Fame at last

I was googling , (is that really a word), around the other day and stumbled on this.  I have been a member of River Cottage Landshare since it started, but had discontinued my blog on their site due to its limited features, nice to be highlighted though.

In Bingley ms_phoenix was looking for a plot to expand from her balcony and matched with catvirago who had a private allotment. They now share the produce. Do you know of any successful matches? Please email them in toinfo@...
Lincsbees is looking to start 3 new apiaries in the East of England near Spalding. They've got a great blog with some fascinating pictures. Contact them for more information.
There can't be many more rewarding acts then planting a seed in the ground and watching how, with a little sunshine and light rain, it sprouts, grows and ripens into something delicious and nutritious. Growing your own veg truly is one of life's great pleasures! This DVD gives you some of the top River Cottage tips to produce your own haul of tasty seasonal veg... "You may well find that your veg patch turns food into something you do rather than just what you eat." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
______
Tell your friends Blogs Join Created by Supported by

Wannabee a beekeeper 2, you've been framed

Once you have your hive, you are going to need frames.
Frames are where the bees will build their comb, brood frames will contain all the eggs, larvae, metamorphising bees and a small amount of honey and pollen.  Super frames will contain all the honey and perhaps a small amount of pollen.
The picture shows all the parts that make up a frame, one topbar with wax retaining strip, two sidebars, two bottom bars, 11 frame pins and a sheet of wax.

Once assembled your frame should look like the picture on the left, the frame must be straight and square and the wax must be flat.  The bees will draw their comb on the wax, if the wax is not flat nor will the comb be.

If you have built the frame correctly and the bees have done their part, after a short while the frame will be covered in drawn comb.  This frame is ready for the bees to clean and then the queen will start laying, one egg per cell.

I use just two types of frames, in the brood box I have DN4's, as in deep national type 4.  The type 4 is a Hoffman self spacing frame, which means when they are pushed together the raised shoulder on each sidebar creates a gap that is exactly right for 'bee space', the space required for bees to work back to back.  It is usual to have 11 frames in a national, it is possible to fit 12 but it is very tight and when extracting frames, bees will be 'rolled', which they do not take kindly to.
In the super I use SN1 frames, as in shallow national type 1.  The type 1 has straight sides and is not self spacing.  I have only 10 frames, sometimes 9 in the supers, this encourages the bees to draw deeper comb, deeper comb = more honey.  I use standard wired wax in both types of frame.

I like bees........and I like owls

but which one would win, well actually it wasn't much of a fight.  This was a little owl nest box before a swarm decided it was more deserving of the space.  As you can see they were sitting on two eggs at the time and I would guess not far from hatching, but there is not much that can resist bees if they want your home.

I removed the front of the box to gain access, the bees had been in occupancy for about a week and had 5 or 6 combs filled with honey.  As always with these removals its a very messy business and you end up with a lot of very upset bees.

Wannabee a beekeeper 1, the hive

Over the few months that I have been running this blog I have received a lot of mails from people who would like to become beekeepers, have read the books, been on-line, but still do not understand the mechanics of how a hive goes together or how the whole system works.  So here goes, THE HIVE, bearing in mind that I only use British Standard Modified hives and that the way I construct hives and keep bees, is not the only way.

The photograph on the right is a hive Jim, but not as we know it.  It is the parts that make up a hive in no particular order.

The Floor.

This one is a fairly typical modern floor.  It is known as an OMF (open mesh floor) or a varroa floor, and it comes with a correx sliding tray so that it is possible for the beekeeper to do a head count on the numbers of varroa falling through the mesh onto the tray.

The Brood

This is the brood chamber or sometimes called the deep, called the brood because it will contain the Queen and all the eggs, larvae and metamorphosing bees that make up the brood. Called a deep because it is deeper than a shallow.  I use plastic runners for both boods and supers
The floor is constructed in such a way that when the brood is placed upon it, the entrance is formed.

The Queen Excluder.

The Queen excluder comes in several types, the one shown is a plastic slotted, there are metal slotted and wired excluders.  My preference is for the wired excluders, they seem to be the least offensive to the bees, but much more expensive than others types.

The Super

The super is placed on top of the queen excluder, super because it is superimposed, shallow because it is shallower than the deep.
This is where the bees will store their honey.  Supers are added as required through the season, one on top of the other, at the moment some of my hives have four supers on.

The Crownboard

The crownboard tops off, crowns, the working parts of the hive, it can be as simple as a flat piece of ply, this one has two slots that are made to accept Porter bee escapes, but as I don't use Porters I just cover these slots with a thin piece of plasic.

The Roof

The roof weatherproofs the hive, this is a 100mm edged roof with a galvanized top.  I don't have any form of top ventilation, ever, so  I block off the ventilation slots that are machined into the woodwork.

I give you THE HIVE



The parts of a hive sit one on top of the other without fixings of any kind, that is not to say that the bees will 'glue' them together pretty quickly.  Any slight imperfections in the join between parts of the hive will be filled with propolis, but that is a whole other story.

New homes

At long last colonies and nucs have made up for the dreadful weather in April, and are ready for their new owners to collect.

Complete working colonies are moved into brand new hives

They are then clamped with ratchet straps and when its late in the evening and the last of the flying bees have returned home, the entrance will be sealed.

This one has been sited in its new location on the outskirts of Huntingdon and has just been opened.  This colony has gone to a returning customer and I hope that they work as hard for him as the one he had last year, which has already given 40lbs of honey this season.