Recycle It! Supers

These are the honey supers that I’ve been making. They’re made out of two different types of pallet wood in two different thicknesses. All hives made in this manner should, if possible, fit your other hives.  If this is not possible, just use these separately. Group together all the hives that have the same measures.

This would especially apply to hives you have made previously from recycled material, as you might not get the same wood again.

The Box

First you need to make a box, to fit the size of the brood chamber you’re going to use. Fit two inserts (strips of wood) into the super, opposite each other. These inserts are for the frames to rest on. They need to be narrower than the height of the box by a bee space. Also you need to take out a space that has the same thickness as the frame bar from the insert. A good bee space is between 6-8 mills, ’cause it’s the size bees use to travel through. Bees don’t build comb and don’t stick things together that are within these measures.

So this means: if your frame bar is for instance 13 mil high, you would take out 13 mil from the insert and then another 6-8 mil for your  bee space . The bee space is there to stop any of the frame ends getting stuck to the supers above it. When you put the insert in, place it so that it has a gap of 6-8  mills at the top with the 13 mills gap of the frame bar. This leaves the frame resting 6-8 mill below the top of the super.
Depending on your hive, you could also have the frame at the top, flush with the super and the 6-8 mil gaps at the bottom. This you need to check on your hives, to make sure you use the right gaps as not to have it all stick together.

Frame Bars

Next are the frame bars. This method is called the top bar method. It’s nothing new, but it’s a great way of working with nature, since it allows the bees to build their comb naturally .

The only change I’ve made to this already existing method is the use of two pieces of bar, not one, nailed together with the narrow strip of wax in between. This wax is only a thin strip of foundation and doesn’t have to stick out more than a few mills. The bees use this strip to build their natural comb along it. In this way all the comb is on the frame bars.

Note that the finished frame bar is held together by nails that also keep the finished bars separated from each other. There are only two nails used on both ends, but on opposite sides, the long wax strip is held in by the wood.

Please ensure you place a thin sheet of plastc, on top of every previous super or broodchamber, before you place another super on. This prevents the supers from being stuck together by the bees (since their tendency will be to build the comb downwards unto the top of the previous frames). You can use any other material the bees can’t chew through. Be aware that the sheet has to be smaller than the inside of the super, so the bees can still move to the next level. The sheet goes on the top of the frames, of the previous super.