After chores were done, I began cleaning out frames for the boxes on the hive.  A while back, I mentioned a jig I had made up modeled after a jig that Rod Jackman from Bees a Bunch uses.  One of the members of our bee club mentioned using a model train transformer to use as a heating element, but Rod and Ladonna use a battery trickle charger which is what I use as well and has probably more use around the house than the transformer.  Here is a snap of the set up:

 

There is a groove running down the lower third of the setup.  This accommodates the shallow frames we currently use.  You can see the charger above the setup and the clamps on either side.  What you do is run the wires through the frame and tighten them down. Lay the wax foundation under the wires, plug in your charger and touch each side of the wires.  I do it on one  section of wire at a time.  Sometimes you do need to press down on the wire in the center, but generally it works without the press work.  What is does is heat the wire so it embeds in the wax.  Bees do not like wires hanging out and you either use a setup similar to this or use an embedding tool kind of like a pizza cutter with spurs to embed the wax.  I like the heating method above better for my needs.

Getting all the foundation for our bees cost us about $60.00 this year.  Some of the frames can be used for several years depending on how you get out your honey.  We have not invested in a centrifugal spinner yet and pressed out our honey by hand last year.  This was kind of fun, but it did render the wax foundation in the comb unusable for the bees and those frames needed to be replaced.

Here is a finished Western frame.  I have done about twenty so far and have another ten to do.  I will then start work on the twenty or so shallow frames we use for our honey supplies.  I think this will be the last year for shallows as Westerns are more of what we are geared for now and I prefer these to the deeps and shallow frames right now for size and weight.  Yes, the boxes do get kind of heavy when they get filled up with honey.

You can see the three wires running through the wax, but they have been heated and are inside the wax.  Bees tend to avoid comb areas with exposed wire and that would leave a lot of empty cells in the frame.  The wire is very thin and is stainless steel so it does not rust and at a little less than
$8.00 for the spool you saw in the first picture it is a very good investment and will last for years for the bees and just about any other project that may crop up for some time.

Oh, on the upper right corner of each picture is a glimpse of a cedar strip canoe I built a while back.  It's a Wee Lassie and is about eleven and a half foot long.  Great for poking about.  Robin saw it before we actually met.  She was thrilled that someone actually built something like it and wanted to meet that person.  I was simply known at that time as Mr. 27 (apartment number at the time) by her and her family until she met me in person.  It is a good luck charm that is dear to me to this day and needs a bit of tune up this year.  I have joked about selling it a time or to and have found that even this as a jest is not looked upon with humor by my queen.

I did want to mention something about mead today and probably should as this was the primary purpose of this blog.  One part of the process to consider at some point is what to do with the finished product.  You can always leave it in the carboy and draw out what you want, but that begins introducing air into the mix and can begin degrading your work rather rapidly.  Putting your finely crafted brew in bottles or at least smaller containers may be a sound course of action.

I have swing top bottles, capper type bottles, and cork bottles for different purposes.  The swing tops I use for home made soda pop and did use it for beer when I used to brew beer.  We use the cappers for soda as well now but use the cork bottles for our metheglin.  It just seems right.

As with other parts of the processing, make sure you clean out your bottles (wash 'em).  I rinse out the corks and leave them soaking in water for an hour or so before bottling.  A wet clean cork helps with the insertion process.

I have tried wax seals on our metheglin.  It looks pretty, but won't keep the cork from popping if it is inclined in that direction.  Wiring down your corks is probably the best method if you have a bubbly batch.  You can stop or slow this carbonation by cooling down your mix by refrigeration for a while.  I have not tied the plastic sleeves yet, but I believe I will try them this year.  You simply put these over the end of a corked bottle and use a hair dryer to shrink the plastic.  You get a good looking finished appearance at the end.

I took out our first bottle of mead and placed it on the deck for this shot.  It is about two years old and the last of the mead.  It is a mead and not a metheglin.  This was very clear until recently and now has a bit of floaties in it.  You can expect a little sediment in your batches unless you use finer methods of clarifying you mead.  This has a wax seal that has held up well.  We will probably open this up on one of our anniversaries or possibly this fall when we have our first anniversary.  Robin will inform me as we get closer.

Time to stir up the batch and check on the carboys.  It is a pleasant waiting period now.  I hope your day is going well and there is time to play.