Post by roadrunner on May 3, 2013 16:44:29 GMT
BEE KEEPING FORUM
Just a quick update on our apiary. We have now taken our original (the first one I made) Top-Bar hive to a friends garden for the summer. He lives in a country village and has a couple of apple trees in his own garden, there are lots of interesting crops in the nearby gardens & fields. Before I took it I modified it by putting in a vertical queen excluder and fastening half round wood moulding under the top-bars that didn't have any comb attached. This hive will not be opened again until early September and checks/ inspections will be restricted to watching what the bees are carrying in. Although there is a lot of bee activity in this hive we are not 100% convinced that it has survived the winter as we have been unable to check for the existence of brood. If it is still active at the end of May I will assume that it has survived as last years bees could surely not have survived that long?
We now have 3 x WBC hives and 1 x National Hive at the bottom of the garden. A "Bait-Hive" is set up on the garage roof at the bottom of the garden and I have 2 x home-made hives ready to be used for swarm control.
Of the above we have 3 strong colonies, 1 in the National and 2 in WBC's.
We carried out our last inspection this afternoon and all hives have lots of larvae and sealed brood, two have a fair number of drone cells and one had 2 x queen cells.
I have now fitted supers on the 3 x viable hives. One hive has normal super frames with either foundation or drawn comb, one has my own version of top-bar super frames which consist of a normal super frame minus the foundation but with a half round wood moulding pinned under the top bar, the last one has alternate normal super frames and my top-bar super frames.
The above method is an experiment that I will run to the end of this year. The experiment will be 4-fold:
1. To see if the bees will build good honey comb in the "Top-Bar Frames".
2. To obtain more wax as we already have more than enough honey.
3. To save the expense of new foundation every couple of years.
4. To check on the viability of honey processing without recourse to a honey spinner.
We have a manual honey spinner but its a job I detest - mainly the cleaning of it afterwards. As the cappings seem to drain off honey ok through a double mesh strainer I am going to try this method on a larger scale.
If the process is successful this year I shall completely transfer to top-bar frames next year and leave the honey spinner in the attic.
Just a quick update on our apiary. We have now taken our original (the first one I made) Top-Bar hive to a friends garden for the summer. He lives in a country village and has a couple of apple trees in his own garden, there are lots of interesting crops in the nearby gardens & fields. Before I took it I modified it by putting in a vertical queen excluder and fastening half round wood moulding under the top-bars that didn't have any comb attached. This hive will not be opened again until early September and checks/ inspections will be restricted to watching what the bees are carrying in. Although there is a lot of bee activity in this hive we are not 100% convinced that it has survived the winter as we have been unable to check for the existence of brood. If it is still active at the end of May I will assume that it has survived as last years bees could surely not have survived that long?
We now have 3 x WBC hives and 1 x National Hive at the bottom of the garden. A "Bait-Hive" is set up on the garage roof at the bottom of the garden and I have 2 x home-made hives ready to be used for swarm control.
Of the above we have 3 strong colonies, 1 in the National and 2 in WBC's.
We carried out our last inspection this afternoon and all hives have lots of larvae and sealed brood, two have a fair number of drone cells and one had 2 x queen cells.
I have now fitted supers on the 3 x viable hives. One hive has normal super frames with either foundation or drawn comb, one has my own version of top-bar super frames which consist of a normal super frame minus the foundation but with a half round wood moulding pinned under the top bar, the last one has alternate normal super frames and my top-bar super frames.
The above method is an experiment that I will run to the end of this year. The experiment will be 4-fold:
1. To see if the bees will build good honey comb in the "Top-Bar Frames".
2. To obtain more wax as we already have more than enough honey.
3. To save the expense of new foundation every couple of years.
4. To check on the viability of honey processing without recourse to a honey spinner.
We have a manual honey spinner but its a job I detest - mainly the cleaning of it afterwards. As the cappings seem to drain off honey ok through a double mesh strainer I am going to try this method on a larger scale.
If the process is successful this year I shall completely transfer to top-bar frames next year and leave the honey spinner in the attic.