Accent? YOU guys have the accent!!
And everyone knows a rebate is what you get from the manufacturer when you buy an overpriced car!
Pass me the biscuits, crisps, cookies, frys and chips please.
"thinking on all the other idiosyncratic words and phrases that Brits, Aussies and Yanks get confused ; -)
Thank you Sara, that kind of puts me in the picture. I was just going by the photo of Vallies, which shows normal frames sitting on the rebate, thinking that people were concerned about the surface the frames sit on. I was only trying to help. Sorry for the misunderstanding. However one part of a super that could do with reinforcing in āgeneral beekeepingā is the corners. They do get knocked around a bit with the hive tool, lifting supers on & off. Iām assuming w.r.c. could be vulnerable to that damage. The fact that I havenāt ordered any Flow frames for myself doesnāt mean I wont be having anything to do with them in the coming days. I hope when this happens, my thoughts, opinions, suggestions & feedback will be welcome on this forum.
Hey there Miss Cherry Cider Quaffing person you!
Canāt take credit for the outer spacers. Came assembled with the Flow Hive - but, yes, is a nice outer bee space protector!
You shouldnāt be, thatās rightā¦ but people do.
For non flow frame framesā¦brood frames, say? People lever them at the rebate when they should be levering them up between frames and nowhere near the lugs.
Hi Dee, I use a hive tool with a hook now, for many years I used a bread & butter knife like in my earlier beekeeping videos. I have two hive tools with hooks now because they were given to me. I had to fix up a box that was given to me, in doing so I had to do something the same as Vallieās photo. It was a real pain to even the frames up at first, they wouldnāt sit still. Now that it has propolis on it, itās fine, good as gold.
When I first started beekeeping, I started off using hive tools, I kept losing them. One day I grabbed a bread & butter knife & started using that & used the handle part to lever the frames out. That works fantastic:) The knife part with itās flexibility is great for squashing beetles. I still have a couple on the floor of my truck. Now Iām spoiled for choice.
And for those who live in areas where small hive beetle is a pest, just remember to avoid creating any hiding places for them.
If there was ever a good application for penetrating epoxy, the corners of hive boxes is it! That and good stainless screws. We have salvaged pretty beat up boxes that way.
Hi Sara, I salvaged a heap of old boxes myself earlier this year. The frame ledges or rebates, on thinking back, were the best parts. It was mainly dry rot I fixed up, among other things. One trick of mine in some areas, mainly in the bad corners was to screw a piece of aluminium angle to the corner, this is after sanding it back to good wood is to drive some gal. nails in the wood with the heads flush with the edge of the box & fill it & shape it with plastibong. The nails will stop the plastibond from breaking away. I fixed up nearly 30 boxes. If I counted my time in $'s, I would have been better off buying new boxes. Anyway I got the job done with a bit personal satisfaction. These are the nice white boxes in my recent videos.
Hi Rodderick, my strategy is opposite to that. I believe the beetle need somewhere to hide, the worker bees will chase them till they find somewhere to hide, then the bees will propolize them in, thatās whatās working for me. PS, I find a lot of beetle between the top bars & the vinyl mat I use, I squash as many as I can. The rest scurry down over the frames. When Iām finished & the mat is back on, the bees chase them back up again.
Hey Jeff, I think your approach does have a lot of merit, I am mainly concerned that the new beekeepers with low numbers of bees could easily be overrun with beetle. They should avoid creating hiding spots for beetle unless the hiding spots are traps e.g. bottom board slots, silver bullets, etc Certainly the best method as you know is the more bees you have, the less of a problem the beetle is. I have been fortunate this year not too have any SHB issues, however the beekeepers all around me have all lost one or two hives to them. So when you have several hives, a loss here or there is manageable, however if you have a single hive then its loss is a tragedy.
Yes, I know Rod. I have a few weak colonies myself & my strategy works for them also. My observation hive is only 3 frames of bees & I donāt use any traps in that either. I donāt have any specific hiding places in that. The beetle hide just under the lid where the bees propolize them in. I donāt have any specific hiding places anywhere really. The beetles just find them.
A new beekeeper could have a weak colony on too many frames containing food that the beetle like to lay eggs in for the bees to protect. In that case a trap could catch a hundred beetles, but just one, only one mated female doesnāt go in the trap & heads for the unprotected brood or pollen, then starts laying eggs. Followed by another one & so on. Before you know it, the hive is slimed out. Then the new beekeeper thinks āI should have used more trapsā.
SHB damage can always be avoided with good beekeeping practices. It would be good if new beekeepers learned those practices right from the word go.
Hi Jeff, how often do you routinely look in boxes for beetle. I realise youāll be in more often in a colony that has a problem, but I mean just to check?
Hi Dee, I never check my hives specifically for beetle. I certainly squash them when I see them. I always peel the vinyl mat back slowly so I can squash any beetle I see that were corralled between the top bars & mat. I devote some time to squashing beetle whenever I see them. With the strategy I talk about on this forum: To implement my strategy properly, I have to think about everything I do with my hives before I walk away & subconsciously ask myself ācan small hive beetle get a chance to breed up if I leave the hive like this?ā.
Iām not sure if I told this story on the forum before or not but a few years ago a uni student was doing a study on SHB over a huge area of Australia. She contacted me to acquire some live beetles. She came with me on several occasions. She told me I was the only beekeeper she met who didnāt use traps. Apart from that on her last trip she turned up with a suction bug catcher you suck with your mouth which worked really well at catching live beetles, except for one thing, the filter on the mouth end was faulty & she ended up swallowing a beetle. I think she lived to tell the story:). Last thing I remember she rode away on her pushbike with her beetles & faulty bug catcher:)
My flow frames are due to arrive sometime next month. Iām building my own boxes for them and am planning to have just one flow frame per box to start with. Rather than run a metal strip along the length of the back of the rebate, Iām thinking of putting a small pan head stainless steel into the wood directly behind the flow frame adjusting screw. This way the two screw heads will make metal to metal contact with each other and the potential wear problem should be eliminated.
Today I began assembling and painting my 8 frame Langstroth base board. Its turned into a much more intricate structure than I first imagined, but hopefully I will have it bee ready in a couple of weeks. Tomorrow, I will try and record a few pictures as I complete the assembly.
I bumped into this today and remembered this discussion.
I am not sure that I think this would do a better job than the nice installation you did, but still interesting!
Hi ymcg,
Did you ever find a tray to fit? Iām also hunting a tray, Iāve seen some plastic serving ones on ebay (they claim to be the same ones as McDonalds use?!) that look like they could fit the dimensions width and length wise (41 x 31cm) but they seem too deep to fit in the slot at 2.3cm high.
Otherwise I might try your homemade beetle pool idea. Iāve been trying the felt / fluffy tablecloth method for the past week or so and it doesnāt seem to actually ensnare them, it just gives them somewhere to hide ready for me to come and squish them each morning. Maybe Iām using the wrong material but Iāve tried two different types.
I havenātā¦ I tried some of those tin foil trays from the supermarket but they were way too deep.
The fluff isnāt really working for me either, it does catch some bees (Iām using a picnic blanket upside down, and roughed up the fluff using sandpaper) though many seem to crawl away as well. The major issue however is the bees pulling the strands of fluff through the mesh, which gets the fluff stuck to the mesh bottom board. If left too long, like a few days, itās impossible to remove!
Back to the oil traps I guess, though my bees seem to be finding their way into the bottom cavity and Iām worried about drowning them now.
Canāt win!!
I have the same thing with the felt being drawn up through the mesh everyday even though its attached quite tautly to the corflute and inserted on the lower slot. Iād love to actually be able to watch the space underneath that mesh and see exactly how these bees with their tiny legs and mouths are managing to reach through the mesh gaps to drag the felt up from seemingly such a relatively long way downā¦and havenāt they got better things to do with their day 
(like make honey?!!)
In anycase, I have ordered a plastic serving tray online that roughly fit the dimensions required. Iām crossing my fingers it fits or I can modify it to fit and then my attention will then turn to how to bee proof that area underneath but keep it easy to access for changing oil etc. Will let you know how it goes.
I bought some 300mm wide, heavy aluminium foil from James Hardware in Mullumbimby and I plan to make my own tray. 300mm is not wide enough so I will be folding a few pieces together.
Iāve been assembling a rather complicated screened bottom board over the past few weeks. The three mm woven stainless steel mesh is supposed to turn up tomorrow. By this time next week, Iām hoping the paint should have cured enough for the bees. Thatās when Iāll find out if my home made aluminium tray might actually drown a few bees!
Iād like to see some pictures if you have success. I have put a bead of silicon around the edge of the plastic core flute, but any slope the oil runs to one side and leaks out. Iām in Mullum, so James Hardware is my local too.
A few weeks ago I was seeing hundreds of hive beetle, over the last week or so there have only been a few here and there when I pull out the bottom board screen.