Warré hive comb holder for doing cutouts of feral/wild colonies
The two 9 x 11 mm halves of the top-bar are held together with a pair of plastic frame spacers that give 36 mm spacing of frames. Four 'U' shapes of galvanised wire of thickness aproximately 1 mm are fixed to the top-bar halves through small holes drilled in the bars. The spacing between the uprights of the 'U' is about 24 mm. The wire protrudes about 3 mm to the inside of the bar halves and is bent downwards with pliers to secure it. See detail photo below. The bottoms of the 'U' wires are spaced with a fifth wire simply wrapped round them. This wire is about 0.7 mm to ease bending, but could be about 1 mm.
To insert the comb, remove the plastic spacers and open the wire like a book before lowering the comb in.
These are intended only for temporary use until the top box of the hive is taken away for harvest, ideally later the same season.
Below: Split top-bar comb holder, complete.
Below: Split top-bar comb holder, detail of insertion of wires into top-bar halves.
