Why is the wiring of the frames better horizontal?

You don’t have to make a jig for a small volume of frames. The cost of pre-wired frames is cost effective and time saving at least here.

2 Likes

Very valid point, when there is only one or two hives it isn’t really justified going to the expense of a framing jig and wiring board.
Cheers

1 Like

I built my own jig out of scrap ply, some old thread spools, nuts and bolts and this and that. The only thing I had to buy was the door jamming thing from bunnings for $5. I LOVE it. The advantage of a jig is that it helps to keep the wires tight. You can do the same using some clamps in a pinch… You certainly don’t need a frame jig if you are just making a few frames- but it sure would help- I need to make one when I get the time. I use a cheap battery charger- it’s new but obviously doesn’t have the auto cut off feature as it works fine- and I just use the two clamp touching the wire at each end- don’t need the special tool.

Having said all of that: wiring and embedding is a bit of an art- and if you don’t make that many you can really make a motza of it when you don’t have experience. Badly assembled frames are more trouble than they are worth. The last thing you want is a frame that falls apart when you try to lift it out of a hive or spin it. I have seen a lot of badly wired frames in my time. It took me a while to get the hang of it. For that reason- if you only need a few dozen frames- i would buy them all pre-done. The Urban Beehive in Sydney has good wired frames with 100% pure Australian beeswax (Tobin and Sons), they have eyelets and are glued and nailed- with nails through the sides as well as the tops and all for $7.20 each. They post Australia wide. Making it yourself you can possibly do it for around $3.50-4- but only if you buy frames and wax in bulk.

3 Likes

@Peter48 thank you is nice to now that someone far away from Italy on the other side of the world has some simply for me… :woman_facepalming:
@JeffH I saw your film. and is very clear , Thank you- @Dawn_SD @Zzz @ Thank you for all advise.
well i don’t want to give up yet ( but I am close to it ) with this adventure…
Whent down to see the battery that I have. I use it to charge my little Fiat 500…
I see that it also has a 6 V not only 12 V… maybe it works better… ?
** And…just to make my life easier…I just saw that I have another problem to resolve…** …
This bladdy wax sheet of there D. Blatt frames are not the size of mine FH…
I just put my frame over the wax to take a photo…
I am missing a piece of 2,5 cm at the end as you can see…
Should I leave it like that or add the missing piece and somehow make it stick together ?
.https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B01JYZ24DW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
.

.

2 Likes

@Semaphore- Thank you for your advise… I live on the other side of the world and not in Australia ! Learning how to seal a wax sheet on this frames is a must for the beekeeping school course that I am attending ! We don’t use Langstroth or Flow Hive here in Italy just D.Blatt.

1 Like

You could do that. It will work. The bees quickly build out the gaps around the edges. I would probably hang it in the centre of the frame. Because I am mean with foundation, I would probably cut that sheet in half horizontally and just use half a sheet in each frame. You may get more drone comb if you do that, but the bees make foundation into drone comb anyway, if they want to! :blush:

1 Like

@Dawn_SD thank you so much Dawn. I am going crazy on this thing !! :woman_facepalming:
Any of you wants to take a little trip to Italy ?? It would make things so much easier !! :rofl: :rofl:
What do you think of this solution ?
1- I can turn the wax sheet vertically and putted on the left of the frame…
2- The extra piece that I have to cut off ( because to long )… I turn it horizontally and use it to cover the missing space

on the right…
3- Making it like this I can cover all the frame without living any opening… If I attach the 2 sheet together will i have any problems ?
see photo…

3 Likes

There is wireless pre waxed foundation which comes in sheets and snaps right into your flow frames. I love those because I don’t get poked with wire and it’s very easy to replace without damaging the frame. So possible third option? :smiley:

1 Like

You can cut the surplus off the bottom and position the wax in the center of the frame with an equal gap on each side and it will work perfectly with the bees building comb in the gap.
Cheers

1 Like

:+1: :+1: Ok @Peter48 thank you a lot ! tomorrow I look into that. :+1: :honeybee:

@Martha… you live in the Usa ? ok… I am in Italy… so… if you buy that kind of waxed foundation you need to have the right size ( and WE don’t have them to fit FH ) They only use D.Blatt hives !Not even Langstroth !!
!!! otherwise I would of resolved the problem already ! if they are wired inside you can’t cut them anymore… but thank you for suggesting that to me.

I saw them with the wire inside ready to be use but to have them to fit my frames they need to be cut quite a lot… :woman_facepalming:
and to hold the large waxed sheet in place they need the wire inside ( I think )

@Helene1 - please take a deep breath. Bees are very resilient. You are worrying about tiny things. That is good, but not if it is stressing you. :wink:

I think it would work, but you are making it much too complicated. If you don’t align the wax cell imprints exactly, the bees are going to have to correct it anyway. I don’t think it is worth it. Using your beautiful diagram as a template, here is my scrappy drawing to give you my suggestion:

The bees will fix the gaps around the edges. Honestly, they will. In a nectar flow, they will fix it very quickly. You are going to be a great beekeeper, just try to relax a little bit, and everything will get easier. :wink:

I am going to be in southern France in May, so if everything is horrible for you with your beekeeping, I may be able to persuade my husband to take a trip into Northern Italy. We will see. But I think you will be fine.

5 Likes

@Dawn_SD ok I got it… thank you so much ! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

1 Like

Helene thanks for the explanation as well because I too have wired frames unsuccessfully in my first year of bee keeping. I tried and tried but ended up not do a nice enough job that the bees could wax it in a uniform manner.

1 Like

@Martha hi … I am positive… it will work… I will find on end to this…what I see around is the negative opinion on the Flow Hive … people are used to work the old way… what can we do ? is useless to explain to them that technology is changing… i will keep you up to date… have a nice weekend.

2 Likes

Flow Hives have been on the bee keeping scene for nearly five years now but there are still people who don’t like the idea, and of those people some have never actually seen one in use, they just won’t accept something new.
You have the added problem is your common hive in Italy is not used through out the world like the Langstroth so a Flow Super is not readily adapted for you and your local bee keeping equipment suppliers are catering only for the local market.
When I heard about the Flow Hive I decided to buy four of them so that I had first hand knowledge about them. But I had already had decades of bee keeping experience so saw ways to improve them for my climate and the way I work with the Flow Hives.
So I take my hat off to you that you have taken up the challenge of not only bee keeping but with using a Flow Hive.
Cheers

2 Likes

@Peter48 Ciao Peter… yes things are not easy here… I would say NOT AT ALL ! And been the only one to have a FH is not easy ! I have no one to ask any questions… and at the school no one knows the hive…
*** Now I report you what they told me in school… ( Peter, as you know my hive is new and I am not using it so is not me talking )!!
They wrote on article on this F H and the problem is when a person wants to take the honey out…

  1. if you are not living in a warm climate the honey does not flow out easy
    because is thick
  2. you don’t know the % of water inside…and is not good…
    3)… when you turn the key 90° to open the cells and many bees are with there head into the holes ti cup the last cells you kill them… or they get squash …
    Is it so ?

I have some answers for you on these points, and I am sure that @Doug1 who is a commercial standard beekeeper in the cool climes of Canada can say it better than me…

Sorry, this just isn’t true. Bees heat the hive anyway, so when you harvest on the hive, you have the benefit of warm air from the brood nest rising to help keep it warm. It is true that you have to be patient. I have waited 4-6 hours on occasion for a frame to drain. Most of the honey will drain within 2 hours or less, but if you wait longer, you get the lower water content/higher concentration honey coming through too.

Well, you don’t know that in a traditional hive either. In a Flow super, I always lift the frames the day before harvesting to make sure they are fully capped. If they are more than 80-90% capped, the honey will be good.

Not usually. If you are slow and gentle, everything is fine.

3 Likes

That just tells me that the person making that statement doesn’t know about a Flow hive.

  1. The bee hive, regardless of it being a traditional hive or a flow hive will keep the temperature of the brood as close to the ideal temperature as they can. So it is misleading to say that in a cold climate the honey doesn’t flow out any slower than extracting from a conventional frame. Sure it might take a little extra time but the system will still work.
  2. The bees will cap the frame of honey in a Flow Frame when the water content is low, exactly the same as they do in a conventional frame. So if the frame is capped it is ripe and ready to extract.
  3. If the frame is capped then the bees won’t have their heads in the cells, but if they are still working on a few uncapped cells the bees will move out of the cells as you open the cells with the key.

I have to say I have heard all those stories before and in actual practice none of them are true. It is sad that people who don’t have any experience with Flow Hives come out with such rubbish. There can be, and is, some issues that need learning about with extracting honey from a Flow Hive to do it right but that also applies with traditional frames and bee keeping in general.
Cheers

3 Likes