I have a problem at the bottom right corner of my flow super at the point where the box sits on the queen excluder
A small gap has developed and bees are able to squeeze in and enter the gap and are now doing all the time
This Flow super was given three coats of tongue oil and was commissioned a little over 12 months ago once my brood box was well populated and functioning
Should this warping of a CEDAR box have occurred???
What would be the best approach to fixing this please???
in the short term you could get a sliver of wood and push it into the void. You may need to whittle/saw/something it to fit. Or you could take the box off briefly and staple/glue the strip on permanently.
OR: if it is just a case that the front panel sits too low- you could get a plane out and plane off around 4mm till the box is flush again… It should be OK to place the box on it’s end with bees and all inside if you have a good plane and quickly take off that extra material. Just smoke the bees so they leave the area you need to work at.
I am not sure why you have a gap like that- we have cedar boxes going on three years int he weather and they are still fine.
Looks like a sliver of timber has broken off and Semaphore has given you good advice.
I believe some of the early boxes had joinery issues so the flow people changed suppliers
Very hard to give the precise advice as we can examine it inside and out from all angles.
I think you should take the super off and put it on a flat surface. You can the make the adjustment you think right (take off or put on wood). Bearing in mind that if you take too much off the bottom the bee space may be diminished and the frames pushed up.
If you are not confident in fixing it yourself take it to a joinery shop and ask them to make it good.
Yes it is one of the founding member flow boxes…bought new and assembled on a flat table with a set square!!!..and given three coats of tongue oil…so if as you say there were joinery problems with these early boxes…it may be worth my while firstly contacting Stuart and Cedar and see what they have to say…thank you and Semaphore and Snapper and Busso very much for your helpful responses…Kind regards
I wonder if it’s possible that the box panels were put together faulty?
Haven’t thought it through, but my 3 year out there tung oiled cedar boxes fit just fine as on day one. And I live in a lots of rain and extreme heat environment.
Hey @lizzgill - for a quick temporary fix until you can deal with it properly, try using a wood shim. You can buy packs of these at a hardware store in the lumber section - they’re thick at one end and taper down to almost paper thinness at the other. They can be snapped in half or narrower to fit your opening. Stick one in that gap and and push in as far as it can go, gently so as not to hurt bees. Once it’s snug you can snap off the rest. Any remaining space will be propolized up as long as bees can’t get all the way thru.
I’m inclined to think that there was a very slight, unnoticeable wave in the cut of that box side piece when first made. Then moisture traveled in along the QE, was absorbed into the wood edge that was left raw (as it’s meant to be) and thru repeated swelling and shrinking, it worsened. Just my hypothesis
