+1Originally Posted by Castor
I'm trying to sketch out some of my plans on paper this year, as in the past the well laid out plans have gone out of the window as soon as things get busy!
+1
I'm trying to sketch out some of my plans on paper this year, as in the past the well laid out plans have gone out of the window as soon as things get busy!
MBC you'd best start by teaching your bees to read.
Went to the bes this afternoon, temp at 12C in glorious sunshine with avery light breeze. The bee tree has survived the winter and was flying a bit. The hives though were roaring, major orientation flights going on and the only slight disapointment was no pollen seen arriving. The crocus is out now so hopefully they will find it soon.
PH
A nice time spent in the garage, even better with the wind and rain outside, putting together:
- One commercial brood (3rd from the T's sale)
- Two supers (2nds from the T's sale)
- Two commercial nuc box OMF's (own design from bits and pieces in the garage)
Part of my, I must be better organised, resolution!
I hope everything went together O.K. Wmfd., I bought 6 off 2nds nat b.boxes and was only able to construct 5 . Seems to be a total lack of any sort of quality control. Boards with missing edges ., top and bottom bars with deep gouges and missing edges and - worst of all made from undried soaking wet timber. I have got a moisture meter and measured the moisture level at 30 0/0 - about 3 times what it should measure. When I tackled one of Thorne directors about it - was fobbed of with a telephone "shrug" and the comment well it goes together doesn't it ? . Not good enough in my estimation. They actually refunded me for the hive I couldn't put together but still a disgrace. I just wonder what sort of shape the hives will adopt after drying out in my workshop
Thanks Grizzly,
The supers have gone together pretty well, and the wood isn't wet. After an unfortunate incident with parallelogram supers a few years ago I've made up a jig to make sure they are square and they look pretty good. I even managed to get another together after we'd been out to watch "Shaun the Sheep" at the cinema - so three more to add to the pile.
The brood was a different story, the finger joints were too tight, stripping wood off as I put together and a knot in one corner, so the corner came apart. I've glued it back together, put in extra screws and fortunately it isn't in a particularly load bearing place, so fingers crossed it'll be OK.
A pile of national brood thirds from the sale is my next challenge. I had some thirds supers in the year before last, and they were very variable, very wet wood, bendy and a lot of filler required. I've yet to open these, so we'll see. I thought they were supers when I grabbed them in the scrum at the sale, so I'm going to need to make up some Hamilton converters which may allow me to cover a multitude of sins, or make some. By the time I'm finished I'm not sure how much of a bargain they're going to turn out to be!
David
I did not buy any this year or last from T but the year before that I got a load from T that seemed to fit together ok and did not have many knots. Also bought a load from Maisymore that same year, they went together with no problem and even though they were pine the quality was perfect with very little warping of the side boards. I now have the equipment to make my own and just have to finish making a few jigs.
It appears from the posts above that T is perhaps not able to purchase decent cedar timber that they use for making "seconds" so as to keep the price at a minimum after all they are in the game of making money with perhaps at least 50% profit to cover overheads. Also the best of the seconds is likely to be kept for shows and the maybe the crap posted out to vulnerable beeks. The cedar does not seem to be as dense as was used years ago and I have had some of my recent T cedar seconds starting to rott along the bottoms even though they were cuprinol treated. The timber is soft seems to soak up water while other older boxes which are a bit dented and knocked about show no sign of rotting or softening of the wood
Does anyone make frames from planks of deal - given the correct jigs it would seem to be a fairly simple process apart from time taken. Considering that they are about £1 (ex sale) it is perhaps becoming worthwhile
Phil the Beekeeper
We use either Scots/Corsican pine, also used Western Hemlock for a few years now, found that white wood such as Norway spruce to be not much use, due to being too weak/soft in use and too much warping of the frames.
Does not take long to make frames if using enough dedicated machines and jigs for each operation in the process.
Filled a kiln with Hemlock for frame making last Friday, boys are out saw milling up the last of five large Hemlocks for frame making right now.
Last edited by Pete L; 23-02-2015 at 12:57 PM.
Filled a kiln with Hemlock for frame making last Friday, boys are out saw milling up the last of five large Hemlocks for frame making right now.[/QUOTE]
Nice to have a kiln. I had one down south when I was in the bespoke furniture business ( dehumidifier type ) and it was worth its weight in gold. Thornes have not got one it would seem - based on the wet rubbish they are currently turning out. English cedar is not really fit for purpose ., its full of knots - quite a lot of of them dead knots that rot and fall out. Making frames is very simple as long as you do a whole large batch operation by operation. If you have several machines you can set up several operations at once., passing the components to each successive machine in turn.
Some very good English grown WRC can be found, but you need to select your own trees...not just order 20 tonnes from the likes of euro forrest. Timber needs to be as old as possible, slow grown, large diameter, small growth rings, preferably from on top of hills rather than fast growing in swampy valley bottoms. The first 12ft section or butt section is the best, the heartwood only, this is often very clear timber with no knots, further up the smaller diameter timber is used mainly for side bars, avoiding using anything with knots, especially dead knots. The white sapwood which i notice in the pictures of some of suppliers of cheap cedar hives, should not be used at all, it is not durable like the heartwood.
I agree, we make enough for our own needs between 15 to 20,000 each season, although last season being what it was had to make another 3,000... about two thirds of the way through the season.
Edit, i believe another reason for the more knotty timber being used by many that just order a load of cedar, is that many commercial sawmills don't want to mill these very large butt sections because they tend to have a lot of large flutes, making it awkward for the sawmills, nice round logs from higher up the tree are much easier and faster to mill...and more knotty.
Last edited by Pete L; 23-02-2015 at 04:14 PM.
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