Framed

At the Beverley Beekeeper's Auction I picked up three unframed Queen Excluders -the wire grid that stops the Queen laying in the honey super. I decided to make wooden frames for them which should make them easier to take on and off the hive and give them some support -plus my motley collection of hive parts from various sources my supers didn't sit quite right on top of them without frames.

Unframed Queen Excluders

 I'd decided to increase my colonies this year so was going to need a few more of these -one per hive and a spare or two so I could swap out excluders covered in wax. Most of my excluders have a thin frame planed on one side so the Queen Excluder sits flat against the top of the frames. This leaves less space for bees to gum up with wax and propolis, however I've also found that my bees tend to glue these down very solidly which means I have to spend longer prying them up when I inspect the brood box. A couple of my used Queen Excluders have been constructed with the frame seated in a groove running down the centre of each side of the frame. This means the grid isn't in contact with the top bars which leaves small gap the bees could build burr comb but means they only glue the edges down making them easier to remove. I decided to go with this design myself.

Mao being unimpressed by the jury rigged tablesaw

After a quick trip to the Wood Shop I came home with three 2.1m lengths 2x2cm of PSE for almost a couple of quid a piece. I thought PSE  maybe meant Pine or Something Else but I googled it later and found it means Planed Square Wood, in case you wondered. Well I live and learn. I figure the width of the circular saw I've made into a table saw was probably about right for a slot the frame would fit in so lugging it outside and setting it up I popped on some ear defenders and cut a slot down the centre of each length.

The galley saw briefly proves useful again

After cutting all three I checked the fit. Perfect. That was a bit lucky. Lugging the table saw back inside I then hauled out the galley saw. This thing spends most of it's time just taking up room and I've thought about getting rid of it a few times but once every few years I find a use for it. I cut each frame side with a 45 degree angle keeping the slot on the shortest side.

Wire Queen Excluder and frame sides

After cutting 12 sides I pushed them around the frame, used some wood clamps and the workbench to hold them more or less together then went round the outside pre drilling countersunk screw holes. I put a japanned  wood screw in each corner to hold it together. Some wood glue would've been useful but I didn't have any handy.

One Framed Queen Excluder

I repeated the process for the other two excluders and finished before it got dark which is a bit of departure from my usual as I tend to finish up working via a shed light and my phone's torch depending on the state of the battery. I'm currently increasing my hives and with these three now finished I think I have one per hive and one spare.

Three Framed Queen Excluders ready for use

Progress in Hive1

Hive1 is now full of bees. I've still not seen that queen at all but eggs are being laid and new workers are hatching, I'm also not seeing any swarm cells or supercedure cells so I guess the bees must like her. Something I have noticed is that the bees in Hive1 are a bit slow to draw comb at the front of the hive, the shallow frame I put in nearest the entrance for sacrificial drone brood is untouched so far, although they have torn down a load of comb on one of the national frames and replaced that with drone comb. The bees are so populous in hive1 I decided to super it and take the chance of swapping out some of the original national framed and their adapters for commercial ones.

I ordered a National shallow to use as an eke for the feeder and built up some national deep frames to place in the national deep box along with the removed national deep frames. It all went fine, I pulled out two national frames removed the adapters and popped them in the middle of the deep box, put a queen excluder over the commercial brood box and the national deep over that. I figured the existing eggs and brood in the removed national frames would hatch and leave those frames whilst the bees below drew out the commercial frames below. It worked perfectly, not one swarm cell was made.

What I did find though was the plastic queen excluder was a total pain to use. The bees covered it in bright orange propolis, some bees got caught in the holes, others got caught in the propolis. Removing it took an age as I had to free it from the box and the frame tops it was also stuck to. I wound up ordering some framed wire excluders and shelving the plastic ones -maybe I'll lose them next auction I attend.

Some bees. Of course.