Short Lug Hive Tool

The beekeeper's Hive Tool has remained unchanged for about 100 years, might even be older. It looks very basic made from a flat piece of steel sharped at both ends with a 90 degree bend at one end and a small hole in it. Despite it's simple construction it's actually something of a Swiss army knife. The long flat part is used pry apart hive boxes the bees have propolised together, the angled part to pry frames apart, both ends have uses removing burr comb and propolis and the hole is for pulling out loose nails.

Hive Tool, it's seen a bit of use.

There's been a few innovations on the hive tool but the only enduring alternative seems be the J-Hook which is flat and has a J shaped arm used to lever frames upwards. Some beekeepers prefer one, some prefer the other. I occasionally use a J-Hook on some of my Nucs where there isn't much space to prise frames apart but other than that I use the regular hive tool. There's also hybrids which are standard hive tool with a J hook sticking out of one side.

J-Hook Hive Tool

To separate frames with a regular Hive Tool the flat right angled part is inserted between frame top bars and the tool twisted to push them apart breaking the propolis seal. It works well, the longer the tool the more leverage you have, if you use one in each hand you can work very quickly. However the tool works better for users of long lugged frames like the National as it can go between the lugs where there are no bees walking around. With short lugged frames like those in my Commercial brood boxes (or Langstroth, Dadant or Smith hives) the tool is inserted between the bars where the bees are. This means there's a risk of squashing a few bees. Whilst it's only a small risk chances are you're doing it on both sides of each frame that's 22 small risks per brood box. I take a little extra care to avoid squashing bees which slows down hive inspections a little, not a problem if you're dealing with one or two hives but ideally inspections should be fairly quick to reduce the impact of opening the hive and if there's a few to go through and the bees are bit edgy the time stacks up. Over the past few years I've given this a lot of thought whilst going through my brood boxes and I've finally got round to modifying a Hive Tool to better suit short lugged frames. I had a few different ideas including cutting out a part of the 90 degree blade or replacing that end entirely with two pieces of bent rebar but as I use that part of the tool a lot I soon ruled them out.

Modified Hive Tool for short lug frames

My modification is the simple addition of two round metal pegs on the back of the tool with rounded ends. I think it's fair to say when it comes to welding I'm a little bit rough. The sum of my welding knowledge comes when I went to pick up a SIP Weldmate 100 stick welder I bought on eBay from a chap in Skirlaugh and he gave me quick two minute tutorial to show me it was working.

Securing one peg with the grabby bit to weld on

I know welding clamps exist, but I don't have one so I used the grabby bit of the welder to hold the pegs in place as I worked. This went okay although one is noticeably a few degrees off of vertical but still works. I use a really cheap pair of welding goggles but had to change the lenses for darker ones as the arc was still too bright, unfortunately that meant until the arc was blazing away I couldn't actually see what I was doing so I reached a compromise using two different shade lenses, one for each eye and switch to the darker one once the arc is struck. It's not ideal and means I have no depth perception but I'm unlikely to do enough welding justify electric autodarkening goggles.

And the second peg

I just used General Purpose 3.2mm E6013 welding rods. Not sure what the voltage was set to but seems to have done the trick.

Two modified hive tools and my SIP Wedmate 100

It's not the most complicated modification. Basically I took a 5mm diameter metal rod, some sort of steel, cut off two 2.5cm pegs, welded them to the hive tool and used a Dremel to round off the cut end and tidy up the welding a little. I decided to go with 2.5cm pegs so that in use there's a space for bees between the flat of the tool and the frame top bars when it's being used.

Pair of modified tools, cleaned up a bit with a Dremel

I've been using these modified tools for a couple of months now and have been quite pleased with how well they work. My welds have held up so far too. The modification still leaves both blade parts of the tool intact which is fairly important as I use them regularly, but it does render the nail puller unusable. I'm not sure how useful the nail puller really is anyway as I've always preferred to use a claw hammer or purpose built nail puller with a claw anyway.

Here's the tool in action. I think it bothers less bees than pushing the regular tool edge between the bars and as the part making contact is rounded rather than a right angle edge it's probably a little easier on the woodwork.

The Short Lug Hive Tool in use.

It's a very easy modification for anyone with rudimentary welding ability and a very old stick welder but it'd be nice if someone starts selling hive tools like this. I think it probably has a potential market out there especially as a few outfits are currently pushing Langstroth hives in the UK. I wanted to call it the rather catchy Frame Seperator X2000 Mark 1 Two Peg Modified Super Lucky Hive Tool Deluxe but beekeeping tools tend to be named after what they do or who invented them so I'll go with the less imaginative but quicker to type the Short Lug Hive Tool which tells you what it is and what it's for.

Two Short Lug Hive Tools