Metal corner protector 150x60

01 · THE SHORT ONE, FOR SUPERS

It covers what suffers and no more

The 150 mm protects the edge of a super without covering more wood than needed. It is the small one of three sizes sharing profile and finish: the 230 mm goes on the edge of a Langstroth box and the 400 mm dresses a whole Layens. The choice is not by hive brand but by height: measure the edge and take the one that does not overhang, because anything sticking up past the box snags exactly when you are stacking with your hands full.

02 · THE BOX THAT TRAVELS MOST

A super does in a month what a box does in a year

It is worth seeing it this way: the brood box sits still on its stand all season, but the super goes up, comes down, heads to the store, returns to the field and gets stacked full — and at every one of those moves somebody grabs it by the edge or drags it over the one below to square it up. That is why super corners open up before anything else does, and why a forty-cent piece per corner pays for itself in kit you do not have to replace. The profile wraps the edge and spreads the knock across both faces instead of letting it land on a few millimetres of wood.

03 · FITTING, AND THE DAMP QUESTION

Onto dry wood, seated straight

It fixes with wood screws, and it is worth checking it sits straight before tightening, because a lifted edge catches and gets in the way at every handling. On thin board, drill a pilot hole. As for the question that sometimes comes up — whether the metal traps damp: any screwed-on piece creates a joint, so fit it onto dry, clean wood, without trapping debris underneath, and check it at the start of the season. Properly fitted it does the opposite: it caps the edge, the face through which bare wood drinks the most water. And handle them with care — this is cut sheet metal and the edge is sharp.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It is sold as single pieces: each super has four corners, so twenty supers come to eighty pieces. They weigh 70 g each. If you are also dressing the brood boxes, count those separately and order their size in the same go — that way you do not run short halfway through the winter job, which is when this work gets done.