What did you do in the Apiary today?

[maddydog]

I see your point but the insulation is wrapped in a thick plastic and sealed so it shouldn't get wet inside....and I have enough celotex to make a big roof to hang over the edges. I will have to do something after we finish feeding.

Fair enough but if by chance it does get wet then it'll possibly make a mess of your hive and bees. I've experimented quite a bit with celotex cosies etc and finally settled on poly brood boxes with 50mm in a standard roof. If I was you I'd just put some celotex above the crown board and give them an extra pound or two of sugar!

 

[Obee1]

fabricated a handy little eke to take a varrox under a Maisie's nuc Finished the first round of bleaching all the hives.
Mixed a little harmless herbal tonic into fifty gallons of invert.

That handy little eke sounds just the ticket. I want my OH to make one for my 4 nucs that need vaping. Any chance of a pic?

As for what I did today - I bought 40 kilos of sugar at 39p each from farm foods. Then made a jerry can of syrup and added thymol. Tomorrow I will go dole it out.

 

[Tremyfro]

Fair enough but if by chance it does get wet then it'll possibly make a mess of your hive and bees. I've experimented quite a bit with celotex cosies etc and finally settled on poly brood boxes with 50mm in a standard roof. If I was you I'd just put some celotex above the crown board and give them an extra pound or two of sugar!

I've got a poly langstroth...it's a double nuc...but I didn't really want to move them. I was thinking of insulating the wooden broodbox and roof.

 

[maddydog]

I've got a poly langstroth...it's a double nuc...but I didn't really want to move them. I was thinking of insulating the wooden broodbox and roof.

No I wouldn't move them now. If they're in a wooden hive then I'd leave them and just put some celotex in the roof. I'm guessing countless colonies have over wintered this way

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

That handy little eke sounds just the ticket. I want my OH to make one for my 4 nucs that need vaping. Any chance of a pic?

As for what I did today - I bought 40 kilos of sugar at 39p each from farm foods. Then made a jerry can of syrup and added thymol. Tomorrow I will go dole it out.

I'll go out to the shed and get it tomorrow - but it's simple - four pieces of two inch wide lath screwed together to make a bog standard eke (for want of a better word) but it fits between the feet of the nuc, notch cut in the narrow end that the shaft of the varrox can fit in. put the varrox on your metal plate (or piece of ply, whatever), put eke in place. close nuc, place over eke, vape, after the two minutes, move nuc back to original position and move on to next - open nuc entrance, job done.

 

[Teemore]

JBM - it may be helpful to create a "guide" in your varrox eke to ensure that the hot vaporiser doesn't drift away from the mesh insert and end up under the poly part of the floor. I discovered that the weight of the flex can pull the evaporator to one side and found a "witness" mark on a poly nuc when I was cleaning up nucs back in the Spring....

Just to get back on thread, I gave three Nucs a wee drop of syrup last night when I finally got home. There is a real smell of ivy around all the stocks to the extent that walkers passing within 6m of one of my apiaries yesterday were heard to be asking what the smell was.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

fabricated a handy little eke to take a varrox under a Maisie's nuc Finished the first round of bleaching all the hives.
Mixed a little harmless herbal tonic into fifty gallons of invert.

I understand that bleaching the hives has the useful side-effect of dropping mites so that we can see whether treatment with Api-Bioxal (TM) is needed. What sort of drops are you getting?

I have Apiguard (real Apiguard, not a trial of Thymol to see if Apiguard is needed) on three hives and only one is giving a drop. The other two are a near-complete blank. Must have super-queens; should set up a Q-selling subsidiary. Umm. But are drops down this year?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

That handy little eke sounds just the ticket. I want my OH to make one for my 4 nucs that need vaping. Any chance of a pic?

JBM - it may be helpful to create a "guide" in your varrox eke to ensure that the hot vaporiser doesn't drift away from the mesh insert and end up under the poly part of the floor.

Here goes - as I said it sits between the feet of the nuc and can be made narrower to ensure only the mesh floor is available to the varrox - it was that wide with me for stability and I happened to have an eke I made for a plywood nuc years ago now redundant. the combination of the slot and the fact that only the pan and the foot of the iron is within the eke means that the varrox can't be moved out of position.
No need for faffing around making a hermetic seal around the eke or anything - very little escaped on testing.
Just put the charged varrox down on the metal plate, put eke over then move closed up nuc over the lot

 

[Teemore]

Ah! A pictureis worth a thousand words. The notch in the eke is snug enough to hold the vaporiser in place. I sense a slight modification happening to the eke I have been using.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Ah! A pictureis worth a thousand words. The notch in the eke is snug enough to hold the vaporiser in place. I sense a slight modification happening to the eke I have been using.

A minute with a mitre saw and a 1/4" chisel and job done
Actually took me more time to find the chisel than do the job!

 

[madasafish]

A minute with a mitre saw and a 1/4" chisel and job done
Actually took me more time to find the chisel than do the job!

Mitre saw? I'm too mean (the Scottish ancestry)..I'm a (royal? Stewart..

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

A minute with a mitre saw and a 1/4" chisel and job done

I meant tenon saw!! mind's all over the place today!!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

A minute with a mitre saw and a 1/4" chisel and job done

I meant tenon saw!! mind's all over the place today!! (although I did use a MITRE BOX to do the cuts

 

[shudderdun]

I meant tenon saw!! mind's all over the place today!! (although I did use a MITRE BOX to do the cuts

Do you mean Mitre Block --- te-he

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

no, a mitre box.

 

[Tremyfro]

Checking and topping up syrup...just as I thought...the beehaus haven't taken any down. The national, langstroth and the nuc all guzzling the syrup though.

 

[linoleum bonypart]

Got cosies on two wood nationals while bone dry

 

[Erichalfbee]

Last of the feeders off.
One colony is so busy it could be summer!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Last of the feeders off.

First of the feeders on

 

[Millet]

Still feeding, need to get them back up to 97lb like last years,