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I prefer to make my own top bars as I breed lots of queens and by putting a ‘”waist” in the bars I can easily introduce virgin queens in their roller cages direct from my incubator, or perhaps queen cells. The roller cages have a small piece of kitchen roll tissue held in place with a small elastic band. The tissue is fairly easily chewed away and the new queen accepted. The virgins are pre-numbered for record purposes and the tissue applied at that time.

I also fit side bars to prevent workers attaching comb to the side walls. These are short pieces of BBQ dowel as sold for making skewers, very cheap. Holes are drilled in the top bar at the same angle as the side wall of the hive. A small amount of glue holds them in place.

I do groove the top bar and use 1″ starter strips but instead if melting beeswax to fit the strip I find it far easier, and much more secure, to use PVA waterproof wood glue. The small bottle with nozzle applicator enables a small amount of glue to be placed direct to the groove and the wax strip is secure in minutes, (picture Kieler 2)

I use a shallow-depth adapted super over a national hive to get a number of these frames drawn and filled with stores prior to their use in the Keiler.

Rather than using plastic bags etc. to cover the frames (they blow away or get turned over when refitting and get stuck to the underside of the roof), I prefer a fixed cover. From the local stationers, Staples, I purchased a pack of clear Binding Covers (plastic sheets), A4 x 240 microns  as used to make covers for presentations. I use  a paper trimmer to reduce the width to fit the top of the open hive then cut across to make two pieces. A short one to fit over the feeder, secured at the back with sellotape, (picture Kieler 5) the other piece to fit over the frames, secured at the front. Two holes are made using plumbers copper fittings, 15mm coupler for queen cell and 22mm coupler for roller cage. These fittings are blow-lamp heated and the holes pressed through the plastic over two of the “waist” points, (picture Kieler 4)

The holes are not covered and only occasionally in use so any bees trapped between sheet and roof during manipulation can easily rejoin the hive.

The feeder portion can be raised to “top-up” without disturbing the brood area too much.

A laminated record card is attached to the underside of the lid and records kept using a fine-point permanent ink pen which can be cleaned off with spirit for a new queens records.

Much of the above can be seen in picture Keiler 1.

Your last paragraph about using sugar syrup……

I prefer syrup to candy for two reasons, the first as it encourages comb drawing, the second, one doesn’t have to keep spraying with water to allow the bees to use the candy.

If the feeder is loosely filled with straw the bees will not drown. If using Vermiculite the workers can be seen walking around with some stuck on them.

A piece of plastic queen excluder is fitted to the feeder entrance with PVA glue to prevent the queen entering, (picture Kieler 3)

Modern Beekeeping will be attending with a full range of equipment for demonstration and for sale.

The keynote speaker for the day is Graham Royle .

More information for the day can be found here: www.westcornwallbka.org.uk/bitofado

DOORS OPENING TIMES
Thursday 27th October 1.45 pm – 6.00 pm
Friday 28th October 9.00 am – 6.00 pm
Saturday 29th October 9.00 am – 4.30 pm