This is an interesting video I just found about a unique way to have a honey super with clear plastic stacks of the retail sized honey comb boxes in the super. The bees work within the packaging to make honeycomb and store honey.
The idea seems genius. I can’t figure out how he gets the boxes in there held in place.
I’d love to try. When I gave some honey away from my foundationless frames my friends and family loved it.
Honeycomb like that sells easily for $15 to $25 per box around here, depending on the weight. The cassettes work out to about $2.50 each, so there is still quite a bit of profit per box.
Nice post, @Cowgirl! You probably worked it out, but the cassettes are held in place by friction from follower boards along the long edge of the box. The follower boards have a metal spring behind them, which pushes the board up against the cassette stack, wedging it in place. In the honey house video, the first thing he does is use a hive tool to remove 3 metal “springs” from the top of the unit. The follower board can then be pulled out, freeing up the cassettes.
A follower board (aka dummy board) is the same shape and size as a normal frame, but instead of having foundation or comb in the middle, it is solid wood. They are usually thinner than a normal frame too. They can be used to fill empty spaces, for example if you you have a lot of extra space with only 8 frames in a Flow brood box. Here is one from Mann Lake:
They can also be used to divide a box into smaller sections. In the Hogg cassette box, they are placed on both outer sides of the cassettes with springs behind them, to provide pressure from the hive walls, holding the plastic cassettes firmly in place. Any clearer? Following me now??
Hahaha, I thought it was the opposite. And how they were telling him how great he was, and how he could lead them all, etc., etc., anyway, a slight divergence from honey.
I’m in Southern California - so I have less of a worry about winter! I went hog-wild today and purchased a flow super and this hog cassette as well. I might set this hog cassette between the boxes and the flow super. Or, maybe I need to get more bees…
Was looking at Ross Rounds last season as a few guys in a local Beekeeping club had tried them and didn’t have any success so wanted to check them out for myself… think I will take a look at these instead. Definitely like the system and the reduced handling. Now I just need to figure out how to get these landed in Australia for a decent price!
Thanks for posting @Cowgirl, not sure how I haven’t come across these in my travels previously!
Ill go in for one- assuming they have them in 8 frame format? Or then again- are these ‘ideal depth’? Do I need a special super or can I convert an existing one? I have 10 frame ideal supers…
BTW there is a fellow at our bee society who has had great success with using ross rounds apparently.