Feral Hive removal

While sponsoring the Florida State Beekeepers Association Summer Fling 2010, held at the Pine Jog Environmental Center, the Palm Beach County Beekeepers were asked to remove a feral hive from the elementary school next door.  The hive was nestled amongst some trees about seven feet off the ground. 

 
After trimming away branches surrounding the feral hive the branch that supports the hive was cut and the entire hive lowered into two-deep hive boxes. 

Dowels were driven through the two sides of the box and impaled the hive to give the comb support during transport.

The feral hive in their new home was then moved next door to the Environmental Center.  Feburary 3rd, 2011 we finally got around to opening the hive back up and transferred the comb to medium frames.

Rather than support the feral comb in the frames with rubber bands I take a standard unassembled medium frame and run each of the four sides through a band saw to split each of the four pieces in half.  I drill three small holes down the outer edge of each side piece then assemble each half and join the two halves by stapling a small piece of leather to the bottom for a hinge.  I then string 20# test fishing line through the three holes on each side of the frame to support the comb.  The comb is trimmed to fit the medium frames and laid onto one half of the frame which is then closed like a clam shell.  A staple near each end of the top bar holds the two halves of the frame together. In a short period of time the bees will attach the loose comb to the frame and repair any cells crushed during the transfer.

During the transfer of the comb to the Langstroth frames the bees found my veil and bee suit attractive.

End-grain Cutting Boards

One of the wood working projects that has been very popular among friends and family has been end-grain cutting boards.  This board was a gift to my sister.  It was a challenge to construct since it exceeded the capacity of some of my wood working tools.  The design is always unique but the plan was found in a Wood magazine article (October 2006). 



In response, my sister made me a quilt using a similar cutting board pattern modeled here by our cat Hunter.



The last board I made was returned due to a crack that developed between some of the laminates.

I'm not sure why this board began to split but I believe it was due to skimping on the glue (Titebond II) .  It is possible that I didn't let the wood acclimate to my shop temperature and humidity before cutting the four quarter stock into the pieces used in the construction.



This is the cutting board during glue-up of the pieces.  I believe their was adequate pressure applied to the laminates during glue-up but it is possible I didn't use enough glue.



I plan to start over from scratch and use more glue on the next cutting board.