What are you currently making in the shed/garage/kitchen/patio/living room that's bee related

[Spike]

Pallet wood doesn't usually last very long

[Alfred]

I use whatever skips and Freecycle provide.
As long as it's fairly new,a coat of wood preserver and a couple of coats of linseed oil(then an annual top up coat)keeps everything waterproof.
Pallets are often made of the gnarly stuff that gets left over once the prime cuts have been taken but you can get lucky when that's all used up and they have to use the better grades.
You just have to prepare it for the particular task
I ended up with some lovely cedar when I made my Honey dryer.
I'd avoid using wood where it contacts the ground directly-I make my stands with metal legs
If you've already made them with timber you could put plastic feet or similar on the ends.
It's commendable that you are making use of material that would otherwise end up polluting.

[AdamD]

I am making a new honey warming cabinet out of an old fridge as my old one is getting rather ropy and needs to go to the tip.

I have an inkbird temperature controller after seeing one that Alfred had used - and I have a 12 volt heater in the bottom with a 12 volt power supply stuffed in the back where the compressor is located. The wires for the heater go in through the drain hold at the back of the fridge. The inkbird temperature sensor goes through a drilled hole and into the light compartment at the top of the fridge, so it's out of view.
I need to add a stirring fan and to support the heater so it doesn't melt the plastic internals of the fridge - as happened in the last one!

[Alfred]

Adam before you go too far- the 240 v tube heaters are way more energy efficient than low voltage gear....

[AdamD]

I'm not sure about that Alfred - 100 watts is the same if its from a 240 volt tube heater of from a 12 volt something else. I wanted to have a low voltage heater inside in case of drips (or worse) of honey.
The inkbird controller works well - as you say it seems well made and easy to use with 13 A sockets. I'll be jarring up my first honey that's been through this new warmer any day.
BUT - is warmed honey raw honey?!

[NigelP]

Not sure which type of heaters Abelo use in their supers drier or warming cabinets but their use of electricity is minimal, certainly nowhere near 100 watts probably about 10. On the down side they do take a long time to get to up temperature.

p.s I would certainly consider honey that has been heated to around 50C for less than 24 hours as still being raw....although I would not advertise it as such.

[AdamD]

No definition of Raw at all. If, for example, someone bought a jar of OSR honey that was set like concrete in the jar, they would most probably complain, so it would need to be warmed.

As far as the honey regulations are concerned, the diastase activity is something that we cannot easily measure as beekeepers, (not less than 8 is the specification) so it's almost a meaningless figure. How can we determine whether the honey has been over-warmed apart from knowing the temperature and time over which the honey has been warmed/stored?
Fera will do 5 diastase tests for £760 however using spectrophotometry. Out of the reach of nealy all UK honey producers.

[MickBBKA]

I think 'Raw' defines a product that has not been 'pasturised' which means all the live bacteria and enzymes are still active, its why we put those 'not suitable for infants' labels on our honey jars..........................IMHO... Cold filtered, warmed and heated are all very subjective terms and until the powers that be = the EU as our country is still shackled to the harness of their laws. decide what those terms mean then its all very open to the individual's determination. A good start would be just enforcing labelling which when you look around is an absolute joke.

[Alfred]

Used some scraps up to make a clearance board with the escape I got at the Welsh show.
I have only ever used 3x rhombus setups before so it will be interesting to see how it goes.

[JoJo36]

That look decent for sure!!