The Bee Wagon

So excited. St St. Clair Beekeepers Association is teaching a new beekeepers class on 17 Feb and it’s a go. Pay for your seat before it fills up!

The bee wagon made a visit to a local private school

Winter is coming and we might have our first frost this weekend. There is nothing better on a cold day than a cup of hot coffee or tea with a teaspoon of honey on a cold day. Stock up now with our locally grown that is only filtered with no additional processing fresh from the hive. $10 for a 1 pound bottle, $16 for a pint, $30 for a quart.

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https://stclairbees.com/

Promoting Beekeeping – Promoting Beekeeping St. Clair Beekeepers Association Learn More Introduction to Beekeeping Class Class Registration Meeting Info I found some bees - now what do I do? Is it a swarm? Is it a cutout? Swarm are usually found on objects or vegetation. Somewhere in the clump of bees you will normally find a queen. A swarm w...

Merry Christmas

Did you know that a honey bee colony is warm-blooded, while individual bees are cold-blooded?

As we mentioned last week, a colony functions as a superorganism to carry out colony-level tasks, another one of those being thermoregulation! A colony behaves like a warm-blooded animal by keeping the brood area of the hive at a constant temperature of 93°F (34°C).

When temperatures outside the hive rise above 93°F, worker bees fan droplets of water to cool it down inside. In the image above, workers are engaging in a behavior called ‘bearding’ which reduces the internal nest temperature when it is too high. On a colder day, when temperatures drop below 93°F, worker bees generate heat by clustering around the brood nest, vibrating their wing muscles.

For more information, visit https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IN1102?fbclid=IwAR1rYwLc61_0J-ckwjoi8KYwX8f5Zc1MvvyDvoNVpV4YYEERfsLs-qJ_9Nk

Photo Credit: Mike Bentley, UF/IFAS

Front axle

The next part was the chassis. I took it apart in three pieces front axle. Rear axle. And runners connecting the two. All the metal was severely corroded and stripped to bare metal and pitting removed where I could with compromising strength. Here are the parts as I disassembled them

After completing the wheels my attention turned to restoring the chassis. I decided to do this in two steps. Front amd back axle. As you can see through the pictures there was severe corrosion and pitting of all the metal. The wood was all dry rotted and required replacing with most wood custom cut to make it fit. 99% of the wood is popular with one piece of oak from John And Gail Van Winkle.
All the metal was ground back to shiny steel using wire brushes on a side grinder and then where it was exposed for viewing I attempted to remove the pits. Each piece was primed and top coat. The springs were disassembled and painted too.

Over the next couple of days I will display some pictures of the parts in various stages of restoral. Here are the wheels. Final product not shown. It took a long time to understand how the wheels were assembled. Most of the wood was destroyed trying to save the metal parts and this caused an issue trying to understand how the wheels were assembled. My assembly started with measuring and copying the hubs and then using popular wood I glued blanks together to form a block. The hole was started with a Forster bit but had to be completed on the lathe due to the center metal spindle is tapered. The inside and outside metal caps are different and none are exactly the same so this meant a lot of hand fitting to get the perfect fit. After completing the hubs and probably 80% of the spokes I finally found a design on the internet for the wheels. The design is late 1800’s and holds a patent called Sarven. I made the hubs in two pieces. The sarven hubs are one large piece with holes cut every 22.5 degrees for the spokes. That would have been much easier because my way meant a lot of hand fitting. But it works.

The wagon came to the house today for final assembly.

I created this page to let all see the beginning of the bee wagon. Its debut is coming up on 8 May.

Here is how it looked in the 70's

This was the condition of the wagon when we purchased the property. Her dad used to show the wagon in local Lebanon, Il parades. It was pulled by ponies.