Archive for August 29th, 2010

Why I Never Could Find Information on Wiring Both Sides of A Frame

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

I don’t have an embedder.  I melted a hole in my foundation when I tried to use a soldering iron.  I thought to myself, hey why don’t I just wire both sides of the frame for strength and skip the embedding.

Well, after we found a queen cell on frame 7 and sent it over to Art’s house I put in a frame with wiring on both sides.  Here’s the result:

I guess that’s why there’s no information on that technique.  My current thinking is to put a strip of foundation at the top of any new frames.  As of today, it’s worked once and a second frame is in the hive.

The hive’s pretty full right now and I’m thinking of putting another deep on.  If I do, this frame’s going upstairs and a new, “starter strip” frame will be going in the main box.  I know these aren’t exactly starter strips, but what should I call these frames: one inch top foundation strip frames?

My apologies to the true starter strip beekeepers who don’t have a box of wax foundation lying around from an overenthusiastic (and knowledge-free) start.

Honey Harvest #2

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

Yesterday, on the Feast of St. Augustine, I took frame 10.

Here’s the outside of the frame.

Here’s the inside of the frame.

I cut some squares of comb and crushed and strained the rest.

The leftovers went into the double boiler.

Where I melted them.

Then poured them into a silicone mini-brownie mold.

Here’s the result.  One jar of honey, one jar of cut comb, three squares of beeswax and one square of comb for Fr. Joseph-Mary.

Not too bad.

Foundation Experiment

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

I started with a regular deep frame and cut an inch wide strip of deep foundation which I wedged as usual.

Here’s the result.  I think the bees did a pretty good job of building out comb.  It’s some of the prettiest that I have.

This is the outside of frame one at the extreme left of the hive.

This is the back side (the inside of frame 1).

The cells look larger than in the rest of the hive.  I have a hunch that the larger cells are for drones.  I do see more large bees in the hive, but, time will tell.

I harvested frame 10 yesterday and put in another frame with a strip of foundation.  The bees will have an opportunity to build what they want there also.

This is getting interesting.