>> "...You can make your own shims, but the thickness
>> of is to be no less or greater than "bee space..."

> Well, how is that possible?  I saw them in the catalogue.
> I have shims I made for feeding fondant, but think it is
> impossible to have the shim = bee space, since there is
> already space between the frames of the top and bottom supers.

You are correct.  The addition of a shim creates "more than"
proper bee space between the two supers, if one had proper
bee space to start.  Not to worry... yes it is a massive
violation of "bee space", but the idea here is to put the
shims in place for the flow, and remove them with the supers,
harvesting soon enough that the bees have no time to make
bridge comb.

Use of Imrie shims carries several inherent assumptions
which may not be true for every beekeeper, and/or may not
be understood to be inherent assumptions:

  1) You need a good supply of drawn comb.  Putting shims
     between supers of undrawn foundation is just asking
     for a terrible mess.  A shim can be added once both
     supers are drawn, but I would not do so before drawing.
     (Of course, this just may be my cognitively-challenged
     bees, yours might be better about drawing the foundation
     before drawing random comb in every other possible space...)

  2) You need to harvest early and often, to pull supers
     before bridge comb gets built, and you need to
     extract quickly so that you can slap the extracted
     supers back onto the hives while the flow continues.

There is no use to using shims to "increase the speed with
which nectar is harvested", and then not take advantage of
"faster" as a beekeeper.

>What about putting a 1/2" hole in the super?  Upward angled to
> prevent water from getting in?

Sure, you could do that, shims are just a way to avoid drilling
holes and blocking the holes when they are not needed.  Shims
also provide a smaller opening, one that is easier for the bees
to defend in the event that robbing gets started.  (Of course,
point [2] above assumes that you aren't going to let the honey
stay on the hives long enough to allow bees to get in a robbing mood.)


          jim (Who's new honey labels say
               "So good, you shouldn't
                even try it once"
                to comply with Truth
                In Advertising laws)

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