Bronze character for hive fire marker

01 · HOW MANY YOU NEED

Count the characters in your brand before ordering

This is the sum to do first, because it changes the total completely: each piece is one character, so a brand like ES4313100 is nine blocks, not one. Add as many units to the basket as you have characters and choose from the dropdown which one each should be — the A, the 7, the hyphen. If your brand repeats a character, you need that piece repeated too: two threes are two blocks. Count the spare slots too: ANEL recommends filling the whole head, so that nine-character brand on a twelve-character iron also takes three “Space”, the blank character. Without them, the metal around the empty slots can bend or deform with the heat. And if you would rather tell us another way, you can leave the list in an order message or by email, as always.

02 · BRONZE, AND A CHANGE IN SECONDS

They come off and on with the fixing screw

The character is machined into a solid bronze block, which is what lets it take thousands of heating cycles without distorting or pitting in the burner smoke. The relief is deep enough to leave a legible mark even on hardwood. And what makes the system practical: the blocks are changed by hand in the head — loosen the fixing screw, take the character out, put the next one in, tighten. That lets you run a whole series in the apiary itself, without going back to the workshop between hives.

03 · WHY BRAND WITH FIRE

No label to peel off, no paint to wear away

A hive lives outdoors for years, and everything stuck or painted on it eventually disappears: the label lifts with damp, the paint abrades, the marker fades in the sun. A branded mark is in the wood, not on it, so it lasts as long as the box does. It is the usual way of identifying hives, frames and supers durably, and what gets branded is normally the apiary's registration number. Exactly what must be marked, and how, is set by your regional register: check with them before ordering the characters, not after.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

Each block weighs 60 g and measures 1.5 × 3 × 2 cm. It is a replacement part: it fits the head of the ANEL branding iron, which is bought separately — there is a 12-character iron, a 14-character one and an electric version. Before ordering, decide how many characters your brand will have and check they fit the head you will use: there is no point ordering fourteen pieces for a twelve-character head. Nor should you fall short: any slots your brand does not use are filled with blank characters.