Building The Bee Hives In Pictures

[pdilley]

Decided to start work on the bee hives during the last half of this afternoon. Spent yesterday working on the ultimate grain milling work bench, and then this morning looking at property.

Looking forward to fresh honey that has not been adulterated (common practice since biblical times) to brew the best Mead I can.



Until I get a permanent place I need a portable hive. So the Kenyan Top Bar Hive it is.

Two long coffin looking things that lay out lengthwise on the horizontal plane. Simple top bars that bees draw down comb in the shape of the letter "D".



Phase #1 - Cutting out and assembling the frame.



Line Drawing of Hive without legs attached:

What a beekeper working a Kenyan Top Bar Hive would look like.

Bees just starting to draw out fresh comb along a single top bar:


The e-book I am using:
The Barefoot Beekeeper

To Do:

1. Hinge Bottom boards on so they can be opened. Insert wire or plastic mesh underneath so when opened the hive is still protected. Bottom board can be lined with paper to check for mites and closed for winter time so bee's can use less honey to stay warm over winter.

2. Get some legs on it.

3. Get the top bars cut out and placed on top.

4. Build a Roof

5. Stick it in the garden and dump a box of bee swarm in it



Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[fraser_john]

Awesome project Pete! I thought of this too, but my plate is too full as it is.

 

[chappo1970]

Wow Pete!

The temptation to follow in your footsteps is great. My wife and I were tending to our veggie patch this afternoon and SWMBO said maybe we should look at bee's as we seem to have a lack of them in our area to help pollenate the fruit trees etc. We live on the Logan river and have a wonderful veggie patch about 200m2 that produces fruit and veg year round. She reckons we saved about 1/3 on our veg bill this winter by growing our own but best part is the taste and flavours.

Now our honey? Mmmmmmm!

Is it hard to get into Pete?

Cheers

Chappo

 

[pdilley]

Piece of piss to get into.

Seriously when the swarm catchers arrive they have a cardboard box full of bees.

You take some bars off then open the box and dump all the bees in. Good chance the centre of the ball is the queen.

You put the bars back on.

You leave the box next to the hive. Over the next half day, the bees in the hive go to the entrance and fan their wings spreading the queens scent outside.

The bees in the box that are left and those flying around home in on the scent and land in the hive.

A day or so and you know if they like it and stay.

Low maintenance. You lift only one top bar out at a time. This pisses the bees off less and you can get by with no smoker and no suit if you are gentle and don't breath CO2 all over the bees like a hungry bear.

Modern hives use lots of chemicals and drugs. This is designed from the World Bank / Peace Corp days from the Kenyan design for no drugs and low maintenance. If you are into saving the bees and making your veggie and fruit crop double or tripple at the same time. Don't wait, Do It now.

Spring is fast approaching and it will be swarm time October-November. Don't miss the boat If you don't get started at Swarm season then you really should wait a whole year until next swarm season (if you are like me that is NOT an option!)

BTW the plans are FREE here How To Build A Top Bar Hive.pdf if you want to start building right away. All it takes is a single sheet of C/D 21mm Plywood from Bunnings. Then when you built as much as I have you get some long metres of hardwood and just rip them into bars the right width and chop em off so they fit over the top. After you got your hive done and bees then you can spend time learning about them.

Add a roof and some bees and end of story.

Harvesting honey is easier than modern hives. Take out top bar, slice off the wax comb, take the comb as the bees will build new comb.

Mash up the comb with a knife and let sit in muslin in a jar, honey drips through, wax stays behind.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete


EDIT: Tools used: Circular Saw. Pencil. Large Carpenters Straight edge. Wood Glue. Nails to tack sides temporary. Bricks to add weight during glue dry.

EDIT2: My Modifications from Free Plan = 6" Wide cut of plywood for the floor. Hinged so it can be opened and closed. Closed at winter for bees to stay warmer. Also modified the angle for wide bars but not deep letter D. Canberra gets hot and wax in 45C will not be hard. Heavy comb will fall and break so I designed Shallow + Wide bars. 120 degrees angle on the sides so that means 30 degrees angle on the circular saw to make the sides of the hive have nice straight tops and bottoms to attach to the 6" wide bottom strip of plywood and to put top bars on the top nice and flat.


This Design approved by Friends of The Bees
Save the Honey Bee!

 

[OzMick]

Do you need a permit/license to keep bees?

 

[pdilley]

Not in the ACT. Permit free

You have to register in NSW (cheap) only so if there is disease outbreak the government can notify you.

I am not sure about Victoria, I am sure its similar to NSW.

I never read anything about Qld yet.


Bottom line, its not expensive if you do and its not a hassle. Just us in the ACT get off scott free


Cheers,
Brewer Pete


EDIT: Only takes a single sheet of C/D Plywood from Bunnings. 21mm is what I used but 19mm will work if you can find it (my store didn't carry 19 so 21 it was). $80 for plywood so $40 per hive plus hardware, legs and top bars. Just one bucket of honey cost me that from the farm! Hoping to get about 120kg ($600 farm price, $1,320 Supermarket price worth of honey) out of both of these each year.

 

[OzMick]

I never read anything about Qld yet.

http://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/bees/16815.html would suggest it is an $11 or so annual registration fee in Queensland.

Where and how does one go about rustling up one of these swarms? You've really got me interested...

 

[Henno]

I'm interested as well Pete. We are getting our garden up and going in the next week or so and to double or triple our crop is something I never thought of really as we have native bees around here. Do you think we would still get an increase in veggie efficiency?

In the link you posted the bars you make out of hardwood are pictured being lifted out with the D shaped comb underneath. I know you haven't got your going yet but what puzzled me with this is what if the bees decide to build a comb on the joins between two bars? The picture shows a bar being lifted with a comb conveniently built right in the middle of it.

 

[geoff_tewierik]

Maybe there's a run of wax down the centre of bar to start or encourage the bees?

This thread has definately got my wife interested.

*Edit - just read the building the hive pdf, and yes a run of wax down the centre of the bar is advised.

 

[pdilley]

Wax starter line yes. Or for those of us in a hurry a piece of string run down the middle of the bar and using a soldering iron and block of bees wax drip the heated wax onto the string. The string bonds to the board. Undo clamps
and cut the string ends and put the next board on your bench to wax.

Bees sometime bridge comb to sides of hives. This is no issue. You knock on top bars with back of scredriver etc and you can hear hollow sound of no comb and dull sound of bar with comb under it. You take out one or two empty bars and then take out comb bars one by one sliding them back as you go.

As you gently move a bar back you will feel resistance if it is bridge combed to the sides. Slide in a cheap $2 bread knife to cut the bridge or take a rod of iron and hammer out a bend in the end then hammer the bent bit into a blade and you built your own hive tool to insert and slide down the hive edges cutting bridge comb as it goes down to the bottom. Bees never bridge the bottom most times as they need bee space to crawl between combs.

Most of your maintanence is looking for cross comb as bees sometime like to build curved comb. Just trim the curved end with knife and reset it straight on the bar.

You find bee swarm collectors at bee clubs. Lots of club members collect swarms from people afraid of bees and club members take swarms in. Usually a small fee or a donation for petrol and their time is all it takes for bees. You can mail order factory bees but your talking lots of money and a partially expired box of bees by the time it finally arrives in the mail. Mail order has queen in a cage so a bit of extra work removing the seal and inserting piece of candy in the hole before dumping her cage and all the box of bees into your hive.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[davewaldo]

Hi BP, thanks for posting looks great!

Chappo MATE!!! You have to do this!!!

I'm happy to help where I can, I'd love to do this at my place but its too small (and I have family members allergic to bees), your place would be awesome. We should have a working bee weekend and build some hives.

Just think of all those mead possibilities!!! And I reckon you would get FABULOUS honey as you have a variety of citrus trees on your property. :icon_drool2:

All from your property.... morat (mulberry mead), citrus mead, plain mead, what ever else you grow mead..... Vegetable wine.....

 

[pdilley]

Australia has native bees but they are not what we know of as the honey bee. Are native bees or honey bees in your garden? Most places if you look you will find less and less bees each year. They are going extinct in some areas with lots of fingers pointed to pesticide sprays such as neonicitinoids.

Crop increases will be noticeable if you have few, diminishing or no bees. If the guy 13 houses down has 8 hives running then you wont get as big of a boost as you are likely getting a lot of bee visits already.

Kenyan TBH is low drug, less factory. You harvest during the season. Take a bar here and there. If you want environment and bee friendly but designed to open only once a year (might get you wierd looks by traditional beeks) then the Warre hive is said to be best. Its a top bar but vertical instead of horizontal.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[chappo1970]

Thanks for the info Pete,
Discussed with SWMBO last night and have got the green light. Unfortunately she has an allergic reaction to Bees but is willing to go for it as long as I place the hives in a spot away from the veggie patch. So I was thinking down on the river bank as that's a good 20-30m away. I'm surprised that you can get 120kg out those little guys but I won't complain. We use no chemical on out veggies what so ever so it makes sense to harvest chemical free honey. Any further information you can spin my way BP will be great. I reckon those hives you have built are a cracker plus simple to build especially as I have a table saw.

Hi BP, thanks for posting looks great!

Chappo MATE!!! You have to do this!!!

I'm happy to help where I can, I'd love to do this at my place but its too small (and I have family members allergic to bees), your place would be awesome. We should have a working bee weekend and build some hives.

Just think of all those mead possibilities!!! And I reckon you would get FABULOUS honey as you have a variety of citrus trees on your property. :icon_drool2:

All from your property.... morat (mulberry mead), citrus mead, plain mead, what ever else you grow mead..... Vegetable wine.....

Dave (and I guess the other Dave) your on. I'll go via Bunnings sometime in the next week or 2 for materials. Shouldn't take more than an afternoon to build those hives. I don't know if you or the other Dave have contacts in the bee world to get our hands on some swarming bee's but I would be happy to split the honey with you guys if you can help me with setting this up and maybe teach me a thing or two about bee keeping. I'm thinking of starting with 2 hives first and then seeing how it goes.

Oh BTW the Mulberry is chock a block full of fruit this season. I estimate that we will be ready to harvest in about 2-3 weeks so maybe we can have a brew day, bee hive and mulberry harvest day in the next few weeks. We can have a BBQ or something and the SWMBO's can relax by the pool or river?

Cheers

Chappo

 

[davewaldo]

Chappo... you know the way to my heart.... Honey (mead), beer, fruits, BBQ, and building stuff!

I'm up for it for sure!

The other Dave (David England) knows a bee keeper, so we may be able to get a swarm from him.

Sounds like fun!

 

[winkle]

Going slightly off topic, thanks for the prompting Pete - I've got a hive of Trigona Carbonaria (native stingless bees) that really HAS to be split this year. These things are good plant/fruit pollonators for a variety of plants but rarely produce enough honey to harvest without stressing the hive.
PS just because they are stingless doesn't mean that they don't bite.

 

[Leigh]

Excellent thread BP, been thinking of doing this for quite some time! I'll be watching this thread to see what successes you all have

 

[brettprevans]

nice work Pete. sweet sweet home grown honey (so to speak).

If anyone if Eastern suburbs melbourne is thinking of doing this and needs to source bees, let me know. I recemtly found out that the father of a mate of mate is a hard core bee keeper. so I might be able to hook you up with some bees.

And dont worry im already working on sourcing some cheap honey from him!

 

[chappo1970]

http://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/bees/16815.html would suggest it is an $11 or so annual registration fee in Queensland.

Where and how does one go about rustling up one of these swarms? You've really got me interested...

Thanks Ozy!

Great info. Apparently I can have upto 10 hives? Crazy stuff. Anyway $11.20 is no biggy.

Cheers

Chappo

 

[OzMick]

Thanks Ozy!

Great info. Apparently I can have upto 10 hives? Crazy stuff. Anyway $11.20 is no biggy.

Cheers

Chappo

The way I see it is that we mightn't be able to grow hops in Queensland particularly well, but in addition to mead a hive can make honey for trade/sale for acquiring hops and probably even pay for malt. And I'm frigging hopeless at remembering to water plants too

 

[chappo1970]

Just joined the www.biobees.com forum... ROFL! I'll have ban myself from there when I am sampling my homebrew and probably mind my P's and Q's regardless :lol:

Cheers

Chappo