You won't screw wood or anything else to the top of a swienty national. There's nothing to screw it to where the frame lugs are, that edge is roughly 12mm and the top is bevelled. There is no getting away from the fact that they have a design fault, they overlooked the BBS rebate, so running them without rails is a work around. At least abelo has been designed as a poly version of a timber nat. Pity they weren't around a few years ago, too much kit to go swapping now.
Actually yes you can screw into 12 mm of poly. I suggest you try it. All down to choice of wood or ply, and screws of the right size. My 12mm profile is flat BTW not bevelled.
Personally I had no success with an Abelo Langstroth and have no intention of buying a Nat to try it. The material seemed more a plastic than poly. When two different colonies both fail to thrive when all around their sisters are thriving one gets suspicious ye ken?
PH
Obviously you don't have the new swienty box. The 12mm of 'meat' is compromised regarding screwing because of the rounded profile, I guess there's only about 8mm in contact with anything above. The 12mm could easily have been 14mm because there is a fair gap at the lug ends, big enough that hoffman bars can slip and overlap slightly. To combat this, I lay the plastic runners on the ledge, the thickness of the rail each side makes the frames fit snugly, another work around.
Last Swientys I bought would be now some 6 years old. If there is 8mm of the 12 flat still room to screw to.
PH
That top feeder is a great when winter feeding starts as you know KateOriginally Posted by Kate Atchley
Once you have checked the bees are fine you can just put syrup on in any weather without disturbing them at all
The Paynes means you have to take the lid off and move the inner cover to get syrup down the slot etc
The feeder also acts as a moisture trap above the bees in very cold weather as well as insulation
I wouldn't even contemplate attaching an 8mm strip of ply onto a poly box, never mind screwing down into such a weak area
For info back in the day the only poly available was Langstroth. In order to get anywhere near National one had to do some cutting and also use Smith top bars. The end result was poly Smith which took 12 frames and the strip behind the lugs was roughly 8mm. Unless one was VERY clumsy it worked very well.
Poly is a bit more robust then many think and takes screws very well indeed. Just as a heads up I have been modding poly in one way or another for a fair few years now, since I think it was 90 or 91 I got my first ones and when I took over Craibstone apiary were a good 10 if not 15 that Bernard had made and I went on from there. So give it a try, what have you got to lose? Poly glues and screws very well BTW.
PH
One of my sites is next to a river, every winter i have a rat problem as they try to get into the hives by chewing around the entrances even hive stand legs and in one case through the back of a plywood 5 frame nuc box (the bees survived). If I were to use poly there would be no way the bees would last a winter so not as robust as you might think !
Rats will indeed attack poly no question about that but they will also attack plywood and cedar so really the issue is rat control not hive material.
PH
I think my observations about the swienty national are being dismissed too readily so I decided to take a few measurements so others can decide whether they are their best option if considering the poly route.
Top bar measures 432mm and the recess to take them is 438mm. That's a 6mm gap or 3mm each side from end of lug to the side wall. I lay the frame runners so they fit against the ledge and the end wall and this gets rid of the gaps.
That end wall where the lugs are is 12mm at its widest point. The whole top edge of these boxes is rounded off, which makes no odds with the thick walls but outside those lugs it certainly does. I was far too generous with my previous guesstimate, the total flat edge that comes into contact with anything above is roughly 4-5mm before it begins to curve. This area was always going to be the weak spot unless they chose a bigger footprint but it's weaker than it should/could be (ie the old design) There is no BBS rebate, they completely overlooked it.
Any way you run this hive is a work around. My own are TBS no rail bodges, it shouldn't be like that. I converted all my kit to TBS then along comes this abelo national and it has none of the nonsense, it is what it says it is. I did buy some of their roofs because again, they are a better design.
If I was starting out again, looking to integrate poly, it would be these abelo hives, it's a no brainer.
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