Thursday, April 22, 2010

My own Top Bar Hive

I built a top bar hive to specifications of the BioBees.com website and have it ready, set, go for a colony of bees! Initially, I was going to buy a queen and would barter worker bees with my friend Simon but his second hive did not make it through winter... I contacted Dadant and they just had a cancellation in so I could reserve one of those packaged bees for us! Because of the different type of hive we can only easily use either packaged bees or a captured swarm, so this is perfect.

We also just received the Barefoot Beekeeper bible on top bar hive beekeeping where introduction of a new colony is explained in great detail. I just hope I can make the little guys & gals happy enough to stay in my home made hive! I guess we'll find out...









I am planning to build another top bar hive this summer, from planed hemlock instead of an old bookcase I found along side the road - boards that are actually straight and easy to work with! Now I know a couple things that are not quite explained in the building plans I should be able to make the 48" version, which can be used for artificial swarming. The landing strip I made for this one is highly decorative, but very unnecessary and might even help mice to get in so will be removed shortly. Item 1 of my learning curve :-)

2 comments:

  1. Matt ReedMay 13, 2010 at 4:09 PM

    Nice looking hive! What method did you use to affix the aluminum to the roof?

    Regards,
    Matt

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  2. suusMay 13, 2010 at 9:24 PM

    Very similar technique as for traditional bee hives I found, just fold it over and nail with small headed nails. The aluminum sheeting is rigid and once bend stays that way. I used metal sheers to cut to size and to cut out the corner shape to create a good overlapping edge (like stretching canvas over a wood frame).

    On a different note, I just put Swarm Catch lure in today and are very curious to see how that works out :-)

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