Gratituous Bee Pictures

Latest Articles

Gratituous Bee Pictures
Page Previous 1, 2, 3

Downsizer Forum Index -> The Apiary

Author

Message

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 07 4:51 pm Post subject:

BahamaMama wrote:

Did I see lots of protective clothing and equipment down to the ankles and bare tootsies?

Love the picture of the neighbour - OH is dead keen to have bees, I am a bit nervous....

Yes you did

- errm well the thing is I was working on the general principle that bee's go upwards and they wouldn't sting me - normally I wear trainers and I really don't want to be stung on the face but for some reason my feet don't worry me - My OH did point out the sheer stupidity of it all

AnnaD

Joined: 12 Jun 2007
Posts: 2777
Location: Edinburgh

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 07 5:01 pm Post subject:
Nice photos, if only I had a garden! Something to look forward to when I eventually do

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 07 5:18 pm Post subject:
When you have a minute, would you very much mind explaining what you're doing in all the pictures? It looks fascinating! I simply can't pursuade himself to have bees, unless there is at least an acre round them that he doesn't go into! Silly man - I'm still working on the mead-flow argument, but its not working so far!

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 07 5:31 pm Post subject:

wellington womble wrote:

When you have a minute, would you very much mind explaining what you're doing in all the pictures? It looks fascinating!

WW, they were being just transferred from their 'mobile home' (the smallish pale blue "nucleus" box) to their new permanent home in the brand new hive (one frame at a time!) https://forum.downsizer.net/viewtopic.php?p=369372#369372

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 07 5:42 pm Post subject:

Yup thats about it - The nucleus box only holds 5 frames - A standard National Hive - which is what the ones I have are holds 11 frames and its very common around here to be on double brood i.e 22 frames which means most colonies are upto 70000 bees in size - A nuc holds 5 - 10000 bees - much much smaller for a newbie like me to deal with - I can gain confidence as the colony grows

My bee's were really struggling for space

Its highly unlikely that I'll get any honey off my bee's this year but I should be able to get them upto strength before winter and the stores they bring in will see them through the winter months ready to start next spring - It all depends on how fast they draw out the new foundation and fill them with honey.

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 07 5:46 pm Post subject:
OK, I think I'm getting the hang of this - the supers are the boxes that make up the outside, and the frames you hang in them are the bit the honey/baby bees are in, yes? What's foundation?, I know you use bees wax to make cosmetics, but I didn't realise the bees did it!

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 07 6:06 pm Post subject:

wellington womble wrote:

OK, I think I'm getting the hang of this - the supers are the boxes that make up the outside, and the frames you hang in them are the bit the honey/baby bees are in, yes?

What's foundation?, I know you use bees wax to make cosmetics, but I didn't realise the bees did it!

Err, no, as the wanna-bee I don't think that's so.

"Foundation" is a wax starter foundation to get the bees building wax comb neatly and in the right places. Neatly on those new frames alongside the ones her colony were living on in transit.
Jo is building up her colony, so she's just using the "brood chamber" - where the bees live, lay down stores for themselves and tend the eggs the queen lays. Initially, the hive is setup as a one-room apartment. And they themselves make the wax, and build the honeycombe cells to stick the honey (and eggs) into. But giving them a dimpled sheet to start from reduces their work and helps keep everything tidily regular.
To take off honey without interfering with the brood, you stick another floor on top - a superstructure (hence "super") - with other frames in it. And you have a right-size mesh between floors to 'exclude' the queen (she's bigger and can't get through) from the super - so you get honey stored up there, but no brood.
But before they can start filling that overflow honey storage space, they need to be utilising all the brood chamber... so the priority is to let them breed more bees, and to that end Jo is feeding them sugar syrup so they have plenty food as they find their way round the neighbourhood.

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 07 6:30 pm Post subject:

Lol - love the idea of 70000 bee's all lining up to put on their foundation

The foundation is a piece of beeswax imprinted with a honeycomb shape - it goes in the frames - it provides skeleton for the bee's to draw out the comb and encourages them to do it in the place you want them to - there is an increasing weight of evidence to say that you should allow them to do that themselves as they would naturally but thats a debate for another day - I'm still getting my head around the tried and tested way at the moment

There are 6 main parts to a bee hive - going upwards:

Floor - recommended you use open mesh floors to help control Varroa mite

Brood Box - the brood box is deeper than the super because it tends to stay in place whereas you lift supers around,

Queen Excluder - then comes the queen excluder which as Dougal says prevents the queen from getting into the supers - you don't want eggs and brood being laid in the honey you intend to take off for your consumption

Super - this is about half the depth of the brood box (there are countless variations on this) - this is because a super filled with honey weighs anything upto and over 35lb

Crown board - this is just a cover for the hive and usually comes with a hole or two in it as it can double up as a clearer board (used for getting the bees out of the super when you want to take it off) and for feeding them through - I'm currently using it like this I have a special feeder sat over the hole at the moment filled with a 50/50 sugar/water solution

Lid - this is obvious really - protects the top of the hive from the elements

I've got to feed my bees at the moment because they need to draw out the foundation into full honeycomb for the queen to lay in and the best way to get her laying is to supplement their own foraging - once the colony is on 8 frames of brood - i.e they've filled 8 frames with egg's, larvae and sealed brood (pupating larvae) - I'll be able to stop feeding them because there will be enough flying bees out foraging and building stores of honey and pollen for winter.

BahamaMama

Joined: 21 Sep 2006
Posts: 2315
Location: Away with the fairies

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 07 7:31 am Post subject:
This is fascinating and the clearest explanation I have seen yet of how bees work, thanks. I would love to hear how you get on.

mochyn

Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 24585
Location: mid-Wales

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 07 12:01 pm Post subject:
All this bee-envy just goes to show that a lot of us have serious beehavioural problems.

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 07 12:33 pm Post subject:
It's about time we had a more in-depth article on bee keeping written. Anyone got any bees, some great pics and a talent for explaining things clearly?

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 07 12:39 pm Post subject:

I am actually in the process of putting together a talk on bee-keeping for our local moot in July- It is tentatively called An adventure in Beekeeping - A new beekeepers journey - or "How I got stung"

I'm happy to make use of some of this for a proper beekeeping article - it will be aimed completely at the newbie though because that is what I am - Maybe someone with a bit more experience than me could do one on extraction and storage (Haven't got that far yet )

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 07 12:39 pm Post subject:

Jonnyboy wrote:

It's about time we had a more in-depth article on bee keeping written.

Anyone got any bees, some great pics and a talent for explaining things clearly?

Or perhaps two or three bee-keepers could combine their experiences and write an article together.

Barefoot Andrew
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 22780
Location: In the 17th century

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 07 2:15 pm Post subject:

judith wrote:

Or perhaps two or three bee-keepers could combine their experiences and write an article together.

They could share their hive of experience.

Sorry...
A.

	Downsizer Forum Index -> The Apiary	All times are GMT Page Previous 1, 2, 3
Page 3 of 3

View Latest Posts