It's sometimes amazing how a simple problem with a simple solution can get
so complicated.  That's how I generally manipulate hives already, but not
to save my back (side benefit I guess).  My wife likes to come out and
help, but is both a bit nervous and a neat freak.  She doesn't like me
setting stuff on the ground (even though I have landscaping cloth down) and
it keeps more bees out of the air generally.  To accomadate this, and
because I got tired of hauling extra supers around from stand to stand,
when I made ventilated covers I set them up so they could take an inverted
feed jar, or hang medium frames in them (I run almost all mediums now).
Whenever I pop the cover off a hive I've got a box sitting there I can hang
frame or ten in.

http://s1113.photobucket.com/albums/k516/cusickje/Prototype%20ventilated%20innercover/

Wasn't sure if I was wasting my time or not, but they really seem to help
in this heat we've been having (there are now holes drilled in the insert
of course).  With the screened boards on bottom and the ventilated cover on
top I've really cut down on the number of bees fanning even on days around
100F.

Jeremy
West Michigan

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