Building The Bee Hives In Pictures

[himzol]

If you left the hive nearby in swarm season with some Lemon Grass Essential Oil scenting it up nice you might get the swarm to occupy it. It will not upset the tree wild hive as the swarm is 1/2 the colony plus the old queen leaving and letting the new queen and the remaining half of the hive have a go at running the old hive.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

Thanks,

I'll see How I go at building one of these, the great thing is if I can't entice the swarm, I still have the wild bees for my vegies and fruit trees etc...

thanks

Himzo.

 

[Batz]

How do you exclude the queens from the frames to be harvested?
Have you a beetle trap in there some place?

Sorry if it's already been covered..long thread this, I did have a hive a while back in WA and intend getting another soon.

Batz

 

[pdilley]

How do you exclude the queens from the frames to be harvested?
Have you a beetle trap in there some place?

Bees naturally exclude the Queen (push her away from) Honey only bars so no Queen Excluder needed.

No Beetle Traps. Canberra is Beetle Free, they can not borrow through the hard soils to complete their life cycle! Beetle migration stopped dead in its tracks Hence Ilawara bee keepers dumping their hives in Canberra surrounds for two to three months out of the year.


That said you can adapt Lang feeders and gear if you want. Not necessary. This is a hive that you can practice different bee keeping if you choose too. But if you are keen on putting drugs/pesticides inside no one can stop you but your bees will be healthier if you let weak colonies die off and not breed back into the gene pool.

This is a bridging step, the best hive design for bee/colony health might not be able to be kept if you local regulations. That would be the vertical top bar hive. The horizontal top bar gets you very close while still being legal in just about every jurisdiction in Australia as it is fully inspection capable. Even if those inspections are causing the bee health to suffer. We are talking in the range of only 2kg honey stores used in a Vertical Top Bar hive overwinter for a bee colony to survive versus up to 16kg honey in a traditional hive just so the bees can generate heat to keep the hive warm enough and colony going over winter. Even the horiztonal top bar can not match the vertical top bar in being the best fit for bee colony health over winter but again its the best you can do until someone amends the regulations to update them to accommodate hives that are opened once per year.



Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[pdilley]

First Swarm of Bees are in my small swarm capture hive!

This happy Bee Father will pick up my swarm tonight after they have re-entered the hive and give them a drive back to their new home.

Planning on letting them live and build out comb in the small hive until the weekend when I have more time to transfer them to their new big hive home with divider boards making it seem smaller and cosier and easier for them to keep warm until they build their hive size and numbers up.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[JonnyAnchovy]

First Swarm of Bees are in my small swarm capture hive!

W00t. This is what I've been waiting for. Looking forward to piccies over the next few weeks - good luck!

 

[pdilley]

My girls are home, its dark outside and I just pulled the rubber stopper that was in the hole for transportation purposes.

Before pulling I stuck my ear to the top lid and heard the lovely droning of beating wings warming up the hive interior.


Lovely!


Can't wait to see my girls in person tomorrow when I get home from work.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[raven19]

Pete, please continue to keep us posted on this - fascinating stuff. One day when I own a farm..... ..... I may have bees.

 

[pdilley]

Pete, please continue to keep us posted on this - fascinating stuff. One day when I own a farm..... ..... I may have bees.

No need to have a farm. Just get cracking in the back yard in the city


Pictures of My Girls!

I put the small Swarm Capture Top Bar Hive on top of the cover of my Long Top Bar Hive which will eventually be all theirs to build out and develop.


The top makes for a very nice landing pad for the bees as they fly around in circles and build a mental map of where the bee hive is in location wise to everything else in their environment.


This is an early swarm. And unfortunate for them the weather turned to a rainy week ahead with very little nectar gathering opportunity.

Because the swarm is running out of the gorged honey they ate before they swarmed from their original hive they will most likely be in a starving state.

Normally I would leave them to fend for themselves but I decided they would get Bee Fondant Candy to give them a head start on replenishing energy to build up hive heat and start drawing out lots of wax. I will give them until the weekend to build out as much as they can then I will start thinking about transferring them into their new Long Top Bar Hive and reset the small Swarm Capture Top Bar Hive with unused bars and get it back to the swarm collector for the next round of bees to join our happy little home! Two more Long Top Bar Hives await!

I had a choice when feeding, a choice to take the Smoker. A choice to instead take a spray bottle of sugar-water to use instead.

I opted for choice #3. No smoker and no spray. My girls had been through enough and I already am tempting fate by opening the hive on an overcast humid day (dust storms blanked out the sky). I was only opening one top bar hive to slide the fondant through that I made up in the kitchen just 30 minutes before.

Using slow movements, and freezing and holding my breath when hearing the one high pitched buzz of a guard bee buzzing around me on opening and all was well. No stings no incidents and the guard flew back down and crawled inside.


Hive was closed up and all was normal, no mad bees. I spent the rest of the evening outside with my girls walking around slowly so they got used to people walking near the hive. No incidents and all was just lovely until it started raining before getting dark so inside to do a post and....




....and A Quick Video of Brewer Pete's First Swarm of Bees!





Hope to get you guys onboard as well soon.

One taste of a successful Mead and I know it will be Chaps Follow Me! time


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[JonnyAnchovy]

w00t.

getting really exciting now. Great to see all this finally coming together.

 

[altone]

Hope to get you guys onboard as well soon.

One taste of a successful Mead and I know it will be Chaps Follow Me! time

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

Not sure about the mead .. but am gearing up to give this a go next year.

Hope all this great info stays around for a while.

and grats on the new buzzing family

 

[pdilley]

Call To Action!


Don't Miss this Australian Television Event


Record it if you get your DVRs set up in time!

Screening Page: http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/showcases/honeybeeblues/

Doctor Denis Anderson:
http://www.csiro.au/people/ps2dv.html

Science Alert Article:
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features/20093108-19644.html


A programme that may actually have you feel sad for a poor beleaguered insect under threat globally and get you building your natural beekeeping style Top Bar Hives and practicing natural ecological beekeeping and strengthening the genes by letting the weak die out and only letting the strong breed back into the gene pool.



Just when you thought Varroa destructor was bad enough, Varroa jacobsoni has been discovered hovering off Australia and Asian honeybees capable of spreading them are already starting to be found in Queensland.

Currently, the only defenses we have are chemical treatments that the mites eventually develop resistant to, but this is a toxic treadmill that Dr Anderson would like to stop. He believes the ultimate answer lies in the genes of the honeybee. He wants to identify the gene in the developing larva that sends the chemical signal that tells the mite it is the right time to reproduce. Then he wants to switch it off. If he is successful, it may help save the European honeybee from annihilation.

This crucial research, however, is being stymied by a lack of funding. Recently, the Federal Government knocked back a request by a special parliamentary committee for $50 million for bio-security measures, research, education and training to protect Australias honeybee and pollination industries. Only a small amount of funding ($150,000 a year for the next two years) has been provided for existing bio-security measures.

As for the research, education and training that is so desperately needed, the Government expects agricultural industries to contribute funds through a newly created alliance between the honeybee and pollination industries called Pollination Australia. So far, $357,000 has been committed but, according to Dr Anderson this falls far short of what is required.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[pdilley]

Poor girls! 2 Weeks of on again off again rain!

They got their opportunity to move into the large hive. Because I had an hour window or so projected into today rain.

So, SWARM TRANSFER TIME!!



Armaments of choice.
1. Bee Suit and Gloves
2. Spray bottle of 1:1 ratio of Sugar/Water syrup.. I ended up using a brew bottle as the store bought bottle had a hole in the plastic (grr)
3. Bread Knife ($2 shop special!)

Wife kindly took the photos but I will skip the bit at the beginning of setup to go straight into the action.


Photo 1. Storm just behind me, got the plastic table out to hold the small bee hive temporarily as I transfer. Got my gear and my trusty sidekick chooks ready to go. Just need to remove all the bars I left on the Long Top Bar Hive first so I can put the Swarm Capture Hive bars in their place.


Photo 2. Lets pop the top on the Swarm Hive and get transferring! A little spray of sugar syrup and the bees all calmed down instantly after pulling that first bar and never needed the smoker one bit. Which was a good thing as I deliberately left it inside!



Photo 3. First bar of beautiful natural virgin drawn bee comb! Woo hoo!



Photo 4. Second bar of comb, some capped cells already! And Murphy has his way and it starts raining on my head. Concentration is tight now, I am watching them to see their reaction to getting splashed with rain drops. Just stay calm and transfer them in to the Long Top Bar Hive in the same position and orientation as they come out.



Photo 5. Lost Count of how many bars I am pulling out with comb already drawn out on them, I am more focused on the temperament of the bees and the rain. I think we are now on 4th bar of comb transferred. The wife ducked back in when it started to rain and then came out again. Its amazing how much work they got done in just two weeks and in mostly raining days. I think they deserved that fondant candy addition on the first day before the two weeks of stormy days hit.




Continued in next post!



Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[pdilley]

Photo 6. I am still getting pelted with rain but still going through it as calm and methodical as possible. You can see the sugar spray bottle is starting to suck in. I think I overdid the spraying so note to self next time when conditions are nicer try to use as little spray and see how the bees react before giving them a spritz.



Photo 7. Concentration is really coming on now



Photo 8. I've now done half the swarm capture hive which is about 6 bars and everyone has comb on it. Its about now that the wife stopped taking photos as a few bees were buzzing over near her and she didn't feel as comfortable yet around them seeing as I'm the one with the bee suit on


Thats it for photos. Another 3 or so bars had construction of comb on them and the rain let up a bit to let me get them hived and put the top back on before it finally let up and gave us some more sunshine for another hour and a half or so.


I turned on the movie portion of the camera and did a post transfer one minute movie which I will put on YouTube and post a link to here.



Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[white.grant]

Most impressive, especially your facial expressions . The comb looks great, and in two weeks!

cheers

grant

 

[pdilley]

I think it will take me the full bee season this year to get used to hunreds or thousands of bees swarming around me while doing hive work Funny enough I can stand one foot away from the hive entrance with nothing on but normal clothes and even bend down and watch the bees and let them land on me for hours but as soon as its hive manipulation time it becomes a bit nervy the first time through with out using traditional smoker -- especially when feeling rushed by the rain that started half way through the transfer


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[pdilley]

Before transfer video:




Post transfer video being uploaded.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[pdilley]

After transfer video:




Now its almost silent outside with only 3 bees at a time coming or going, all back to normal


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[watchUburn]

Yes the facial expression is classic And I notice the poor chooks didn't get a bee-suit...

 

[himzol]

Hi Pete,

I have a couple of questions,

firstly is there a reason for the bottom of the main hive to be open, that is hinged, why not just have it sealed?

secondly, apart from the hive opening being a bit sheltered, is there a reason the sides are a particular angle?

I hope to build a capture hive this weekend and set it up and was wondering how critical the above were.

I'm not really sure when the bees will swarm from the tree down the hill, the Adelaide hills are a bit cooler so I may still have some time, or is it based on daylight hours. I don't want to build the big hive unless I can capture the swarm.

H.

 

[pdilley]

Hives are angled as it was found most bees won't bridge comb (glue the sides) of the wax comb to the side of the hive with angle as bees build this shape naturally through joining legs and hanging their bee plumb line to build natural comb.

Hinge is open as bottom screen let's any debris and mites fall through. It's still questionable if solid floor or open screen is better. On traditional hives screens aren't very effective but with this mites fall a very long way and before they could get up they would be eaten by ants,
etc.

Built both screen and hinged bottom to test out in Canberra which works better. The golden rule is what works in one part of the world will not necessarily work in anoter so you need to experiment and blaze the trails in your specific area unless another Top Bar Hive Beekeepe has spent years already figuring out what works best in your local area.


There is also half the people for holes along long side for hive manipulation flexibility versus those who think holes at one short end is best so all honey ends up in rear of hive. Jury is out on this as well, takes experimentation to figure out what is best for both your style and your local environment.


Cheers,
Brewe Pete

 

[pdilley]

Hey guys.

I'm about to begin construction of one intermediate construction skills top bar hive. Wonder if you want to see it here or in another post?

This is not one I would recommend jumping into straight away if and only if you are not handy with a saw. I will have a modified plan so that I can use the guillotined edge on one side of the 2.4 x 1.2 ply to make a perfectly straight 1.2 long cutting guide for the hand held circular saw.

After making my straight cut jig for circular saw I will attack the sheet and start building a Warre hive, the "Vertical" Top Bar Hive.

You only get one hive (and one straight cutting jig) out of a single sheet of 2.4 x 1.2 metre ply which includes six boxes to stack the hive with, so you might want to get at least one set of Kenyan Top Bar Hives as already shown above as you get two of those hives out of a single sheet of ply.

Its best to have 2 or 3 hives rather than one hive anyway as you may lose a colony of bees through the year an d having the few extra hives gives you a better chance of having strong colonies make it through the winter and into the following year. So a KTBH horizontal hive is best to knock out at least two of those first.

With the vertical hive you start off with a box or two like this:


As the bees build out you keep putting new boxes AT THE BOTTOM and stack it upwards like this:


And what it looks like inside when the bees build natural comb looks like this:


And the vocabulary to describe the parts of the hive is this:


And the old monk who tested 350+ different bee hives including the modern Langstroth hive for over 15 years before making any judgements and came up with the optimum hive of his collection is this guy:




Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[mash head]

BP you will fimd the weather on the day that you are working the bees will have alot to do with their temprament, have not read all this post yet but am meaning to if you have any bee keeping questions that I could help with pm me, there are plenty of tricks to manipulate bees mainly involving re queening and breeding up queens would be happy too help if I can.
Greg

 

[pdilley]

BP you will fimd the weather on the day that you are working the bees will have alot to do with their temprament, have not read all this post yet but am meaning to if you have any bee keeping questions that I could help with pm me, there are plenty of tricks to manipulate bees mainly involving re queening and breeding up queens would be happy too help if I can.
Greg

Cheers Greg,

I will.

My problem is I KNOW I am breaking all the rules but am forced to due to the strange stormy weather that won't let up.

Thats why I look worried


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[himzol]

Hi Pete,

As one who's hobbies include making furniture from wood.. the best straight cut guide for a circular saw comprises of a straight edge piece of wood and some clamps.


the method is :
with saw unplugged, measure from the edge of the cutting blade to the edge of the bottom plate on your saw..clamp your straight edge this distance away from the intended cut.

remember the blade has two edges, make sure to use the correct edge..could be a difference of 3mm or more in your cut.

even though I have a table saw, band saw, several routers, several compound saws and various other machinery, when it comes to cutting large sheets, I still use the above method..

BTW started on my Warre hive on the weekend, starting with laminating some oak boards to get the right thickness, (these are recycled and are only 15mm thick, after dressing they are about 12mm or so) should have the first hive box completed tonight.
This will deppend on the type of joinery I decide upon, I'm leaning towadrs mitred joints as I am not a great lover of exposed end grain. specially when it is outdoor timber work.

I will then start on the quilt and roof..

I decided on the Warre after doing a lot of reading on the net..

Himzo.

 

[mash head]

Cheers Greg,

I will.

My problem is I KNOW I am breaking all the rules but am forced to due to the strange stormy weather that won't let up.

Thats why I look worried


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

It about time we got a bit of rain in spring, but it doesnt help the temprament of those bees .Keep all of your movements slow and dont bump or jolt them helps. Try waving your hand back and forth in front of your face while suited up and just watch how many bees start chasing your hand (glove) trying to sting it. Also dont stink. By that I mean any fuel, aftershave, deoderant, sheep smell from crutching all day (probably just me) or any strong odour you get the picture.
Good luck Greg

 

[altone]

Well as I said earlier in this thread I was thinking of trying this next year with a Kenyan top bar hive,
but as BrewerPete already knows a swarm adopted me and set up home in an empty plastic compost bin.

So I brought my plans forward a bit

I built a 1200mm hive almost exactly the same as shown earlier in the thread
(used nice thick ply from Bunnings and ripped 35mm top bars and hive legs from some hardwood decking I had lying around)

Moved the tiny bits of comb (expected there to be more), and of course the bees to their new home and all seems well so far.

Sorry, no pics.. SWMBO isn't brave enough to go outside and hold the camera.

I like the look of those new hives, if the one I have now goes well I'll be makin' me some of those too.

In case anyones interested I found this link that has some more good info on topbar hives.

And, as for if peeps want you to continue posting new stuff here, I'm a definate yes..

 

[pdilley]

Really quick.


Another great resource is:
http://hirschbachapiary.com/default.aspx

Just so long as you keep in mind the golden rule that what works in their part of the world (Germany in this above link, the State of Georgia in USA in Bod's link) may not work in your part of the world. So ideas are tried out and collectively we build up knowledge of what works or does not work in our local respective areas.

Very exciting time to be in Top Bar Hives as we are all around the world still working out all sorts of things from hive volumes, sizes, bar types, feeders, Integrated Pest Management techniques, and the list is endless. Just read a study where the Top Bar Hives had 100% acceptance by introduced swarms in the study being one of the best for housing new swarms.

Exciting times!

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

P.S. Still raining, what is it? Day 3, will finish the cutting guide next day I think.

 

[pdilley]

As one who's hobbies include making furniture from wood.. the best straight cut guide for a circular saw comprises of a straight edge piece of wood and some clamps.

the method is :
with saw unplugged, measure from the edge of the cutting blade to the edge of the bottom plate on your saw..clamp your straight edge this distance away from the intended cut.

remember the blade has two edges, make sure to use the correct edge..could be a difference of 3mm or more in your cut.

even though I have a table saw, band saw, several routers, several compound saws and various other machinery, when it comes to cutting large sheets, I still use the above method..

Hey Hiz,

This is indeed a good method for woodworkers to use. For the average Aussie Home Brewer I have made it even simpler and taken away the need to calculate anything for every cut. Cuts out all the stupid mistakes we all make when goofing one calculation and then mis-cutting an expensive sheet of wood.

Not sure where the previous post went?

Only have the new photos with me so looks like I need to re construct it with just words.

The end of a new sheet of ply (all ends really) are guillotine cut nice and straight.

If we take a slice off the end of a sheet of ply we will get a 1.2 metre long strip of wood with a slightly wobbly side where we cut it by hand and the opposite side will be the nice guillotine straight cut.

To remove all future calculations we use about $4-6 worth of additional wood in the form of 9mm sheet of plywood in my example.

We glue the 1.2 metre stip of wood we cut out to the end of the 9mm sheet of plywood with the STRAIGHT side facing inwards to the CENTRE of the ply. We leave our wobbly cut facing outwards.

After gluing, we get rained on for 5 days straight and because we have a tiny shed we are forced to work outdoors so we sit inside and drink beer and do other things waiting for a nice day to return

------

Now for the rest of the story!

Put out your three Saw Horses you picked up from the hardware store or built yourself and place the 9mm Sheet of Ply on it as shown.


It is time to remove the clamps as we are done letting the glue dry up and harden completely.


Position your end saw horse near the far edge of the board. When we start cutting we do not want to cut through our saw horse we just bought.


This is the direction we will be cutting. The widest part of your Circular Saw bottom plate will be pressed against the straight side of the thick piece of 1.2 meter long wood we originally cut out. This will act as a guide.


Now cut carefully making sure you put a small amount of pressure to keep the saw up against the straight side nice and flush as you cut down the wood.


Now we are done. You have a very lovely straight cutting jig you can now use to speed up your hive building by a HUGE factor. Not only that you will get straight cuts without needing to buy a Table Saw.



Look how nice and straight and easy it will be to use. Instead of having to do any more calculations again. You simply measure out the wood along each edge to how long you want the piece of cut out wood to be. You line the edge of the cutting jig against the edge mark and simply clamp it down by the thick back portion of the jig. You then do the same to the opposite side and run your Circular Saw down putting the same small amount of pressure pushing the foot plate of the saw against the straight edge of the thick piece of wood. Easy Peasy.



Now instead of calculations to worry about you only have to remember one thing. Keep the fat/thick end of the jig on top of the cut out section. keep the skinny end the blade of the saw runs down pointing towards the centre of the rest of the sheet of wood. Otherwise if you reverse direction you will have to then account for blade thickness and change you line markings by that thickness amount (too much work )


----------


As an after thought... I then spent the next few hours and almost completely cut up an entire full sheet of 21mm ply for the intermediate hive. 80% done in a little bit of time after "one night home from work" and its almost done. Imagine yourself cutting out two of the horizontal hives already described in this post and already half assembled them in one single night home from work.

Now there is no excuse to not make it in time to build hives for the beginning of the bee season when they swarm in spring.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[pdilley]

Quick one, phew! busy with work so little free time, also been working in the shed most nights.

Quick Update
---------------

When it rains, it pours bee swarms!

Rain finally let up and hot weather coming in strong.

Just had the busiest bee day ever. Bindi got his bees last Sunday so first Warre Top Bar hive filled in the capital of Australia, Canberra that I know of

A fellow at work told me there was a swarm on someones push bike in the city so we grabbed a cardboard box and walked across the road and captured that swarm.

He didn't have a hive so I got a hold of the Bee Association president who was just leaving to capture another swarm and they waited so the fellow could drive over (so much for work) and borrow a 4 frame Nuc (he's a Lang believer).

Then on the drive over I found out about another swarm and called him on his mobile before he got to their house and he was excited for a second swarm so he got another Lang and will trade parts for a new lang when his shipment gets in from the mail order outfit.

Meanwhile I'm almost 80% done with my new third hive (fourth?) as my third KTBH got loaned to one of my bosses and he got a swarm today in the swarm capture TBH. (Gave him 1/2 built one and he finished it off in his shed.)

Now I got a swarm and a massive one at that in my swarm capture TBH.

Just got back with a boot full of bees and hives in the car... set them up on the back yard in the dark and opened their closed off entrances and now am pooped and ready to fall into bed.

phew! and another 2 months of swarms ahead!

Hopefully I can get some photos of the Warre Hive I have 80% built in the next week when its hopefully completed and then some more photos of the massive swarm 2 when it gets transferred into my second KTBH.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[himzol]

Hi Pete,

are you putting windows in your Warre? just curious as to how you will know when to add the next box? As an absolute novice I'm trying to work out a lot off things before I get bees. Don't want to be responsible for deaths if I can avoid it.

There doesn't seem to be too many of these in Oz, either that or not too many people putting info on the net.


BTW, nice jig, same principle as I was trying to explain. never built one as I tend not to work with sheet timber much, mainly work with hardwoods.. hence I have a lot of Oak which I am laminating and ripping down to size. I have one box cut (not assembled) and should have the quilt finished tonight. Need to wait for some glue to dry before I can finish the second box and then I can move onto the roof.

H.