Frames. Something's not right.

OK the hive is ready, the frames have been taken apart and scorched, boiled and cleaned with flames, harsh chemicals and elbow grease. I'm pretty certain no germs survived that. Next thing is to get some foundation and reassemble the frames. Whilst Googling for information on foundation I came across this table of foundation sizes courtesy of Paynes Bee Farm. Looking at the table and looking at my frames I began to think something wasn't quite right. My frames looked too big, and the shallows were quite blatantly more than 5" deep.

After a lot of head scratching and little measuring I realised that the hive I'd bought wasn't actually the hive I'd thought. I'd believed I'd purchased a national hive with two shallow supers. But I hadn't. What I had was a Commercial brood box and the two supers were actually National brood boxes. Oops. That's a huge hive. Well I hadn't seen a beehive in real life since the introductory course and re reading the advert for the hive as it was advertised it was pretty clear that the seller knew nothing about beekeeping himself so the advert hadn't been too clear. In the immortal words of everyone's favourite jaundiced everyman Homer Simpson "D'oh!"

Still whilst I have 2 National brood boxes and their frames as well as the Commercial boxes and frames having read a lot about brood and a half and double  brood boxes I've come to the conclusion that a Commercial brood box is probably the way for me to go. When I get bees they'll be in a National nuc. National frames are smaller than Commercial ones, but seriously cable tying some wood to pad out the frames isn't really rocket science is it. Yes, I'm one of those people who's happy to blaze their own trail ignoring the conventions of the nation.

I decided to bin off the Queen excluder I'd got with the hive as although it was a nice wooden framed one I didn't think I had a hope in hell of sterilising it without melting the plastic grille -not with the resources I had to hand anyway. I also needed a couple of new bits of frames to repalce a few that broke during cleaning as  well as the foundation -I also wanted to make up a short frame in the hive to do the sacrificial drone brood varroa control thing, so I decided rather than wait on mail order I'd make a road trip to Thorne to pick up the bits I needed. Postage on anything bee related seems kinda pricey anyway. So off I went to get a plastic queen excluder various bits of Commercial and National frames and foundation for Commercial Deep, Commercial Shallow (for the drones) and National Deep frames.

Thornes shop in Wragby managed to elude my satnav but I found it eventually. It was rather strange actually. It's like a beekeeping supermarket with prettymuch everything in it except customers, and bees. Yep I was the only customer there -well it was a weekday I guess. Anyway I got my gubbins then drove off home to make up the Commercial frames I anticipate needing later.

Incidentally the old comb that I pulled out of the original frames I melted and strained, now I have a half kilo block of beeswax in a plastic bag. I gather I can't let the bees have it in case of disease so at some point I'll hopefully exchange it for foundation.

The Hive

Having read "Bees At The Bottom Of The Garden" by Campion and Hodgson and "Get Started In Beekeeping" by Waring and Waring I decided to take the plunge and buy myself a beehive. On eBay I found some guy selling a load of 'refurbished' beehives -brood boxes, 2 supers, all frames, roof, floor, feeder, crownboard and queen excluder. It took a few weeks to arrive (forever in eBay terms) but eventually I got the postcard to say a courier had tried to deliver it whilst I was out so off I went to pick it up and haul it home.

It was held together with a ratchet strap and wrapped with pallet wrap. First problem was the ratchet strap. I've never used one before so had no idea how to loosen it. A couple of minutes with Google and I had it removed. So here's the hive it it's glory:

Looks pretty good in that picture really. However it was actually in a pretty poor state. The seller's idea of refurbished was closer to what I'd call knackered. The boxes were all pretty loose, plenty of cracks scratches and dents in the wood too. It was  also full some suspiciously dark looking drawn comb, and quite a lot of straw, wood shavings and other random crap from the farm building it'd been stored in -still it was a bargain. I ordered a varroa mesh floor from Fragile Planet and figured I'd better get a second brood box and roof in case I needed it for swarm control later so got them from the same chap in pretty much the same sorry state.

Cleaning up the hive took ages. I pulled out all the frames and cut out the drawn comb with my trusty bolo machette (a must for both the garden and the kitchen) then dissassembled each frame and scraped off the remaining wax, removing bits of wire and nails as I went. Having done that each piece of wood was scorched with a butane torch then boiled in some very strong caustic soda. My housemate wasn't too impressed with the huge pan of caustic soda sat in the kitchen for a week, and by the time I finished I'd got some fairly impressive chemical burns on my arms so she was quite right tobe concerned really. After being allowed to dry the parts were then soaked and scrubbed in a soda crystals solution and rinsed with hot water. The scrubbing was pretty back breaking work but I wasn't really going to take any chances with giving my new bees a hive with disease in it.

Boiling frame parts in caustic soda

To fix up the boxes and roofs I scorched them very thoroughly with the butane torch. I found some large aluminium nails in the back of my local hardware shop where I also picked up some wood filler. After drilling guide holes I banged the nails in to get the boxes good and square, then woodfilled the cracks. I decided I wasn't sure abot the fibreglass roof skins so I pulled them off and scorched underneath then and ordered some metal skins to replace them. Of course the metal skins didn't quite fit so it took a few hours with the lump hammer before I got them on -as well as a tube of no more nails, some short clout nails and a bit of drilling. Must be great living next to me!

I decided to treat the wood but didn't really know what to use. The floor I'd got from Fragile Planet had a nice green treatment on it so I emailed them and asked what it was so I could paint my 2nd hand stuff the same. They replied pretty promptly saying it was a standard fence paint which I could get from B&Q or Home Depot, helpful folks I'll use them again. So off I went for a few litres of green shed and fence paint.

Treating burnt wooden boxes

I gave all the external surfaces two coats of the stuff. I also added a little roof cover across the front of the brood box complete with drip groove as some my neighbours mistakenly believe that leaving a light on all night deters thieves and I figured that'd confuse the bees -as well as make it easy for potential thieves to see what they're up to. Incidentally if I see someone stood outside a house at night with the garden light on I'll think nothing of it, whereas if I see someone stood outside a house in the dark using a torch that really will get my attention. Turn those lights off people -have a look at the International Dark Sky Society website for a few more reasons why you should be doing this anyway. Anyway getting back on topic after adding a landing board to the varroa floor the hive was pretty much finished, just needed to pop foundation in the frames and then get me some bees.