[Beewyched]

Has anyone else tried using these?

I had a very quick peek under the board - took advantage of the 2 hours of sun we had yesterday  It's still too cold here to go in (I just knew that I should have done this during out mini heatwave in March  )

It looks as though the frames have shifted, maybe due to the January gale, & that 3 or 4 of the middle frames have been welded together by my bees 

This is a National hive with 11 frames per brood.  I've never used self spacers before - I was more used to the old WBCs & metal frame spacers.  But as I was starting a new hive I thought I'd give them a go.

I've been looking at castellated spacers online - does anyone use these & what are the pros/cons compared to using the individual ones that slip onto the ends of the frames?   

 

[ZacB]

We use Hoffman frames in our brood boxes, self spacing so no spacers etc & a dummy board. Good diagram's of frames on the Maisemore site. As the sides don't run all the way down less to weld together.

http://www.bees-online.co.uk/view.asp?ID=989

In the supers a different matter altogether though. We started off with Manley frames, again self spacing so nothing to do really other than put them in the box. Now that we have drawn frames we have fitted 9 slot metal castellations to the supers. Bee's drawn the wax out further, less frames to extract but same amount of honey  

http://www.thorne.co.uk/hardware/hive-hardware/spacing-runners-and-entrance-fittings/spacing

As long as you put tidy, well drawn frames into the castelled spacers the bees, fingers crossed, continue to draw out in the same manner. If, however you put un-drawn frames straight in........you'll end up in a big mess.

[Beewyched]

Cheers for the tips Zac - I'll take a look at these sights on my coffee break - gotta go & get the rest of the menagerie fed & watered.
 

[Plantoid]

If you have ordinary frames  and you want to move over to self spacing ones there are plastic self spacers available that you tack on to the sides of a frame at the top . they are usually sold by the likes of Thornes and are called frame converters or similar .   If you go that route you need a box of frame pins as well . 
 I had 50 hives and 25 neuc boxes each hive had three supers and a brod box the neuc's had six frames .
 It too ages to get them done but ended up much cheaper than buying  ready shaped wooden ones .
 
There were some that slid over the end and amde spacers spacers but they often caused probs when they got brittle . They were normally in five different colours so anally impacted keepers could tell how old a frame was . I never bothered with them after seeing just how the wax moths loved laying their eggs under the plastic if it had warped up a bit &nbhow the emerging grub ate the end of the frame right through .
 
I purchased a manual panel pin inserter , it has a small magnet in theend , it holds a pin just great , you simply push the pin down into the holes in the coverter , as deep as you can through the hole , then drive it fully home with a pin hammer hitting down directly on whats left showing of the pin .
 It was around £ 25 and well worth it , it's now nearly 18 yrs old and still gets used for setting various types of pins into wood etc.
 I would not reccommend the metal converters nor the castleated self spacing strips that you tack on the top of the brood box or supers as they get rusty and are usually very sharp .

 To get things easier for me I took out any castelated strips and fitted  pairs of rails that looked a bit like an invered lowercase letter " j".

 One hive I did for experimental purposes had 2.5mm  T& E grey electrical cable clips  pin taken out , inverted and reinserted then driven in the place where the rails should have been as built in spacers . ( As I had several thousad to play with ) .... they did work  and were very cheap .
And all new supers and brood boxes I made were getting fitted with them , for it is just so easy to scrape propolis and wax off a straight frame . Wax moths didn't seem to like the plastic so stayed away instead of setting up an egg bank under them .
 

[Plantoid]

We use Hoffman frames in our brood boxes, self spacing so no spacers etc & a dummy board. Good diagram's of frames on the Maisemore site. As the sides don't run all the way down less to weld together.

http://www.bees-online.co.uk/view.asp?ID=989

In the supers a different matter altogether though. We started off with Manley frames, again self spacing so nothing to do really other than put them in the box. Now that we have drawn frames we have fitted 9 slot metal castellations to the supers. Bee's drawn the wax out further, less frames to extract but same amount of honey  

http://www.thorne.co.uk/hardware/hive-hardware/spacing-runners-and-entrance-fittings/spacing

As long as you put tidy, well drawn frames into the castelled spacers the bees, fingers crossed, continue to draw out in the same manner. If, however you put un-drawn frames straight in........you'll end up in a big mess.

 Zac what system / approach do you use to get the bees to draw out new frames for supers & brood boxes ??

[ZacB]

Zac what system / approach do you use to get the bees to draw out new frames for supers & brood boxes ??

H

Brood boxes, in the past we have split so equal amount of already drawn / new frames. Bee's fed with sugar syrup until new frames are drawn, if a swarm goes into nuc/brood, then again fed syrup to draw frames. As for supers, have just pust frames with foundation in place. If the bee's not too keen to go up, then a quick spray with some sugar solution usually gets them interested. We are quite lucky with Oil Seed Rape around us so bee's are usually pretty good at getting a move on when it comes to wax building 

[OhLaLa]

I have a varied selection of kit including self spacing brood frames. I prefer Hoffman frames in the brood box and and have a lot of Manley frames for the supers.

If you have frames that require spacers it is important that you always fit the spacers onto your frames or they will move in the hive - giving you an incorrect beeway - so you may end up with wild comb in there. Not ideal. Get the plastic spacers not the metal ones.

I have been given quite a bit of kit over the years and as a result have a lot of castellated supers (which I quite like).

I have Commercial, National hives (and WBC exteriors).

For extracting always get the best kit you can afford as it will be with you a long time. I buy everything in stainless steel and about 10 years ago was lucky enough to pick up a large Thornes electric stainless steel extractor which is still going strong.

I've made errors though - I bought a whole trailer full of supers (all with frames, and way too many check over individually), only to find when I got them home that some were top beeway and some were bottom beeway. Doh! 

 

[Plantoid]

Zac what system / approach do you use to get the bees to draw out new frames for supers & brood boxes ??

H

Brood boxes, in the past we have split so equal amount of already drawn / new frames. Bee's fed with sugar syrup until new frames are drawn, if a swarm goes into nuc/brood, then again fed syrup to draw frames. As for supers, have just pust frames with foundation in place. If the bee's not too keen to go up, then a quick spray with some sugar solution usually gets them interested. We are quite lucky with Oil Seed Rape around us so bee's are usually pretty good at getting a move on when it comes to wax building 

I used to put  a brood box on above the queen separator two middle frame fully drawn then an undrawn either sied then a full drawn set & then undrawn . the bees do a good job of drawing out and any uneven comb can quickly be switched to face a drawn & sealed comb and leave the bees to sort it out .

Same principle with the supers use only one super at a time and use a crown board for both with a feeder that is built in to make a liquid proof tray 3 inches deep , where the hole in the crown board would be  , screw & glue on a block that has a 3/4 inch hole drilled down through it so it makes a chimney up through the syrup.
 the bees walk up the chimney and sip the syrup then walk back up and down into thehive ..i've never hqad many bees drown with this type of feeder.

This style of crown board feeder  reduces the robbing of syrup by other bees and wasps . It also allows you up to ten days grace before opening up the hive again  which is good if you have three supers on it during a nectar flow .

[Greenerlife]

My first hive had castellated metalwork so normal frames work a treat.  tried plastic spacers inanother hive and absolutely hate them!  they really annoy me as they make the frames much more difficult to remove for inspection, especially wearing gloves as I have to do.  Self spacers are a godsend, and now I wouldn't use anything else.  i guess it's a personal preference.