apidea management and grafting photos

[fatshark]

Might I suggest the humble screw would be even more secure?!

Fnarr Fnarr ;-)


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[Jon]

You crafty devil ... how do you fit he strip of foundation?

I never use a strip of foundation. Just put the new frame between two already drawn. Same principle as the fishing line frames.

[Jon]

Might I suggest the humble screw would be even more secure?!

Would need to be very thin and if you look at how the nail punches through the plastic it is not going to slip easily.
Give it a try. The side bars are actually quite hard to pull off.

[Blackcavebees]

Would need to be very thin and if you look at how the nail punches through the plastic it is not going to slip easily.
Give it a try. The side bars are actually quite hard to pull off.

Was looking at these with interest last evening, ring shank nails (same price as smooth but not as popular) would increase the grip even more in case of heavy propolising

[gavin]

So, after two months of use, did the nails hold? The plastic frames in my experience rarely get brace comb but if the correx variants are not engineered to the same specification (how dare I suggest that!) maybe it could be a issue.

[Jon]

Yep. The frames work 100%.

[Kate Atchley]

I use this mesh to replace the inner cover when combining a queenright and a queenless apidea. The queenless one goes on top. I transfer the frames to an apidea super which fits neatly over the bottom unit.

Click photos for bigger images.

Attachment 1246 Attachment 1245 Attachment 1247 Attachment 1244

The hole is plugged with fondant and it takes the bees a couple of days to eat through.
The smell of the queenright colony rises up through the mesh so there should be no fighting when they combine.
They first combine in the feeder compartment in the lower apidea - from which the queen is excluded.

Jon you make it so easy for us to follow with your pics. Whereas I took the easier option ... pieces of Qx cut from a plastic excluder and newspaper. The bees seemed to know what to do and I didn't find lots of casualties.

I had reasonable success this Summer using mini-nucs for first time. No absconding; about 75% successful mating; and fun it was too. But dealing with the nucs after they've delivered their queens for last time is a bit tiresome. United them over full colonies, wishing to give the bees and brood their full life-span, but found the bees up their storing honey in some of them, even with well-occupied supers below!

I have one stack of three mini-nucs still active ... with their Qx in place. But they are the standard Apideas rather than the supers, so they don't fit well. I leave the floor pulled 2/3 out and simple strap the boxes gently. The bees don't seem bothered.

[Jon]

Hi Kate
If you remove the floors completely they stack better and can be held together with gaffer tape. Block up any gaps with a piece of polystyrene and tape over them. For a better job, make a surround out of 4 bits of correx which fits tightly over the apideas to hold them in place. For an even better job, buy a few of the supers!

[Kate Atchley]

Thanks Jon.
Correx city it will be!