wanted frames

[kendo]

hi I have bought 2 old nat hives the boxes are ok but need cleaning and
burning off,i think its best to put new frames in so has anyone got some to
sell,its my 1st attempt to keep bees so advice would be welcome cheers ken 07947195817

 

[linoleum bonypart]

Thornes are having a sale at the moment.....as cheap as you will get.....make sure you blow torch the internals of the hives to kill anything they have living in them

 

[Davelin]

Definitely get new frames, as already stated T,s seconds in their sale are a good buy.

Other advice:

Join your local association, source local bees through your association, go on a course, read some books, avoid most of what's on Utube,etc, etc

This is not a venture to blunder into blindly.

 

[Finman]

.
Kendo, buy a table saw £100, and do yourself the frames.

50 frames to a normal hive. You earn with this more than with honey.



.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

have a look on ebay some cheap frames and wax sold here

neither I would say - expensive and some of dubious origin. Much cheaper and safer to go through big t's sale or Maisie's when it comes out

 

[Barbarian]

Big T's sale is for seconds.

I would suggest that a beginner goes for standard quality frames to start with. With seconds you have to cope with knots, hidden hard layers and maybe a twisted frame at the end.

There is a T's agent only a few miles from Bacup.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Heavens...it's hardly much to cope with. I have always used seconds and out of every bunch of 100 I have to throw away maybe one or two frames.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Heavens...it's hardly much to cope with. I have always used seconds and out of every bunch of 100 I have to throw away maybe one or two frames.

You've been unlucky then

I would suggest that a beginner goes for standard quality frames to start with. With seconds you have to cope with knots, hidden hard layers and maybe a twisted frame at the end.

Only if he's totally bonkers or has got money to throw at his bees.

done well over a thousand 'second quality' frames now and I think thus far I've rejected a couple of top bars, one or two sides and a few bottom bars (doesn't matter if the wedges break in two - just use an extra nail).
If Thornes are that close - you can just pop over and save on postage as well!!

 

[alldigging]

Big T's sale is for seconds.


There is a T's agent only a few miles from Bacup.

where?

 

[Martley]

where?

There is an agent in Fence near Burnley - that would qualify as "a few" miles from Bacup!

 

[Barbarian]

I was thinking of Cragg Vale, Mythomroyd.

 

[pargyle]

Heavens...it's hardly much to cope with. I have always used seconds and out of every bunch of 100 I have to throw away maybe one or two frames.

Not even that usually .. I had one side bar out of 200 that split and that was as much down to me trying to force it in rather than trimming a bit off.

@Finman
I HAVE a table saw, and a RAS and a bandsaw and a planer thicknesser ..and I've made my own frames ... and I still reckon it's cheaper to buy Thornes seconds in the sales ... by the time you've taken into account the time it takes and bought the timber .. no brainer.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I HAVE a table saw, and a RAS and a bandsaw and a planer thicknesser ..and I've made my own frames ... and I still reckon it's cheaper to buy Thornes seconds in the sales ... by the time you've taken into account the time it takes and bought the timber .. no brainer.

I don't, it is much cheaper to manufacture our own frames, in fact they work out costing almost nothing.

 

[pargyle]

I don't, it is much cheaper to manufacture our own frames, in fact they work out costing almost nothing.

Yes Pete ... but you are in that business already and presumably have jigs set up and the ability to buy timber in quantities ... I can well understand that it is very cost efficient in your situation. For those of us making a hundred or two from scratch and possibly one bit at a time ... very time consuming and not always that accurate ...like I said ... No brainer for us mere mortals ...But ..if they are costing you nothing I'm happy for you to make a few for me .. 14 x 12 Hoffmans please ?

 

[iand]

You've been unlucky then



Only if he's totally bonkers or has got money to throw at his bees.

done well over a thousand 'second quality' frames now and I think thus far I've rejected a couple of top bars, one or two sides and a few bottom bars (doesn't matter if the wedges break in two - just use an extra nail).

Ditto
I have a few bits left, but they may come in handy when I do the next thousand. Only the side bars are frame specific, otherwise good for brood or super.

 

[alldigging]

I don't, it is much cheaper to manufacture our own frames, in fact they work out costing almost nothing.

Will you make me some for almost nothing please?

 

[hedgerow pete]

any one can make any thing and its all down to their own costs

if you start from nothing them to buy all the machinery to do so plus the building to do it in divided by the amount of frames you are going to make is massive, i should think several pounds per frame each

many people just need a few, 50 or 100 per year and there fore do the wheel barrow at the spring convention as its the best way forward for them.

once you start to go past the 500 mark per year, you are really looking at bulk buys, special orders, buying in europe or the states and shipping them over and such like, finding someone like hivemaker and asking for a special deal and so forth

higher than that and most start to look at in-house construction because the costs work in that way

where it starts to cause fun is when you start to increase. i went from 4 to 10 hives, so a couple of packs of brood and a few super frames and away we go, at the spring convention i was a small sale to them

when we went from 18 to 60, we drove to poland collected the frames we had ordered and had built and drove back with also the rest of the kit we had ordered, saved around 70% on full book T prices, the downside was a 30% wastage loss on the frames due to warping and splitting, should have paid an extra 20% and had a different and better timber, live and learn

i know several people including my self that have successfully made frames for home use from timbers collected from sites and work, the worst part is the repetition and jig making

i went through 3-10 jigs to each machine station part cutting exercise to make the right former.

was it worth it?

not in the slightest, costs per thousand were ten times purchase prices but a good way to learn and to try these things

i make all my own kit and hives but dont bother with the frames

now on the other hand someone like hivemaker with all his tooling and skills can do the job a lot lot faster quicker and better than a bloke in a bee shed in birmingham, using old tools and drinking far to much tea whilst looking down a camera lens

 

[Finman]

.
You are all adult people. You make own decisions. And mostly results are not very clever.

The most stupid thing is to rear own queens. Couple of emergency queens and one month that the queen starts to lay. And the quality, zero. Walk away beekeeping.

You save £30 or what?

Then you need 50 frames to one hive. You pay for them £ 120, same as good table saw.

And you may do floors, covers, things to your house... Cut finger, what ever.

No time, but months to sit in front of forum and talk intelligence.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

.
You make own decisions. And mistly are really sthoid

I know - it's terrible when the damp gets to them and the threebles go all gangly

.
No time, but months to sit in front of forum and talk intelligence.

Make a change from talking rubbish, but you could always take up knitting if you're bored

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

.
Then you need 50 frames to one hive. You pay for them £ 120,

maybe in your little lala land - £25.00 for 50 with Maisemore's however