Boiling Brood Frames
GN 1/1 200 mm pan. £34.99 from the nice people at Nisbets.
I’ve got a nice new shiny bit of “beekeeping kit”: a Vogue stainless steel heavy duty Gastronorm 1/1 200 mm pan.
It’s a big metal pan which I can boil frames in, in a washing soda solution, to sterilise them. I was otherwise trying to scorch them all individually with a blowtorch, which was getting really tedious. Of course, boiling (or blowtorching) is unsuitable for frames containing comb - those go on the fire. I’ve been sterilising foundationless frames, of which I’ve got a stack kicking around in my bee shed. After the EFB outbreak, I’m taking the position that everything in there is potentially infectious and cleaning it accordingly. For frames of newish comb it should also be fine to cut out the comb for melting down, then sterlise the frames in the same way.
Standard national frames would fit flat on the base of this pan. My 14x12s are too big to do that, but I can stand them in and rotate them to sterilise all parts.
