(upbeat music)
- Hi everyone.
In this episode I'd like to show you
the different frame options for your brood box.
Here we have a foundationless frame
that allows the bees to build natural comb
from this wooden strip.
With natural comb
bees can build the natural cell size
and it can help with pest control.
This one has wax foundation that is wired into place.
You can also use a plastic foundation.
Or even a full plastic comb.
This one's a little dirty,
as it's been lying around in the shed.
Another type that can be used for natural comb
is to use just a small strip of wax foundation
as a guide for the bees to build off.
So first I'm gonna show you how to make
a foundationless frame.
So what we're going to need
is this, your top bar.
This is your bottom bar.
They both got the grooves in the middle.
We've got the two sides.
And then here we've got
the little wooden strip
that fits nice and neatly in here like this.
Mkay.
First we're gonna just glue it together and nail it.
We're just going to pop a little bit of glue,
either side like this.
And across here,
on both sides.
Okay, and what I like to do as well,
is just to pop some in here.
Mkay.
So put them on like that.
Makes a bit of a mess.
Mkay.
And then we do the same with the bottom.
Okay, and then we pop that one in.
It's really easy.
Like so.
And that's your frame nicely glued together.
But now I'm gonna nail it as well,
just to make it extra secure.
So it doesn't come apart.
Okay, so you get your hammer,
I like to use this little one.
And I usually pop two in,
on either side at the top.
Just to make it nice and strong.
Okay.
Two on either side.
These nails are roughly
almost an inch long, bit shorter.
They're just the ones I like to use.
With a nice flat head on the top.
Okay, so that's pretty easy.
I'm gonna turn it over.
I usually just put one
'cause it's a bit of a smaller gap here,
so I'll just put the one up the top.
Okay, so that's your frame,
it's glued and it's nailed.
So if we're going foundationless,
we can use this wooden strip.
So this sits
underneath here
in the groove.
So you've got two options really, or three.
You can either glue it in,
just pop a little bit of glue along here.
All the way across.
And then that sits nicely,
in your groove down here.
There you go.
And that's the complete
foundationless.
So for this frame,
we're going to put the wax foundation in this one.
So we've got the wax foundation sheets here.
But as you can see,
they're a little bit short by about a centimeter on one end.
So what we really need to do,
is I'm going to just drip some wax in here,
in this groove and then pop this one in.
Like this, I'll just do that for you.
Show you.
Hopefully I won't make a mess.
Okay.
And just very carefully,
making sure you don't burn yourself.
It's quite hard to get it into the groove actually.
But you get the gist.
Mkay, so.
Then we're gonna get our wax strip like this.
Right up to the edge on this side.
All the way across.
Okay, and we'll just let that set for a minute.
Okay, once this is set in place,
which only takes a minute.
I'm going to get another piece of strip wax.
And I'm gonna cut a little piece off.
Just to fit in this little gap here,
it's only about a centimeter.
Preferably on a chopping board rather than your table.
Mkay, so.
We'll see if that piece will fit in, yep,
it'll fit in nicely.
Filling the gap helps to stop the combs from curving.
Mkay, so that's basically what you need to do.
Okay, with this frame,
we're going to put some plastic in this one.
What I've done is, I've just made up
the top bar and the two sides,
I've glued and I've nailed them.
So we get our sheet of plastic.
And we've got the groove here,
on the bottom of the frame,
so we can just slip that in like that.
Okay.
What we do now, is we will just
pop some glue on these edges again.
Then this,
this with the groove,
on the bottom bar is really good.
For these plastics.
And so it'll just slip in
perfectly.
Like so.
I will give this one a nail
while we're here.
Just to keep it
nice and strong.
With the plastic frame,
you might like to just pop a nail
in the edge here,
and then one over here.
And that'll just stop your plastic from moving around.
And that's your plastic.
Okay, for this next frame,
this one's gonna be a wax foundation frame.
So, I'm gonna make a frame again.
Okay,
so after we've made our frame,
we need to wire it.
But first,
where these little holes are,
we get a little eyelet,
which looks like this.
Now it's really tricky
to get these little eyelets in here,
so what I do,
is I grab a nail,
same nail that I used in the top.
I'll pop it in the hole like this,
and I stick the whole thing
like that on the wood.
And I give a little tap.
Then I can push the nail from underneath.
And it's in.
So I'm going to do this on all of them.
Takes a few minutes but
it's all good.
Okay, now I'm gonna do the same on the other side.
Whoops, lost me nail, hang on.
Little tap.
So these little eyelets
that go in the holes.
It just protects the wood from the wire.
Mkay, so that's that done.
So now we need to
wire it together.
I've got a nice wiring board here.
I won this one,
but I have made one in the past, so you could always
do a little basic copy of something like this,
if you wanted to.
So,
this tubing here actually doesn't fit
in this hole at the front,
so normally it would sit on here like this.
But I'm just gonna have to pop it at the side
for this demo.
Hopefully we won't have wire everywhere, okay.
We're gonna pop it through this little
thing here.
And then
the wire goes through the eyelet,
the first eyelet at the top of the frame.
And across we go through to the next one.
And then we're gonna pull it around this little thing,
and through the second eyelet.
This just helps feed the wire through.
So over we go to the next one.
And push it through that eyelet.
And then around the next one.
And through the third eyelet,
all the way across.
And the next eyelet.
Around the next feeder.
And through the last one,
on that side.
Okay.
So once we've brought the wire through all the eyelets,
we're gonna grab a nail,
and we're just gonna nail it about there.
Not all the way down.
Just about that far.
And the same down here, on this side.
Mkay, then we're gonna get this bottom piece of wire,
and we're gonna wrap it a few times like that.
Hold onto it.
And tap that in all the way like that.
Now you can either
wriggle this off till it breaks,
or you can use your little pliers.
To just wiggle it off.
Mkay, so that's that done.
This is a bit, it's gonna be trick 'cause it's not on there.
(laughter)
Okay, after we've put our wire in.
Then, we're gonna use this here,
the little handle.
And what it does,
it just pushes this piece of wood in,
and makes a little bit of a curve.
So when we finish wiring it,
and it goes back to its original position,
it'll tighten the wire up just a little bit more.
So,
we keep hold of our
wire spool.
And we're gonna give these
a little bit of a pull, like this,
just to stretch them and,
we can pull and tighten it as we go.
So we'll take the first,
and we'll just loosen it off a bit.
We'll take this first one off.
Mkay.
It's really hard because this isn't attached on but,
I'm gonna pull this like so.
Wind the wire up.
Mkay.
(plucking the wires like a stringed instrument)
We're gonna give.
Play the guitar again.
(plucking the wires like a stringed instrument)
Just to tighten this first wire up,
so it's nice and tight now.
Okay, so this time
we're gonna loosen off the wire again,
take this piece of wire off here.
And tighten it up, like this.
Give it a little pull.
(plucking the wires like a stringed instrument)
So these two,
are nice and tight now.
Now we just need to tighten these two.
So we'll loosen off the wire again,
slip this over the top,
and pull it.
Wind it up.
Mkay, I'll give it a nice,
a nice pull so it's nice and tight.
(plucking the wires like a stringed instrument)
So they're nice and tight now, mkay.
So what we're going to do,
is I'm going to grab this piece of wire
while holding nice and tight.
And just wrap it around this nail a few times.
Give it a tap.
And there we go.
So I'm just gonna press this over here,
and this just releases that,
and straightens these up nice and straight.
So here we have our nice wired frame.
Nice tight wire,
all ready to put our wax in.
So now we're going to put our wax in.
So we'll grab our wax.
And we're gonna weave it through.
Not through the top one,
to start with but through the next one.
Like this.
And I turn it upside down and then
pop it through underneath the third one.
And then back up over the last one, okay.
And it sits in the groove nicely.
So I just make sure my wax
is in between evenly
on either side of the frame.
Like that.
And there you go.
So now we're ready to embed the wire into the wax,
just to hold it securely in place.
What I like to do,
is I've got this tool, it's an embedder tool.
And what you would do,
pop a piece of wood
that's roughly this size.
Pop your frame on top.
I stick this in a cup of boiling water just to warm it up.
Shake it, give it a dry off with a tea towel.
And then we just
gently run this
along the wire,
like so.
And the heat from this
onto the wax will embed this wire into the wax.
So I do it on
all four pieces of wire.
And that makes it really secure.
So now we'll recap on all the different types of frames
that we've made today.
And what choice might suit you best.
So the first frame we made,
was this foundationless frame.
This one's really good one.
So your bees can build natural comb
off this wooden strip.
We recommend keeping the brood as natural as possible,
but of course it's totally up to you
what option you choose.
That's why we've made our brood frames
able to accommodate several different options.
The next one we've got,
the one's the full foundation sheet with the wire.
So the wire's really good,
that helps to stop sagging of the comb.
So that's another option you might like to choose
for your brood box.
Next one we've got,
is our wooden frame
with our plastic sheet in.
Next option,
we've got the full plastic.
Plastic frame.
Plastic foundation sheet, all stuck together.
That might be an option that you like.
Okay, so our last option,
was a strip of wax foundation.
Okay, here we go.
They can also build naturally off this one as well.
So the difference between your brood box,
which is the one on the bottom.
This one houses your frames.
Frames of your choice,
that your brood are going to live in.
Your eggs, your worker bees, your drones,
and your queen will be all down in this box.
So sitting on top of this box,
is going to be your queen excluder.
So this is going to stop your queen
and your drones from coming up into the Flow Super.
So we're gonna
put this on top like so.
There we go.
And you'll have your inner cover on the top
and then your gorgeous roof.
And that will be your Flow Hive.
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