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I need to move some sheet materials because they’re in the way of work that must be completed, but the place I’d like to move them to is already occupied by some other sheets for lining the bee shed. I can use those, but the bee shed will need emptying (eek!). A fair bit of space on the shelving is taking up by frame parts and it occurred to me that if I make those frames up and don’t wax them, I can store them outside in the double-decker xylophone. So today I started on that. It’s a bit of a tedious job, but the frame-making jigs and the staple gun do make it go more quickly so I think I’ve done close to one hundred frames already.

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before, but all I needed to get the frame rails at the correct height in the jig was to find two old top bars and cut off the section opposite the wedge so they were the same thickness everywhere. And now the jig is all done.

The boxes are initially assembled upside down, then removed from the jig to fit the top rails.

And the rail height comes out perfectly.

Having made the jig I obviously cracked on with making up the six brood boxes that have been taking up space in the bee shed for ages. And I didn’t have to use a square or tape measure once 😀

As I had a number of brood boxes to make up, today I decided to make a jig that holds them square and aligns the frame rails at the correct height. Only when it came to making the parts for that last job, I discovered that the supplied boxes and parts weren’t the same as the published dimensions. I’m guessing that’s partly down to the original boxes being specified in inches whereas everything is now done in millimetres and people sometimes round up and sometimes round down when converting between the two. I think I need to do a bit more research before comitting myself.