Building The Bee Hives In Pictures

[pdilley]

I think I realised what you might be asking!

Yes you can set up a hive as a "bait hive" usually with the addition of Lemon Grass Essential Oil giving it an attractant scent to the bees. And yes sometimes you get local swarms that will smell out the bait hive and start moving inside it.

It is not a reliable method so swarm collectors are relied upon to get a mucb better chance of getting a eild swarm to put in the hives you built.

And yes, even then sometimes a swarm might get wierd and decide to go out of your hive and go somewhere else in those first few days.

All par for the course.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[Sydneybrewer]

looks great guys, :icon_chickcheers: i would have loved to do this but the fiance now tells me she is alergic to bees, this coupled with the fact she read somewhere that hops are poisonous to dogs :blink:

 

[Henno]

looks great guys, :icon_chickcheers: i would have loved to do this but the fiance now tells me she is alergic to bees, this coupled with the fact she read somewhere that hops are poisonous to dogs :blink:

What a shame, I bet you're going to miss her

 

[Supra-Jim]

the fact she read somewhere that hops are poisonous to dogs :blink:

Unfortunately this is true. i have a lovely spot perfect for growing hops, unfortunately i enjoy the company of my little brewing assistant (and chief garage security officer) too much to risk planting hops!

Love the idea of the bee hive, but with little kids (under 3yrs) running around the back yard this is not feasible.

Am currently investigating chooks though, a couple of those little buggers would be quite handy.

Cheers SJ

 

[Leigh]

Was just informed about the launch of a docu on honey bee mites that might interest people on here. Docu is called "Honeybee Blues". Stole the synopsis below from the newsletter:

The documentary provides an insight into the threats that Australian honeybees face, including the tiny parasitic mite called Varroa (V destructor and V jacobsoni), which are killing honeybees overseas.

Honeybee Blues will be screened on SBS on 17 November at 7.30 pm.

Attached pic shows a varrao mite on a honeybee

 

[Supra-Jim]

^^ I remember seeing a 60Minutes piece on the same issue. Does appear to be a tad concerning, esp when you consider how important bees are in the grand scheme of things.

Being one of the few countries still free of this mite, it certainly does highlight the importance of strict quaranteen and customs control.

Cheers SJ

 

[~MikE]

Unfortunately this is true. i have a lovely spot perfect for growing hops, unfortunately i enjoy the company of my little brewing assistant (and chief garage security officer) too much to risk planting hops!

meh i often dump my kettle dregs on the lawn, the dog will sit there getting hosed and won't budge if he's eating mash but doesn't touch the hops...

 

[pdilley]

Bee Hives and kids is psychological:

Installing Bees in a Top Bar Hive, by a new family of newbees, kids loving it




Chooks are very handy. I found a medium black beetle in my hops potted inside. I took it outside in a tissue and in less than two clucks to the chickens one crunched it up and munched it down before I had my hand off the tissue


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[himzol]

Hi pete,

Just curious... Granfather used to keep bees "in the old country"

I have a wild hive on my property, six meters up in a dead gum tree. If I built one of these boxes and enticed a swarm into said box, would this upset the wild hive? Basically I like having the wild hive there and don't want to pi$$ them off.

Himzo.

 

[pdilley]

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

 

[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