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Thread: drawn comb

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by moteus View Post
    Thank you all the comments are helpful. Why would you want starter strips in brood frames?
    I thought they were only used in supers for selling honey comb, like Heather.
    I use starter strips or the witness mark of cut out frames on all my super frames. I haven't bought super foundation for years.

    As others have said I use starter strips in brood frames in order to allow the colony to produce as many drones as they feel comfortable with. I like to put 3 in each colony and it usually works out at about one frame full of drone cells. The other starter strip frames usually end up with worker cells with very little mixing of the 2 sizes. Once the drone frame has been drawn I put wide spacers on that particular frame despite it being hoffman so that its spacing is a bit greater than normal to accommodate the deeper cells.

    I support the starter comb in the brood box with fishing line as Jon does but I find I can extract unwired super combs without breakages so I have no need to use fishing line or wire. All this saves me time and money and I think the bees are happy to have work to do. I don't buy this claim that a pound of wax costs 8 pounds of honey. I think contented bees make honey and giving work to bees in every stage of development helps.

    However, if you are taking an exam it's probably best not to mention anything that sounds unconventional in case the examiner happens to be unsympathetic.

  2. #12

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    Examiners are well aware of the unconventional & will give the candidate credit for their answers if they are workable and backed up with valid reasoning. Our marking schemes take into account that there are many ways of "skinning the proverbial cat". Also each paper is marked independently by two examiners and then moderated particularly if there is a significant difference between the marks awarded by the two examiners.

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    I know that's true of England masterbk but I don't know about other countries.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rosie View Post
    I use starter strips or the witness mark of cut out frames ...
    What is a witness mark, please, Rosie? Also, what is a cut-out frame?
    Kitta

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    Sorry Kitta if I used too much jargon. When I harvest heather honey from my supers many of the combs end up being cut out of the frames in preparation for pressing the honey from the wax. Similarly if rape honey sets in the comb I cut those out too, although I have stopped taking bees to rape recently.

    When I cut the combs out I cut as close a possible to the side bars and bottom bars but leave a trace of comb under the top bar. This is the "witness mark" I mentioned. To do this I make 2 passes with the knife under the top bar. The knife is held at an angle to the underside surface so that it skims along the edge and not flat against the face of the wood. I do this from both sides and so leave a vee shape under the centre of the underside of the bar. The bees readily draw new comb from this fragment and tend to follow the line quite closely. In fact I won the frame class in our local honey show a few years ago. The class was for an extractable frame and I feared the judge would score mine low because of the lack of wire but he didn't.

    With brand new super frames I use a 6mm starter strip.

    I hope that is more clear.

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    I should add briefly that I would not use unwired comb without first "doctoring" your extractor. A standard extractor would break the combs.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rosie View Post
    Sorry Kitta if I used too much jargon. ... Similarly if rape honey sets in the comb I cut those out too ...
    Quote Originally Posted by Rosie View Post
    I should add briefly that I would not use unwired comb without first "doctoring" your extractor. A standard extractor would break the combs.
    Thanks Rosie - no, not too much jargon. I need to know those too.

    I'll be going a bit off-thread now, but how do you process the cut-out combs of set OSR honey? Also, how do you 'doctor' your extractor to take unwired frames? Do you put the frames in cages into the extractor?
    Kitta

  8. #18
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    Hopefully Susan, the original poster, will forgive us for wandering slightly off thread. Perhaps Gavin will be kind enough to move us to a new thread if we wander too far.

    First set OSR honey. I cut out the set combs and break them all roughly into a plastic settling tank with a honey gate near the bottom. I then put the tank into my warming cabinet which has a fan, heat source (light bulbs), thermostat and thermometer, all built into an old upright freezer. I turn the temperature up to what would normally be considered to be a damaging temperature of about 60 degrees C. Because the honey needs a large amount of latent heat to melt the crystals, the heat penetrates the tank very slowly. The honey melts from the outside and drains to the bottom of the tank. Every hour or so I will return to the tank and drain off the liquid honey before it soaks in the heat for long enough to spoil. Now and again I stir up the goo as both the wax and the honey will be soft by now and breaks up easily. I keep drawing off the honey until the flow rate get frustratingly low. During this part of the process some of the honey might be exposed to the heat for 2 or 3 days but it does not spoil because it is drawn off soon after each crystal heats up enough to melt.

    When I stop drawing off honey I pour the remainder into a stainless steel pail and heat in an oven set to 90 degrees. A pale full takes about 6 hours to melt completely (wax and honey) by which time the honey is ruined. I let it cool overnight and then lift off the hardened wax cap using a corkscrew. The honey left in the pail is then filtered and used in cooking. The honey that had been drawn out of the settling tank invariably passes my glucose oxydase test and I blend it with cold extracted honey and make soft set honey.

    Our oven is heated by electricity but I would be nervous about putting wax in an oven with a naked flame. If you follow my method please don't blame me if you burn the house down!

    While in the warming cabinet stage you will need to turn the temperature down overnight to, say, 35 degrees to avoid spoiling the honey.

    As for doctoring the extractor I converted a manual into a powered one by installing a small DC motor and a variable voltage supply to give a smooth and controllable spin. I also fitted a wooden frame to the feet and below the frame I fitted the softest rubber anti-vibration mounts that I could find. The whole thing wobbles like a spin dryer when stationary but, like a spin dryer, hardly wobbles while spinning provided I start it slowly while the frames are heavy and out of balance. It think this arrangement works a lot better than the more conventional castor method and is far kinder to the floor.

    I hope that lot helps.

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    Thank you, Rosie - that's an interesting detailed reply and a great help.
    Kitta

  10. #20

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    Thanks, drawn comb took us a distance. Rosie you give your bees plenty to do. I also used a warming cabinate home made with a big box insulated with polystyrene and heated by a light bulb under a tin can. It works to my amazement and gently warms the honey.
    As for the drawn comb I had my answers from the expert thanks.

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