Hive cassette for pavilion keeping bees

Spring-summer migration brings maximum profit to apiary owners. It is not surprising that many young and energetic beekeepers are striving for such a content of bees.

The backbone of any pavilion, or its most important working unit, is the cassette hive. One of the most popular models of this type on the domestic market is called “Istok”. It was developed by the Sorotokin brothers. And in order to significantly save on the organization of the nomad, you can make cassette systems with your own hands.

The content of the article

  • 1 design Features
  • 2 About sizes
  • 3 Materials
  • 4 Disadvantages and advantages of the design
  • 5 DIY assembly

design Features

The pavilion is a room on wheels that can be of any size. There are examples when the owners fit 24 bee colonies on a light trailer. For this, hives are formed according to the principle of risers – four sections on each side of the pavilion. In the center, there is space for working with bees.

Inside, there are narrow and tall wardrobes that resemble dressers in design. The bee colonies live here in cassette drawers. Each cabinet can either have a door common to all cassettes, or exist without it – after all, it is inside the room on wheels, which means it is protected from moisture and dust.

Drawers slide out along guides made of bars or strips stuffed onto the side walls. On the front wall of the cabinet, tap holes are made – they go outside the pavilion. And in the lower case, a tap hole is made.

The design is convenient in that the cabinet-section can be easily turned into a stationary hive. If the structure is stable and has a relatively low height, it freely replaces the multi-hive hive.

But for outdoor use, the outer walls must be treated with wax, preheated with an industrial hair dryer at a temperature of 600 degrees. Such advice is given by the inventor of the “Oleg” hive – Georgy Burkaltsev from Simferopol.

Of course, other types of paints will do as well. But wax, for all the complexity of its application, is the safest for bees. Such a coating fully complies with the requirements of organic beekeeping – it does not emit harmful substances, is natural in composition and durable. If the beekeeper strives for precisely these high standards, wax is the best choice.

About sizes

A useful design feature is the ability to stop at any suitable size! The beekeeper himself is guided by the dimensions of the trailer with the pavilion installed there. Decides how many colonies it will place and how many cassette tiers will be in each riser.

There are examples from beekeeping practice, when a different number of families were settled in cabinets of the same height – in one there lived two, and in the other three bee families.

Moreover, if you wish, you can regulate this moment. It is enough to remove or insert into special grooves the ceiling – a piece of plywood dividing the space of the house vertically. And if you divide the cassettes with a grid, you get a traditional beehive – there is a nest at the bottom, honey frames are at the top.

In design, complete freedom is provided, where everything depends on the wishes of the beekeeper. You can assemble a cabinet with cassettes for a Dadanov or Rut frame (435 x 300 or 435 x 230 mm). Make half cassettes that can accommodate half frames with dimensions of 435 x 145 mm. Reorient the structure to narrow high honeycomb frames.

The cabinet itself accommodates any number of cassettes – two, three, four. Each box-cassette can contain a number of frames convenient for the beekeeper – 8, 10, 12 or more.

The main thing is not to overweight the structure – to observe the measure when choosing the dimensions, because the hives will have to be rearranged at least occasionally (for example, when moving or placing houses at the point again).

Another important point is the observance of the so-called “bee space”. A 10 mm gap is left between adjacent cassettes, as well as the drawers and walls! If you give a gap of more than 10 mm, the bees will start pulling off the combs here. And at a distance of less than 6 mm, they firmly clog all the gaps with propolis – it becomes problematic to remove the cassettes.

Optionally, you can build a one-piece structure for several bee colonies at once. The cabinet will have two or three vertical sections, each of which contains several cassettes. This assembly technique is used for pavilions.

Materials

Georgy Burkaltsev insists on using pine boards. The walls of the hive should be no more than 7 mm thick, since the house has a double-walled structure and the thickness of the outer walls is not critical. The lighter the hive, the more convenient it is to work with it.

As for the wood species, the bees will not come into contact with the pine – they live in plywood boxes. As you know, resinous lumber is not recommended for assembling other types of hives, since honey can acquire a specific smell.

You can also use timber, fiberboard and plywood. The walls of the cabinet are constructed from fiberboard – the outer part of the hive. The beam goes to the frame, which is covered with plywood from the inside. And already on such panel-type walls, guide bars for cassettes are nailed.

Again, everything depends solely on the imagination and wishes of the apiary owner. If the task is to save money, you don’t have to buy boards at all. Especially when it comes to pavilion content. On the street, it is better to use a board – this material is not afraid of moisture.

Disadvantages and advantages of the design

Cassette content has its drawbacks, which should not be forgotten. All of them are associated with pavilion beekeeping:

  • crowding can lead to the loss of queens during flight, especially in strong winds;
  • close contact of bee colonies leads to the rapid spread of infections in case of infection of the apiary;
  • hive trailers are difficult to tow in bad weather and rain-washed roads.

More about nomadic beekeeping:

Movement – features and prospects for the beekeeper

As for stationary operation, there are solid advantages here:

  • maintenance of the hives does not require the use of physical strength – no need to “tear” the back, even people with disabilities, women, children will cope with the work;
  • inspection takes a few minutes – opened the drawer, determined the state of the family and closed;
  • you do not need to use many elements that are required for other types of hives – the beekeeper does not need nets with pallets, roof covers, canvas or films, warming pillows;
  • there is no need to install barriers from rodents – they, at the level of instincts, are afraid to get inside, feeling complete control by the bees over the space of the hive;
  • if the climate permits, you can easily refuse to move the houses to the winter house.

DIY assembly

This is how the design proposed by G. Yakovlev, of the Berendey type, looks like:

There are other models as well. For example, a do-it-yourself cassette hive can be assembled as follows:

  • Calculate the dimensions for a case for 4 cassettes, containing 8 Dadan frames, taking into account the “bee space”.
  • From a bar, assemble a base frame for each part – for the walls (2 sidewalls, a front and rear wall-door), a ceiling and a bottom.

  • Using a pneumatic stapler and staples, stuff the outside of the plywood. From the inside, special attention should be paid to the front and side walls. Here are marked the places for the grooves for the ceilings and the setting of dividing grids. Pieces of plywood are packed in such a way that the grooves on the front and side walls coincide to a millimeter – the ceiling must be installed evenly.

  • On the finished sidewalls, guide bars are installed from the inside.
  • On the front wall, tap holes with a diameter of 2,5 mm are drilled – one for each cassette. At the bottom, a notch gap is made with a length of 12-15 cm.

  • All parts are assembled using long self-tapping screws. If necessary, such a hive can be easily disassembled into separate elements. New houses can be conveniently transported over long distances or sent by mail.
  • Loops for latches are attached to the side walls at the top and bottom at the back. A rubber seal is packed around the perimeter of the structure under the rear wall.

  • The removable rear wall has three ventilation holes at the top, which are covered with a grill. From the inside, it is upholstered with foil insulation to ensure maximum thermal insulation. Four latches are attached outside. The door is installed on the hive and clamped by holders of four latch bolts, which is very convenient during operation. The 10 mm gap between the cassettes and the door allows you to create a kind of exhaust ventilation.

  • Each cassette is a box of bars and plywood with a mesh back wall in the form of a removable window on homemade wire latches to facilitate ventilation.
  • From above, the drawer is limited by a ceiling slab cut from a sheet of plywood and inserted into the body grooves along the front and side walls.

  • The role of the legs is played by two transverse bars stuffed into the bottom. The lid and bottom are inserted into the hive by strapping, and the plywood stuffed onto these parts overlaps the joints from the outside.

The above example is one of the simplest models available to assemble even for beginners in carpentry. The maximum size of such a structure accommodates 9 cassettes for Dadanov or Rut frames – and has a height of 290 or 227 centimeters, respectively.

Anna Evans

Author ✓ Farmer

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