Frosty temperatures out last night and forecast says more of the same this night.
During the day temperatures climb up to 13°C and the bees are bringing in all sorts of pollen. From bright yellow to grey-ish tints.
I also worked on my Top Bar Hive project. (read previous post first if you're not up to speed on this project: 2018 03 15 thursday - top-bar-hive) I cut up the insulation board and fitted it into the vegetable table. I believe my frames fit in there just nice.
I do have some room under the frames, so I'll have to look up some numbers on bee-space and how deep I need to make the cuts in the sides of my foamboards to bring the bottom bar down a bit.
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| (Metric system here so what you see is cm) |
If needed I can also narrow the gaps on the side of the frames - but as stated above I need to reed up on beespace to know how much is needed before they propolise it shut and what is the maximum I can risk before they'll comb it up. After cutting in the rut in the foamboards I'll probably add some spacers for the frames (Getting those tomorrow if all goes right) So I need to know how long the inside of my box is. (Checked the webstore and the frame-holders are 40 cm long...
As you can see here the length is just under 1 meter. 
So I should be able to get away with 5 (or 6 if I can't cut the 5th one through the middle.
Questions I ask myself now is about the material. Won't the bees chew up the insulation? Maybe I need to cover the board up with a more solid material. If so, what should I use? (keeping in mind I want this to be a low budget project) I have a thin sheet of wood laying around, but it's not big enough to cover the entire inside of the hive.
I have plastic sheet, but I'm worried what that'll do for condensation + how do I fix the sheet onto the board. That being said, I haven't even thought about how to fix the board onto the wood. It's just placed in there right now to allow me to change the distances a bit. Can I use any glue in the hive whatsoever? Is foam spray an option?
I'll have to answer these questions at a later time. Next update on this will be a while... Going back to work soon and checking my schedule; I have plenty other stuff to do...
See you next time around!
Bob Out
