Cleanse it with Fire!

After the surprising abundance of Commercial Brood Boxes and frames at this years Beverley Beekeepers' Auction I had a little cleaning work to do. Used beekeeping equipment can be a vector for nasty diseases and viruses so properly sterilising second hand kit before introducing it to the bees is a must.

Toby surveying the work ahead.
He didn't help.

Normally hive boxes are sterilised by scorching with fire. Gamma irradiation works pretty well too but isn't hugely popular in the UK at the moment. The Hulk was created when Dr Bruce Banner came into contact with Gamma rays which tells us that Stan Lee knows bugger all about Gamma radiation. The cost of acquiring and storing your own radioactive isotopes and equipment pretty much rule that out for most beekeepers over here so I decided to go with fire.

So far I've always used a small butane torch, the kind that uses small metal cylinder you buy from DIY shops. Looking at the job ahead I was pretty sure I'd be blazing through cylinder after cylinder trying to scorch all those boxes so it was time to upgrade. I popped to Toolstation and picked up a gas hose, regulator and torch kit -basically a Roofers Torch but a few quid cheaper for buying it as separate items. With torch ready I then needed a tank of propane. You can get them from garages and they offer much better value for money than buying loads of little disposable canisters. The downside is you need to pay about £40 deposit on your first bottle. I didn't really want to do that. It turns out that because of the deposit system the gas supplier remains the owner of the actual gas bottle and they exchange it whenever you get a refill. This means that scrap merchants won't accept them and you cant take them to the tip, unfortunately nobody ever seems to get a full refund on their last gas bottle so it's a canny move by the suppliers. This means unwanted gas bottles tend to get fly tipped a lot. I had a drive around till I found a nice red 13KG Calor Gas bottle sat doing nothing popped it in the car and took it to a local garage. There I exchanged it for a 6KG bottle of propane saving myself the deposit -and presumably returning a lost bottle to circulation, Everyone's a winner -well me anyway :)

Flame on Johnny

The bigger the bottle the cheaper the gas, I opted for a 6KG bottle rather than 13KG simply because I need to be able to lug it about the patio and at some point it's likely I'll want to take it to the apiary. Something I hadn't realised was that the nozzlethingbit (it probably has a better name, but I don't know it) on the gas bottles are made with a reverse thread so when I tried to attach the regulator turning it clockwise it didn't go in at all. After a light bulb moment I spotted the problem and managed to assemble the thing. With it working I blazed through all eight Commercial Brood Boxes with ease. LPG gives a hotter flame than the butane mix in the small cylinders and with my new torch I was using a bigger flame too. It did take a little getting used to working round the hose though and at one point I singles off a 2" wide strip of hair from my right forearm. Oops. No major damage though.

Sterilised woodwork

With the boxes now sterilised it was time to turn my attention to the frames. I decided to boil them in a Soda Crystal solution using one of my Burco Boilers. They didn't fit in completely so it meant boiling them in the solution then turning them over to do the other end.

Hot Tub Time Machine

I stopped them floating up I used the Burco lid as a weight. It took ages to get through all the frames and a few I had left still to do.It occurred to me that the metal boiler was probably losing a lot of heat out of the sides as the evening wore on and temperature dropped so I grabbed a few brood boxes and put them over it.

Sheltering the Burco in a few Brood Boxes to keep the heat in/

After boiling each frame was given a quick scrub with a nylon brush in a plastic tub of water and stacked up to air dry. Once thoroughly dried the frames were put into the brood boxes for storage.

Stack of cleaned frames left out to dry

Reviving the Burco

Since it's purchase for low sum if £11 at the 2012 Beverley Beekeepers Auction my Burco boiler has served me well. I had intended to use it to boil frames and render wax but never got round to those things, instead it's been used to make up gallons of syrup to feed in the preparation for Winter, blanch a huge crop of sweetcorn cobs and make gallons of sterilising fluid. This year it died unfortunately.

Using a multimeter and very little know how I was able to identify the element was the problem. Wasn't exactly rocket science, there's only two components in these boilers -the element and the thermostat/switch unit thing. I don't really know ho old the unit is but it's probably knocking on a bit as Burco have altered the design slightly over the years and I'm sure the element has had a few knocks from the drill powered paint stirrer I use to mix syrup so it's probably done well to last this long. When I took a closer look at the contacts below the element I could see some molten plastic. That's rarely a good sign.

Something's melted there. Probably not a good sign.
I hadn't noticed the dead spider till I loaded the photo for cropping.

Removing the element proved tricky. It's held together by 3 screws, two came out easily enough but the one nearest the molten plastic was going nowhere. Eventually I got out the Dremmel and using a cut off disc simply cut the screw beneath the head going through the plastic housing too -it's all part of the element so it'll all get replaced anyway.

Cutting out the stuck screw

Sorted.

The original element had had a little stud to hold a washplate that kept anything in the boiler from direct contact with the element. After some Google searches it appears Burco dropped that feature a long time ago and nobody seems to make replacement elements with them on now. I gather people used to use these boilers for washing clothes and cooking back in the day but as washing machines have become more available and people cook less it's probably become a redundant feature.

Original Burco element with stud for Washplate

The washplate

The 1 9/16" hole Burco adopted seems to have become something of a standard size for boiler elements so it turns out there's plenty of replacement elements out on the market. However actually getting one proved a little tricky. The first eBay seller I tried to buy one from simply didn't post the item. I think they tried to rip me off really but I got a refund from eBay. The second one I tried to purchase had shown an element with the same shape as the original Burco element but the one that arrived was a cheap unbranded knockoff with an element that less surface area than the original. Who'd've thought the appliance spare parts market was such a dodgy place?

Cheap no name knock off element on the left, original element on the right
The original element is about 135cm long, the knockoff about 95cm

I contacted the seller who claimed it was a like for like replacement, but gave me a refund after I pointed out the element they sent me had far less surface area and also no CE logo or anything else to suggest compliance to any relevant electrical safety standards. I'm pretty sure the original element was 3Kw and this one is stamped 2.5Kw however as it's eventually turned out to be free I'll go ahead and use it. I'd be a little wary of leaving one of these cheap elements running for long unchecked but I usually use my boiler outdoors anyway.

Whilst there were no instructions with the replacement it was easy enough to fit. It had a red hard plastic washer which I left in place to go between the element and the boiler floor, a large black rubber washer and a big nut. I figured the rubber washer was probably supposed to go between the nut and boiler floor above it. I tightened it all by hand and a quick test filling showed it was watertight. I haven't got a clue what the red wire included with it was for so I've not used it.

Whilst the contacts were different to the original and not marked I figured polarity wouldn't matter so  hooked up live and neutral. Actually the contacts seemed dangerously close together so using two pairs of pliers I bent them away from each other. Don't want the thing arcing after all. There was a screw contact for ground so I just cut the end of the connector off, jammed it in and tightened the screw.

The new element contacts after I'd bent them away from each other

The new knock off element in place

When I originally got the boiler it was missing one of its three rubber feet so for four years I've been sticking a bit of wood under it. Whilst it was out of commission I figured I may as well replace that too. At 25mm tall and 20mm in diameter nobody seems to sell them so I decided to replace all three with the closest I could find. I managed to find some the same diameter that were slightly shorter SwanFlight a company that sells flight cases and flight case parts. The existing feet use counter sunk 25mm screws and with a little checking against a screw thread gauge I figured they were metric 0.8 pitch so ordered a bag of 25mm M5 bolts  from eBay for just over a pound. May as well replace the old screws with new as well.

New bolts and boiler feet, the old two are at the top

New feet fitted with no help from Toby.

The Burco sticker was long gone but as it has some info about power and model number I printed a new one copying the info from an eBay advert for the same boiler. I stuck one on the side and another underneath and a third underneath and on the inside in case wear and tear loses me the other two.

At some point I'd tried to clean the aluminium lid with something that'd stained it leaving a darkened area that nothing since had ever shifted. The  only thing for it was to sand it. A bit of work with some 400, 800 and then 2000 grit wet and dry paper improved things considerably.

I was back to a working Burco. :) 

One working Burco Boiler

Actually with all the faffing about with the first eBay seller wasting my time I couldn't wait any longer to get sugar syrup made and into the bee feeders so between this boiler dying and being resurrected I'd had to buy a replacement boiler. They're pricey things but I found a 6 gallon Burco on Gumtree for thirty quid. So at the mo I've got two working boilers and the capacity to make up 10 gallons of syrup at a time. As well as making syrup and boiling frames they can also be used for brewing beer.. there's a thought.