Winter Woodworking - Made my Bushkill swarm traps today

[Rex Smith]

Today I (essentially) finished up my swarm traps.  Made 15 of them from 2 sheets of 3/8" plywood.  The bottoms I made from a sheet of Smartside Siding (OSB siding)
that was leftover from a construction project.  All connecting edges are glued with Titebond III, and then stapled with 1" staples.

I've got a pic of one here:

http://rex.bohemianutopia.com/wordpress/?p=90

Still need to make some quick lids to screw on - but no hurry yet on that. 

As temps allow, I'll also paint my deep & medium hive bodies that I bought & assembled earlier this fall.

So - What do YOU have going to make the sawdust fly this winter?

Rex "Hawk" S.

[BeeMaster2]

Looks good.

I just finished building 3 screen bottom boards and 3 insulated lids. I already had about 35 supers made up. Mostly mediums, I plan to switch to them this year. I built them last year but only had one hive build up. I now have the equipment to house 9 hives and 5 nucs. Hope to be able to collect a lot of swarms this year. I will build more supers if I can use up the ones I have.
Jim

[Rex Smith]

I'm in the same boat on the hives / supers.  One good hive built up right now - and 5 deeps and 15 mediums waiting on spring swarm season to get here.  I need to pick up (or make) some frames for the deeps and for the swarm traps.

Rex "Hawk" S.

[BeeMaster2]

The only problem that I have with building all of this equipment is storing them. The back of my work shop is filled with hive equipment.
I did a test with one of my empty hives and left it outside with a couple of drawn frames in it. The cockroaches love calling it home. The ants seem to  keep the moth larva under control. This hive has been out, unprotected and the comb seems to be in pretty good shape but the box just has those nasty cockroaches. I asked an old timer about the roaches and he didn't worry about it. Said that the bees would clean it up.
Jim