Building Bee Houses - Delays

I really wanted to get out and work on either spreading my piles of woodchips around, working on the barn gutters or clearing out the old fence line that is falling down. Why even the weed trees in the new sheep paddock and the pruning were calling my name today since it was so nice. A bit windy I guess. But none of that was to be because I have to get bee hives built before swarming season starts and that is all there is to it.

So most of the morning and afternoon has been spent cutting out bottom boards and top covers. I actually had enough lumber laying around for seven of each and then ran into a supply issue. I am integrating router use into my bottom boards now and I realized that if you are using 3/8" thick plywood for the trays it would be best to make a 1/2" groove for sliding it in and out. The problem is I didn't buy a 1/2" bit for the router only a 1/4" and 3/8"....

Ok add a 1/2" straight bit to my list.

I switched to the top covers. I have pretty much stopped using the telescoping tops for my bee hives and going to all migratory covers. The Migratory covers fit flush with the boxes so you can pack the hives close together for transport but I am using them because they are easier to create a top cover entrance with and they also work well for hanging a pollen trap on. Since they aren't covered with sheet metal they don't last as long but the savings over making them myself still beats buying or making telescoping covers by quite a bit. Or at least my estimates show they do so far. I haven't really seen what the life expectancy is on them. I have one that has been in use for three years and it is still going strong.

With everything cut I reached for my wood glue to glue/clamp it all together before screwing the pieces down and I found another minor problem. My wood glue is now a semi-formed mass of gunk instead of an easily squeezable liquid. Apparently I exceeded the lower temperature extreme of wood glue this Winter. I have never had that happen before in at least five years of leaving my glue out in the shop over Winter. Now I am out about a gallon of wood glue (which that sh%t ain't cheap) and pretty much dead in the bee hive building water until I make a town run.

Mental note - For now on bring the wood glue into the house along with the paint over Winter.

Ain't Winter fun?

Oh well all the hard work is done for these seven bottoms and tops so it's all good. Guess I will go shovel wood chips now.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!

And store your glue properly too......