Taking Time

Finally, it's lovely for it to be warm enough (in the sun!), dry enough and calm enough to do garden pottering. The day had a peacefulness to it and felt a little timeless - pruning and trimming is something humans have done since we were hunter-gatherers. The presence of a dray horse just over the fence just added to the sense of slipping out of time for a moment

But then the sun slipped behind the the brewery, I started feeling chilly and retreated indoors for another job that invites contemplation. Buliding fresh frames for the new season is as much a part of the beekeeping year as honey extraction. They arrive flat-pack, and have to be assembled and nailed together

Each frame comprises a top-bar (here on the bottom - they balance better the wrong way up), two side-bars and two bottom-bars. They are simple soft-wood, but there is quite a lot of precise machining of each component to make sure they can be slotted together, accept and fix a sheet of wax and maintain exactly the right space between each frame and between the frame and the box it sits in. Too narrow and the bees fill the gap with sticky propolis; too wide and they build comb in it

The parts are nailed together using tiny nails called 'gimp pins'. Gimp is a decorative cord used in upholstery for hundreds of years, attached to furniture with these fine nails. Beekeepers simply found another use for them. Frames will get quite a lot of mechanical stress during their life, so secure nailing in the correct positions is important

Eventually, just before I use them, a sheet of wax 'foundation', embossed with the honeycomb pattern for the bees to build on, will sit between the two bottom-bars, and in the slots in the side-bars. At the top, the fixing mechanism is somewhat ingenious: part of the top bar is only held in place by a narrow sliver of wood. This part can be pulled away to create a fixing bar: the wax is positioned against the top-bar, the fixing bar is laid over it and nailed in place with three gimp pins, thus gripping the wax tightly. You can get the idea from the picture, because I have put just one pin into several of the fixing bars to keep them in place temporarily - them having already broken free of the flimsy tie afforded by a thin strip of timber

Ten done. Another 45 or so before I feel ready for the off