yet the openings through the
dowels are actually smaller than a standard bottom board entrance and could be
defended by a smaller number of guard bees.
I plan to place the C.S. on top of the brood chambers (three mediums).
So I’ll have on the pallet – Slatted rack, brood boxes, The C.S., then honey supers as needed.
With an entrance in the middle, the bees can enter, and then go down to the brood
or up into the supers.
Some of you will question the “bee space†violation of the dowels, but if the bees
build any comb among the rods, I’ll address it in the next design.
#0022 a small heavy-duty pallet that I cut to fit the “slatted rackâ€.
#0016 the rack installed on the pallet.
#0024 view of the rack standing on end on a table top.
#0023 view of the bottom of the rack.
#0017 Clustering Super laying upside-down on the table, the pallet
(on the ground) is showing in the background.
#0021 is a close-up of the spacing of the dowels in the CS.
#0020 shows the CS entrance on the left as it sits on the rack.