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Author Topic: ISOT II - The Saga Continues <grin>  (Read 5009 times)

Offline Intheswamp

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ISOT II - The Saga Continues <grin>
« on: June 18, 2014, 01:08:41 am »
Ok, a year or so ago I was tinkering with modding some screened bottom boards on eight frame hives so I could use oil trays with them.  Intheswamp's Simple Oil Tray (ISOT) was born.  In case you would like to read the original thread so you have the background for this thread here a link to the original thread:  http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,38714.0.html

The tray seemed to work pretty good, though the gap between the lip of the pan and the bottom surface of the bottom board was problematical.  I tried a couple of things and none of them worked really well.  The other day I decided to revisit the ISOT and see if I couldn't figure out how to get that gap just right.  Mind you, I'm no carpenter, and basically used a handsaw, hammer, knife, a drill, and heavy scissors to do this.  Nothing fancy, nothing furniture grade.  :-D

A note:  I run all eight frame hives.  The screened bottom boards that I'm using were ordered from Rossman's in Georgia.  They recently made a change to the back of their sbbs in that they added an extra trim piece to the back of the board so that the bottom edge of the back was flush with the bottom of the side runners.  If you decide to order some from them for this mod ask them to leave that rear trim piece off.

Anyhow, here's what I have finally come up with...

This is the top view of the bottomboard.  You can see the front section of flashing at the entrance.  This is drilled with 5/32" holes.  OJ Blount uses a stainless steel grid with 5/32" holes and states that it works great.  A 5/32" hole is 3.97mm in diameter, almost a full millimeter smaller than what is called "small cell". A small hive beetle averages 3.25mm in width (they are longer than this, though) so they should easily pass through this size hole.  If a 5/32" hole is laid over a #8 screen it will basically reach the covers but also "round out" the sides...creating a diagonal of the #8 mesh all around the perimeter...so if a beetle could have only gone through the #8 "at an angle" between corners it should be able to pass through the 5/32" hole at any approach/angle.

You can also see the right-triangle molding that I picked up at Home Depot (Lowes didn't have it).  I only nail this in (no glue) as one day I might want to replace the screen or something.  The Rossman boards have about an inch of flat area along the sides and back that I figured the beetles might land on if they're knocked down from above.  I'm hoping that when they fall and hit the angle of the molding that they will bounce out into the mesh over the oil tray.


Here is a shot from above with the tray slid out.


The bottom.  First thing I did was to nail and glue on a piece of  1x pressure treated boards to the bottom of each side rail of the hive...this lifted the hive up enough to hang the tray and leave a little extra wiggle room beneath the bottom board.  The white pieces of wood used were some old molding that somebody threw away.  Worked great for what I needed to use it for! ;)  The two small piece towards the front of the bottom board are simply "stops" to stop the tray at the correct position...2 frame nails and some glue.  The two long pieces of molding are runners that the lip of the oil trays slide on.


Close up of the bottom sideof the porch area with the pan pulled back a bit.


Bottom side with pan removed.


Close-up of one corner of the back of the bottom board where the pan slips in.  You can see the gap between tray and bottom board...I measured 1/8" so it will take a *really* small, small cell bee to get in the oil. ;)  I ended up using a piece of 1/4" flat molding as a spacer.  I laid the flat molding down and pushed up against the side rails, I then pressed the quarter-round molding down against that and glued and nailed the quarter round molding to the side rails.  Once nailed good I removed the flat molding that I was using for a spacer.  This worked very well in leaving room for the tray to slide in.  I will be painting the bottom boards but will probably only use some primer in the slot area.


At last, but not least.  A "head-on" shot of the front porch of a bottom board that is using a slotted piece of flashing for the area at the entrance, rather than the drilled 5/32" holes.  The idea is that the beetles run in, get harrassed by bees and look for a dark spot to dive into...the raised lip and the downward turned lip helps guide them into the safety<g> of the dark slotted area.


This batch I made three with holes and one with slots.  They will be going beneath four nucs I hope to start after I harvest my honest.

Well, that's about it, just thought I'd share it with you...

Ed
www.beeweather.com 
American blood spilled to protect the freedom and peace of people all over the world.  320,000 USA casualties in WWI, 1,076,000 USA casualties in WWII, 128,000 USA casualties in the Korean War, 211,000 casualties in the Vietnam "conflict", 57,000 USA casualties in "War on Terror".  Benghazi, Libya, 13 USA casualties. These figures don't include 70,000 MIA.  But, the leaders of one political party of the United States of America continue to make the statement..."What difference does it make?".

"We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism."..."The press is our chief ideological weapon." - Nikita Khrushchev

"Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they wont come to yours." - Yogi Berra

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: ISOT II - The Saga Continues <grin>
« Reply #1 on: July 17, 2014, 08:56:08 pm »
Ok, got some paint on them and about ready to deploy for the late summer wave of beetles coming in.  A coat of Zinsser primer and then some Valspar Premium (supposed to have primer in it, too?).  The Valspar puts a thick coat on.

Following are several shots to give anybody interested some details of the ISOT mod.  In case you weren't aware...if you right click on the image and hit "View" you can see a higher resolution image. ;)

Here are the four I have ready to go.  Well, almost.  The yellow-front one is too tight...I used a wedge from a frame as the spacer and it was a bit too tight.  I will need to file or sand the gap open a bit more...the tray slides but it is tight.  Using a 1/4" piece of flat molding worked *much* better:


Front end view showing a tray slid in place.  You can see the simple stops so that when you slide the tray in it stops at the correct position...I used some scrap quarter-round but most any piece of wood would work:


Rear view with the tray slid into position:


Rear view with the tray pulled out a bit:


www.beeweather.com 
American blood spilled to protect the freedom and peace of people all over the world.  320,000 USA casualties in WWI, 1,076,000 USA casualties in WWII, 128,000 USA casualties in the Korean War, 211,000 casualties in the Vietnam "conflict", 57,000 USA casualties in "War on Terror".  Benghazi, Libya, 13 USA casualties. These figures don't include 70,000 MIA.  But, the leaders of one political party of the United States of America continue to make the statement..."What difference does it make?".

"We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism."..."The press is our chief ideological weapon." - Nikita Khrushchev

"Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they wont come to yours." - Yogi Berra

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: ISOT II - The Saga Continues <grin>
« Reply #2 on: July 17, 2014, 09:09:19 pm »
Close-up of the left rear corner:


Bottom view with the tray slid all the way forward against the stops:


Bottom view with the tray pulled back a bit showing the flashing with the 5/32" holes drilled in it.  It's not necessary to add the flashing but I wanted to try it :) :


Ed

Bottom close-up showing a corner of the tray slid up tight against the stop:


And finally, a bottom shot of the rear of the tray when it is slid completely forward against the stops on the other end.  It needs to be slid completely beneath the bottomboard as you see it so that it helps keep rainwater from entering the tray:
www.beeweather.com 
American blood spilled to protect the freedom and peace of people all over the world.  320,000 USA casualties in WWI, 1,076,000 USA casualties in WWII, 128,000 USA casualties in the Korean War, 211,000 casualties in the Vietnam "conflict", 57,000 USA casualties in "War on Terror".  Benghazi, Libya, 13 USA casualties. These figures don't include 70,000 MIA.  But, the leaders of one political party of the United States of America continue to make the statement..."What difference does it make?".

"We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism."..."The press is our chief ideological weapon." - Nikita Khrushchev

"Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they wont come to yours." - Yogi Berra

Offline sarahplusbees

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Re: ISOT II - The Saga Continues <grin>
« Reply #3 on: July 20, 2014, 01:55:57 pm »
This is awesome! Thank you for sharing!
-Sarah Plonski
www.sarahplusbees.com

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: ISOT II - The Saga Continues <grin>
« Reply #4 on: July 21, 2014, 02:54:46 pm »
This is awesome! Thank you for sharing!
I'm for (most) anything that we can do to knock down the beetles. ;)

Thanks for the comment, sarahplusbees.  Encouragement is always welcomed! :)

Ed
www.beeweather.com 
American blood spilled to protect the freedom and peace of people all over the world.  320,000 USA casualties in WWI, 1,076,000 USA casualties in WWII, 128,000 USA casualties in the Korean War, 211,000 casualties in the Vietnam "conflict", 57,000 USA casualties in "War on Terror".  Benghazi, Libya, 13 USA casualties. These figures don't include 70,000 MIA.  But, the leaders of one political party of the United States of America continue to make the statement..."What difference does it make?".

"We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism."..."The press is our chief ideological weapon." - Nikita Khrushchev

"Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they wont come to yours." - Yogi Berra

Offline MsCarol

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Re: ISOT II - The Saga Continues <grin>
« Reply #5 on: July 27, 2014, 11:37:14 am »
What Sarah said!!!!

Very well presented too. I think even I with my very limited wood working skills could handle this project.

Funny thing was I started back at the beginning of the thread and I was thinking rather then the skids on the tray bottoms to just raise the rails......and you did. Fine minds!  :-D

If one needed/wanted some larger holes in the #8 screen, could one maybe "stretch" some of the holes with a pointed dowel (wood pencil) to enlarge them slightly to accommodate the bigger beetles? Yet not a bee.

Now waiting for the dead beetle count report.

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: ISOT II - The Saga Continues <grin>
« Reply #6 on: July 28, 2014, 12:46:38 am »
Thanks ,MsCarol.  Originally I tried to use the surface of the cement blocks for the trays to rest on, thus the idea of the skids.  After that dismal failure I added the quarter round pieces.  The rails, naturally, have been there from the beginning in order to get needed height for the tray.  :)

Stretching the squares in the #8 mesh should work fine.  Using a sharpened pencil is a great idea.  I may try that later on!!!

I hope I don't have a very high dead beetle count to report.  I just pulled honey yesterday and out of seven hives I went into I found one live beetle.  :th_thumbsupup: I know there's more to come though.  I'm hoping this coming Saturday (if not before) that I will have slipped the four new ISOTs under four hives.  From about now on into late fall or early winter the beetles will most likely be building in numbers.

The hurdle that I've still got to get over with these oil tray traps is rain intrusion.  I've got two of these currently under hives...one isn't built as tight so I have to be careful with it and shim the tray up snug so bees can't get into it, but it doesn't have a problem.  The one that has the tightest fit (by fit I mean the tray fitting close to the bottom side of the bottom board) is the one that collects more rain water...and to top that this one actually has a canopy over the front porch!!!!  Go figure, eh?  :-\

I've been trying to figure out what to do and I've about decided to add an extension to the back of the bottom board so I can pull the tray further backwards and create a gap at the entrance for the rain to simply fall through the screen, holes, or slits to the ground.  I wish I could find trays the same width but shorter but so far no luck in that.  I may do something as simple as a bent piece of flashing nailed to the back of the bottom board as a cover for the portion of the tray exposed when it's pulled back an inch and a half or so.  I think that might be the best fix. 

Pulling the tray backwards to create that gap creates another issue...  There will be a gap opened at the front of the tray that bees can easily go through to get into the oil tray.  I'm still debating on how I want to block that gap.  I'll have to do some more tinkering. ;)

Ed
www.beeweather.com 
American blood spilled to protect the freedom and peace of people all over the world.  320,000 USA casualties in WWI, 1,076,000 USA casualties in WWII, 128,000 USA casualties in the Korean War, 211,000 casualties in the Vietnam "conflict", 57,000 USA casualties in "War on Terror".  Benghazi, Libya, 13 USA casualties. These figures don't include 70,000 MIA.  But, the leaders of one political party of the United States of America continue to make the statement..."What difference does it make?".

"We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism."..."The press is our chief ideological weapon." - Nikita Khrushchev

"Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they wont come to yours." - Yogi Berra

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: ISOT II - The Saga Continues <grin>
« Reply #7 on: July 28, 2014, 09:59:09 pm »
Ok, on one of the two ISOTs that I have under hives I get rain water in the tray and it appears to be the better built one.  On the other one very little rain gets inside.  They both look about the same...  :?

Here are some thoughts put into action regarding stopping rain.  I don't know whether I like it or not.  The more things added the less simple it gets to be.  Anyhow, the trick is to get the oil tray pulled back a little bit to keep water from running in during heavy rains.  If there is a small gap between the wooden porch and the oil tray then rain will simply fall to the ground through the screen.  My problem is that I haven't found any good cheap trays that fits the needed specs.  The baking trays are a bit too long, but are a good width.  I'm still looking but in the meantime, here's some shots of what I've done to work with the trays that I have.  :-\

Forward part of flashing has many small holes, too small for shb but hopefully the rain will fall through this when it's blown into the entrance...


A shot showing the holes with the tray slid forward to where it stops against a nail...


Bottom view with tray slid completely forward against the nail.  The #8 screen will let the rain fall through and keep bees out...shb are welcome to enter through that lower #8. ;)


Bottom view with tray pulled back a bit to show all of the #8 screen...


Rear view showing the cover over where the tray extends out the back of the bottom board...


A side angle shot of the rear cover for the tray...


And lastly, a bottom view of the rear of the bottom board with rear cover installed...


Do I like it, I dunno.... :idunno: :idunno: :idunno:

Ed
www.beeweather.com 
American blood spilled to protect the freedom and peace of people all over the world.  320,000 USA casualties in WWI, 1,076,000 USA casualties in WWII, 128,000 USA casualties in the Korean War, 211,000 casualties in the Vietnam "conflict", 57,000 USA casualties in "War on Terror".  Benghazi, Libya, 13 USA casualties. These figures don't include 70,000 MIA.  But, the leaders of one political party of the United States of America continue to make the statement..."What difference does it make?".

"We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism."..."The press is our chief ideological weapon." - Nikita Khrushchev

"Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they wont come to yours." - Yogi Berra

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: ISOT II - The Saga Continues <grin>
« Reply #8 on: August 04, 2014, 01:51:05 pm »
I installed ISOT II bottom boards beneath three beehives Saturday.  It worked out well, no major issues in swapping out the bottom boards, though one colony I opened just to freshen up the Beetle Jails seemed to be pretty hot...I'm not sure what all that is about.  I had taken off the top box of partially filled honeycomb and started to pull a frame from the next box down when the bees suddenly decided they didn't like me.  The top box had seemed a little ornery so I had a single glove on (doing the Michael Jackson thing, I guess  :roll: ) but after removing that box decided to pull the second glove on.  When I went for that frame they attacked the gloves and I even had some attack a couple of spots on my bluejeans.  I've never had bees act like this before.  Very different.  Later on I was right in their faces doing some hand clipping of grass/weeds around the hive and they paid me little attention.   :?

Anyhow, here are some shots of those three ISOT II bottom boards installed.  You can see my shade frames that I've had on for the last month.  When I pulled honey a week ago I found one hive beetle (and it was crawling on a Beetle Jail Baitable. ;)  The beetle numbers have been very low this year *so far*.  I believe in being proactive against them rather than reactive so all Beetle Jails are freshened up and now four of my eight hives have oil trays beneath them...hopefully I can get oil trays beneath them before too long...the ones without oil trays (whether due to solid bottoms or open screens) all have at least two of the Beetle Jail Baitables or Juniors in them.

The three ISOT II's have the painted front trim.  The hive on the right with the blue trimmed bottom board was the original ISOT hive.  It had problems with water infiltration into the oil tray so it got a new ISOT.  It already had the small canopy on it which I left installed...I'll see if the canopy makes any difference or not...


The small covers on the rear are made out of flashing material.  Sliding the trays back a bit to create a gap at the front for rain water to fall to the ground through caused the trays to be too long and extend out from beneath the bottom boards at the rear.  The covers seal well against the tray and hopefully will keep water out...naturally some trays of the correct length would work better but for $5 a piece for a heavy duty tray I'm willing to tinker a bit. ;)






"Hive Row".  The shade clothes have worked out well and I've seen no increase in SHB from using it.  It basically only shades a small amount of ground at the base of the hives but gives the sides some good protection from solar gain.  It is simply some cheap week-barrier fabric (no chemicals) stapled to a "tic-tac-toe" frame.  I put them on and place my bricks on top of the material.  If I can get 2-3 years out of them I'll be happy.


While swapping out the bottom boards and doing some general cleaning in the beeyard I ran up on a couple of different critters...I'll post about'em in a separate post. ;)

FWIW,
Ed
www.beeweather.com 
American blood spilled to protect the freedom and peace of people all over the world.  320,000 USA casualties in WWI, 1,076,000 USA casualties in WWII, 128,000 USA casualties in the Korean War, 211,000 casualties in the Vietnam "conflict", 57,000 USA casualties in "War on Terror".  Benghazi, Libya, 13 USA casualties. These figures don't include 70,000 MIA.  But, the leaders of one political party of the United States of America continue to make the statement..."What difference does it make?".

"We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism."..."The press is our chief ideological weapon." - Nikita Khrushchev

"Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they wont come to yours." - Yogi Berra