Felix

The second Langstroth hive is sited.  This will be a foundationless hive.  The bees get picked up in a week or so when the apiary sets the date.  I will be installing a 5 frame nuc instead of a package into this hive. 

Bee Movies

Installing bees from John Duncan on Vimeo.


Settling In from John Duncan on Vimeo.


Settled In from John Duncan on Vimeo.

Kenyan Top Bar Hive

The Kenya Top Bar Hive (KTBH) is ready for bees.  This hive will be called Nairobi.

Homemade Honey B Healthy Spring Feed

Adapted from alpha6's recipe posted on Bee Source

In a five gallon bucket add 2 1/2 gallons of hot water (can be hot tap water)
3 teaspoons of Soy Lecithin Granules
Mix well
1.5ml thyme oil
3ml lemongrass oil
3ml spearmint oil
Add one five lb bag of sugar
Mix well
Continue to add another 15 lbs of sugar mixing as you go

First Package

The first package of bees arrived via USPS from R Weaver today.  3 pounds of Buckfast bees, very few dead on the package bottom.  Not bad for having started in Texas the other day.  I picked them up from the post office around 9am and had everybody cozy in the hive by around 10:30am. 

The bees

 Oscar ready to be loaded

Package open and feeder can removed

Her majesty in her cage with the candy cork removed

Fast forward to a filled hive with the stragglers still hanging out in the package

Bees figuring out where the entrance is

Bottom to top Oscar consists of the following hive parts:

• Cyprus hive stand
• Screened bottom board
• Empty hive body
• Hive body with frames containing starter strips but no bottom bars
• Metal queen excluder (painted red) to act as an includer for the first couple of weeks
• Shim constructed to act as an entrance.  I am using a standard entrance reducer on the smallest opening so the bees won't have to work so hard at guarding against robbing while they settle in
• Brushy Mountain Top feeder with 1:1 syrup and homemade Honey B Healthy
• Inner cover
• Garden top cover

In addition to the 1:1 and HBH in the feeder there is a pollen patty on the frames.

This went amazingly well.  The bees were very cooperative.  I left them to moving in and went into the office for a couple of hours.  When I got back, all the stragglers had left the package box and the bees had decided that the entrance in the reducer was acceptable.  There a thunderstorm rolling in and there are less than 50 bees still flying around.  50 out of approximately 10,000 is not bad.

The next package shipped on Monday so they will be here tomorrow or Thursday.  Top bar hive is ready to go as soon as I get the bars waxed.

Top Bars and Followers

Assembled three follower boards and 23 top bars for the KTBH today.  14 of the top bars are solid, based on Lyonville Fletcher's blog.  The remaining 9 are square bars with the chamfers from cutting the solid bars as comb guide.  Need another  2x4 to finish up making the approximately 32 top bars one would need to completely fill a 48" KTBH.  Gotta love a table saw.  Should be able to knock together the hive body tomorrow and I may even get to the legs.

Lots of anecdotal posts on the bee forums about packages absconding .  I think I may make the extra follower board into a queen "includer" since I have a couple of plastic queen excluders.  I will just cut a hole in the follower board and fasten the excluder over it.

 Solid Top Bar

Chamfer Top Bar

Oscar is stacked

20:1 linseed oil and beeswax on all the remaining woodenware. Oscar hive is stacked with space for brood, reserves and feeder. I will take him down to the medium + deep when the bees arrive.