What are you working on?

[Adam Foster Collins]

After a couple of years on this board, it seems to me that beekeepers are inventive people. You seem always to be working away at some problem; inventing something, or trying some new approach in hope of making this season a little better than the last.

As winter is setting in on a lot of us here in North America, I wonder what you're puzzling over now.

At the moment, I am working on finding the best deal I can on frames. I have spent the last two seasons using top bars hives, which I like very much. But now I'm going to try to expand to at least 10 more hives by the end of the coming season, and I've decided to do most of that expansion in lang boxes. I consulted the experts, and considered their conflicting opinions; finally settling on a combination of different philosophies for different reasons.

I've decided to go with 8 frame deeps and medium boxes, and make the deeps into narrow frames. So I'll try to run 9 frame brood boxes in the deeps and 8 frame honey storage in mediums. I've gone round and round in my head, read endlessly and finally decided to take a swing at it. If I don't like it, I'll make a change before I expand any more. I figure if I want to go to all mediums, at least I can cut the deeps down.

I have spent the last week or so emptying the hell-hole that I call a basement, and setting up benches and tools in place of the pile of chaos which was there before the clean-up.

I've just built my first prototype of a top entrance/cover, and have drawn up plans for a screened bottom board. I've scoured the boards to find dimensions I like for boxes and I'm piling up lumber and materials to work with. I'm going to spend the dreaded winter months hibernating underground with my power tools, figuring, inventing and building away until spring.

So, what are you working on?


Adam

[BrentX]

I just finished preparing 15 new medium boxes.  I bought unassembled boxes boxes from Brushy Mountain.  They are stained and varnished, which is my way.

I built three inner covers, three telescoping covers, and three screened hive stands from red oak.  The top of the telescoping covers is ceramic tile under which is 2 inches of foam insulation, cause I had some these things laying around.  They wont be blowing off the hives.

[BlueBee]

I'm working on refining my electric hive heating controller so I can build up as fast as Finski in the spring  :)

[iddee]

I plan to spend a lot of time this winter looking at the back of my eyelids.

[PeeVee]

I just finished sawing about 3000 board feet of Eastern White Pine. Logs I purchased in the Spring. Sawmill (portable band mill) borrowed from a friend. While we have quite a bit of Hemlock on the farm, not much Pine.

I still have some Pine from a purchase last year to  carry me through. This new Pine will be partially bee furniture and the rest for trim for a house I'm renovating.

Will wait until Spring to build more boxes and frames.

[derekm]

building a test rig to measure heat loss in hive designs.
building a 64 point temperature logging system for a hive

[AllenF]

This weekend I just got all the cases of honey out of the dining room and hid them in the front bedroom and plan next to take all the empties, lids, labels, and other crap back down to the basement before Christmas.    The dining room will be honey free soon.  (just to start bottling again in July)

[rober]

i've pulled all frames from the freezer & stored them in their supers. i'm building frame assembly jigs to sell. ( anyone interested can e-mail me ) feeding the girls. finishing up building my new wood-shop.

[BlueBee]

building a test rig to measure heat loss in hive designs.
building a 64 point temperature logging system for a hive

Now that sounds interesting!

How are you going to measure all those 64 points?  Thermistors?   That's a lot of ADC channels.  What's your plan for instrumenting so many channels?

I like the idea.  Would there be a way to use a IR camera for looking at heat loss instead?  Too expensive?

If I get around to it, I would also like to measure the wattage my bees are generating by instrumenting two identical foam hives.  One with bees and one without bees.  Put an electrical heat source in the empty foam hive and add electrical watts until the two hives have the same temperature readings.  

[derekm]

building a test rig to measure heat loss in hive designs.
building a 64 point temperature logging system for a hive

Now that sounds interesting!

How are you going to measure all those 64 points?  Thermistors?   That's a lot of ADC channels.  What's your plan for instrumenting so many channels?

I like the idea.  Would there be a way to use a IR camera for looking at heat loss instead?  Too expensive?

If I get around to it, I would also like to measure the wattage my bees are generating by instrumenting two identical foam hives.  One with bees and one without bees.  Put an electrical heat source in the empty foam hive and add electrical watts until the two hives have the same temperature readings.  

There are temperature measurement ics with 12bit resolution that are about 40p each  that connect to an I2C serial bus. Thus you only need 4 wires VCC GND clk DATA.
8 ICs per bus i.e. a frame. Then a 8 way bus multiplexer to connect all 8 frames to a i2c to USB converter in to a PC.

[annette]

I am working on a new hand lotion recipe :-D

[rail]

8 frame, 10 frame and Dadant Deep wooden ware. Jacketed wax melter, rosin-beeswax dipping tank and a little painting.

[Vance G]

I am working on my second batch of mead and planning the third.  Don't have a clue who is going to drink it all as I am not a thirsty guy.  Just need to add meadmaking to my resume.  I do have plans for a reflus still though.

[BlueBee]

8 frame, 10 frame and Dadant deep wooden ware. Jacketed wax melter, rosin-beeswax dipping tank and a little painting.

Looks like you might have a shallow in there too.  A cornucopia of parts!  I'm hoping to cut some of my mediums down to shallows for honey supers over my Dadant/Jumbo brood boxes.  That should give them about the same weight as an 8 frame medium. 

Painting is my least favorite part of bee keeping  :( 

[rail]

8 frame, 10 frame and Dadant deep wooden ware. Jacketed wax melter, rosin-beeswax dipping tank and a little painting.

Looks like you might have a shallow in there too.  A cornucopia of parts!  I'm hoping to cut some of my mediums down to shallows for honey supers over my Dadant/Jumbo brood boxes.  That should give them about the same weight as an 8 frame medium.  

Painting is my least favorite part of bee keeping  :(  

Yeah, that is a shallow there, planning for more. The Dadant Deep will have shallows for honey supers.

I don't mind painting, it can relax me after a long day of fabricating and welding.

[Hemlock]

Plan to build two or three Queen castles, two full deep or medium hives with accessories, & two or three hive stands.

[LoriMNnice]

I am working on breaking child labor laws :)

[jaseemtp]

Glad I am not alone Lori!  :evil:
I am building alot of hive bodies, I currently have 20 built with 80 more planned.  I just hope the wife doesnt find out how much money I have spent

[Shanevrr]

Im working on a frame candy jig,  soon as I finish and test I will post pics, also on a new hive design when I get time, only have drawings now.

Im also in the process of making our store three times as big,  just tore our three walls and finished drywall today,  hopefully start on hardwood floor this week.

[Old Blue]

Robber screens.

Just finished em and put em on all 4 hives at the end of the day on saturday.   A quick look today - Sunday shows a lot  of dumb bees who can't get back in and a few robbers who are getting the business from the gaurds !

Old Blue
Suffering predatory taxation with no representation in
Kali-bone-ya