With bees buzzing all around me, I screwed two screw eyes into the back of Bermuda - one on each side.I used an 18" bungee cord to connect the robber screen to the back screw eye on each side of the hive.
Here you can see everything connected. This was not as upsetting for the bees, since they have been getting used to the robber screen for two days. I put the new screen on Bermuda since it has had a robbing problem. I set the old screen on its side until tonight when finally all the bees had left the old screen and returned to the hive.Tonight I put screw eyes in to the sides of my original effort at making a robber screen and screwed screw eyes into the back of Destin.
Tomorrow while the bees are flying, I'll install the robber screen on Destin.
I also made a cleat (not sure if I'm using this term correctly?) for each hive so that I could completely close them up if need be. In Jon McFadden's plan for building a robber screen from scratch, he used a router to make a cleat for the top entrance.....OK, I don't know what a router is, much less what it does. But I did want to be able to close the hive up, so I cut a piece of the wood I used for the side shim the length of the opening at the top of the robber screen. Then I nailed a nail into each end to give the wood a way to hold it up in the opening. So here it is in the picture - although I won't use the cleat unless I truly need to close the hive.
Linda, a Router is very much like a drill. Among the many, many things you can use a router for, the application here would have been to remove a certain amount of wood from the corner or edge of the board to make the cleat.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a wonderful job with the robber screen. The window screen idea was a great one and seems to work well. You are pretty brave to put the screen on with the bee's furious all around you. I hope you wore your hat.
Linda, a Router is very much like a drill. Among the many, many things you can use a router for, the application here would have been to remove a certain amount of wood from the corner or edge of the board to make the cleat.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a wonderful job with the robber screen. The window screen idea was a great one and seems to work well. You are pretty brave to put the screen on with the bee's furious all around you. I hope you wore your hat.