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helno posted:One hive is on legs. What kind of vents towards the top are there?
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Mar 11, 2017 16:51
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None currently. The material I have read recommend keeping the bars tight together.
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Mar 11, 2017 17:40
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helno posted:None currently. The plans that I have seen have holes through the exterior with screen on the inside, so the bees can seal or open as needed. For temperature and humidity control.
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Mar 11, 2017 18:33
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Catberry posted:When a beekeeper takes all the honey and then gives the bees corn syrup as replacement to last over the winter. How does that effect the hives ability to resist disease and pests? I heard bacteria have a very hard time surviving in honey but corn syrup must be pretty hard for the bees to keep clean in comparison. Generally you don't take all the honey. In a good climate, a european honey bee colony can produce a hundred pounds or more of honey in a summer; they don't need nearly that much to get through winter. You take a lot of it, but leave reserves. That said, you can supplement with sugar water/simple syrup and they seem to do fine with it. Well. Did, for decades, but lately of course colony collapse has been happening. I'm not aware of any research that suggests feeding sugar is part of the problem, though.
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Mar 11, 2017 18:39
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Fog Tripper posted:The plans that I have seen have holes through the exterior with screen on the inside, so the bees can seal or open as needed. For temperature and humidity control. Other than having provisions to insulate the hives for winter I am building them as described by Les Crowders book.
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Mar 11, 2017 20:05
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Corn syrup is mostly used by commercial operations as its cheaper and easier to work with over sugar water. Sugar is sugar as far as the bees are concerned. It keeps them alive through the winter, but isn't used to make more brood as they obviously need protein to make eggs. Giving them a lot of protein is not good in winter generally as they might make a lot of brood during the winter and it makes them poop more and can cause sanitary issues/nosema.
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Mar 11, 2017 21:05
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gently caress it. 18 yr anniversary tomorrow and my wife and I decided to not do presents. Then she went and bought something and then I bought a router table, dovetail jig and a planer. Bees better appreciate this expenditure.
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Mar 13, 2017 00:08
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Fog Tripper posted:gently caress it. 18 yr anniversary tomorrow and my wife and I decided to not do presents. Then she went and bought something and then I bought a router table, dovetail jig and a planer. All the little pollen collecting wives you need  I just read a super interesting piece about bees on imgur and I'm considering bring it to this thread with pictures and all. Edit: I want to get bees but I live in the suburbs and so the neighbors would lose their minds. A friend of mine has a farm and I asked if I could keep bees there and they said that I could under the condition that I circled it with bug zappers  Both him and his wife are pretty phobic against all kinds of flying insects. Catberry fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Mar 13, 2017 |
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Mar 13, 2017 06:00
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Catberry posted:Edit: I want to get bees but I live in the suburbs Get bees anyway!* As long as you've got a medium sized garden, nearby water and a tall fence no one will ever know you have bees. *Unless your local ordinaces prevent you from keeping livestock
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Mar 13, 2017 10:04
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Catberry posted:All the little pollen collecting wives you need A farm where bees are discouraged. Hmmmm.
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Mar 13, 2017 12:45
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Aramoro posted:Get bees anyway!* Legally I could probably have them but I'm fairly certain that I would be blamed for every wasp sting in the neighborhood once word gets around and it would turn into a big hassle of concerned parents and what not. Fog Tripper posted:A farm where bees are discouraged. Hmmmm. To be fair all they have is horses.
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Mar 13, 2017 17:53
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Catberry posted:Legally I could probably have them but I'm fairly certain that I would be blamed for every wasp sting in the neighborhood once word gets around and it would turn into a big hassle of concerned parents and what not. I never knew of/noticed beehives in my neighborhood until I knew what I was looking at. (there are multiple already) Personally I feel the ignorance of others is no excuse to curtail my own activities/hobbies. I would be more troubled about horseflies if I had horses/cattle type stuff around. Fog Tripper fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Mar 13, 2017 |
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Mar 13, 2017 17:56
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Fog Tripper posted:I never knew of/noticed beehives in my neighborhood until I knew what I was looking at. (there are multiple already) Personally I feel the ignorance of others is no excuse to curtail my own activities/hobbies. My yard is like 20 meters wide with roads on three sides. I guess I could hide a hive next to the garage over by the compost. Fog Tripper posted:I would be more troubled about horseflies if I had horses/cattle type stuff around. Those things sound like B-32 bombers 
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Mar 13, 2017 18:52
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Catberry posted:
gently caress flies. Especially yellow flies. I just found out last year that i'm stupid allergic to yellow flies, I had one bite swell to the size of my entire calf, it was on the edge of cellulitis. Now I have to carry around high-strength cortisone cream with me in summer and put it immediately on any insect bite I get.
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Mar 13, 2017 20:01
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Suspect Bucket posted:gently caress flies. Especially yellow flies. I just found out last year that i'm stupid allergic to yellow flies, I had one bite swell to the size of my entire calf, it was on the edge of cellulitis. Now I have to carry around high-strength cortisone cream with me in summer and put it immediately on any insect bite I get. Yupp yupp. Had one of those nail me on the back of the hand and then instantly went for my forehead. I'm not allergic but it felt like someone had stabbed me with a fork. With a sprinting start and putting the whole shoulder into the stab on top. I'm not allergic but the one on the forehead lead to a scar the size of a pea.
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Mar 13, 2017 21:02
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All of my hives are
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Mar 13, 2017 23:43
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My hives are both going to end up being out in the country. One was going to go in my backyard but there are rules saying they must be 30 metres from the property line if it is zoned residential and that would put it right in the middle of my house. So plan B is to put it in my neighbours property. They run an organic heirloom hippy dippy kind of hobby farm so they were right on board when I asked. It is mainly cedar bush but there are crab apple trees all over the place and the location is going to be in a former orchard next to a stream. Lots of wildflowers all around. The second hive is going to a friend of mines beef farm. His farm is mostly just open pasture so it will be interesting to see how the two hives differ. Now my main concern is actually getting bees. I emailed the local large beekeeper and they seemed keen to sell nucs and responded quickly. I feel like I made a mistake in asking if it would be possible to get a swarm or package rather than a nuc because I am using a TBH and they have not replied back. Hopefully an in person meetup corrects what might have started me off on the wrong foot with them. The only place I have seen that offers Package bees does not ship them. They say to bring your TBH in the back of a truck and they will load you up. However they are 4 hours away but a very similar climate.
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Mar 14, 2017 01:27
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Catberry posted:My yard is like 20 meters wide with roads on three sides. I guess I could hide a hive next to the garage over by the compost. I live in Chicago proper, so my yard is less wide than that. And that's exactly where my beehive is- next to the garage near the fence, alley, and compost.
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Mar 14, 2017 06:43
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Melicious posted:I live in Chicago proper, so my yard is less wide than that. And that's exactly where my beehive is- next to the garage near the fence, alley, and compost. Compost bees unite   How do bees feel about the lawn mower? Also Swedish winters. Catberry fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Mar 14, 2017 |
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Mar 14, 2017 06:48
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Catberry posted:Compost bees unite I'm told bees do not appreciate the lawn mower, but thankfully there is no grass near mine. Winter sucks for everyone. 
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Mar 14, 2017 08:24
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My bees don't care about my electric mower at all.
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Mar 14, 2017 17:59
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I mowed with an electric mower to within about a meter of the hive, and then trimmed right around the hive with a pair of shears which took like one minute. Bees did not care at all. Also the way to win over your neighbors is to give them free honey.
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Mar 15, 2017 01:00
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Hmmm I only have a gas powered mower that sounds like someone throwing shotgun shells into a campfire but I could probably find a way to make it work.
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Mar 15, 2017 06:09
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Sinister_Beekeeper posted:
Sorry I forgot I posted this!. The new hive is here, waiting to be assembled. Here is the only half way decent pic I have of the DIY hive, with my son standing in front. The only woodworking equipment I own is a handsaw, a drill, and some hammers. 
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Mar 17, 2017 11:14
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So if you're a hobbyist with a single hive. How much effort is harvesting honey?
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Mar 18, 2017 13:27
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Catberry posted:So if you're a hobbyist with a single hive. How much effort is harvesting honey? Find an association and borrow/rent a centrifuge and hot knife
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Mar 18, 2017 14:03
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Spookydonut posted:Find an association and borrow/rent a centrifuge and hot knife What about a spoon and a sieve and then just being really careful?
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Mar 18, 2017 14:14
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Catberry posted:What about a spoon and a sieve and then just being really careful? Hot knife will easily decap the comb with minimal damage, saves the bees time on rebuilding comb. OR Use something sharp and flat to remove the very top layer of wax to expose the honey, don't go too deep or your bees will have extra work to do and so will you because you'll make a huge mess. Centrifuge will get that honey out real quick. OR Just let the combs gravity drain, though this takes quite a while and can get messy. You'll need to strain your honey no matter what method you use to get it out of the comb. Use something like cheese cloth with plastic buckets, strain it a couple of times to get all the dead bees and wax out. You can then use that cloth to purify/capture the wax that got caught in the cloth.
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Mar 18, 2017 14:50
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Spookydonut posted:Hot knife will easily decap the comb with minimal damage, saves the bees time on rebuilding comb. Why do bees have to be awesome? How much effort are they on a weekly basis? Will they take up a lot of my time? Spookydonut posted:dead bees Blood honey 
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Mar 18, 2017 15:54
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First year, we decapped with a decapping comb thingy, and drained into a big sterlite container I modifies with a pair of wooden rails to hold frames, and a spout.Strained from the spout with a sieve. It took a long time but worked ok and was a cheap solution. Second year, decapped with a hot lnife, which was messier but faster, and then rented a centerfuge (hand cranked) honey extractor. much faster, got more honey per frame, ut cleaning the extractor was actually harder. Never had a dead bee in the honey. It's easy to clean capped comb before extracting. occasionally a leg or a wing that fell into the box when we were removing frames, but if you wipe off frames with a cool damp cloth you only need to sieve to remove wax. I suggest the DIY approach if you are on a budget, or rent an extractor if you want to go faster and don't mind the cost. Extractor makes a lot more sense financially the more hives you have.
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Mar 18, 2017 17:15
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I prefer a higher initial investment to save effort in the long run. How much do I have to fork out for an extractor that takes minimum cleaning?
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Mar 18, 2017 17:39
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Catberry posted:How much do I have to fork out for an extractor that takes minimum cleaning? Have you seen/used an extractor before? I recommend visiting a local association's extraction day (often they will host this sort of thing) to at least understand what you're getting into. Youtube is a so so approximation. Also dont ignore having to store an unused one most of the rest of the year.
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Mar 18, 2017 17:45
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waloo posted:Have you seen/used an extractor before? I recommend visiting a local association's extraction day (often they will host this sort of thing) to at least understand what you're getting into. Youtube is a so so approximation. I'm just bee-curious at the moment. I worry that it becomes too much effort and they end up neglected due to things like work and other house stuff. I looked it up and the initial investment on bees around here is about a thousand dollars worth. Keeping in mind that a worst case scenario has you at -30 celc winters so I guess hobby beehives aren't as viable here as in more southern countries. Catberry fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Mar 18, 2017 |
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Mar 18, 2017 17:47
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So, we paid I think like $25 to rent an extractor for two days. Vs. like $400+ to buy it, it was a no-brainer, using it once a year. We wound up only keeping bees for two years, so a lot of our investment was down the drain at the end (we wound up giving away our hive stuff to another beekeeper when we got out of the hobby). You're right that keeping bees is a time commitment. I'm in California with mild weather so keep it in mind for all of the below:
So basically we spent money to get ease of maintenance and that was a good plan for us. That said, we still were obliged to inspect the hive every week for the first couple months after installing a package of bees, and then every other week all summer, through the fall, and into early winter. Inspection meant both of us suiting up, and then removing the cover, pulling a frame or two, and every second or third inspection, removing all of the supers, inspecting the queen excluder, and inspecting the brood chamber for presence of brood, egg pattern, pollen storage, and signs of trouble (disease, foul brood, mites, succession cells, etc.) We had a persistent mite problem. We dealt with it in various ways; sprinkling the bees with powdered sugar (prompts them to groom more, and they remove mites while grooming), medication (we only did this once, after harvesting, because we did not want anything getting into the honey we were going to harvest). We often skipped inspections due to laziness or being busy. It was inconvenient to inspect every other week from april to november. The first year, we harvested 75 pounds of honey, and then our colony collapsed over the winter. Just bees were gone, most likely left while we were out of town. Second year, we harvested 150 pounds of honey, and our hive swarmed. Half the bees left with the queen, they left behind succession cells, the hive may or may not have re-queened, but some time in October we were out of town and when we came back the remaining bees were gone. The swarm that originally left, perched in our neighbor's tree for almost a week. We put out a fresh hive box and lemongrass scent which supposedly attracts them, but they ignored our offer and found new lodgings elsewhere. Anyway, the lesson here is that if you neglect the bees, bad things can happen. If you go a month or two without inspecting the hive, you may find you have to do a lot more cleaning up of crazy comb, the bees will be less used to your inspections and more pissed off about it, and you may be too late to do anything about a serious problem like a dead queen or an impending swarm. Taking care of a beehive is an ongoing project that you can't really neglect for very long without risk. And, even if you do everything right, there's a good chance your bees will vanish over winter. That is not a huge disaster, though: the vast majority of the expense is in the equipment and supplies. A package of bees with a mated queen around here is $140, which isn't nothing, but that's from a reputable supplier, and that's a fraction of the investment in hive bodies, frames, etc. All told we put probably $1000 into beekeeping for two years of harvest totaling 225 pounds of honey, for a net of $4.44 per pound, ignoring labor. Call it $4.50 a pound. That's cheap for raw, hand-harvested, high-quality honey, but the point was more the hobby aspect of it. Now for the actual dark side. My wife and I used hoods and gloves at all times, but we were both still stung repeatedly. I think probably three or four stings each. Both of us got infections, once each - cellulitis, requiring antibiotics and a week off of work. I was also stung once on the face; I'm not allergic, but the swelling was awful. After the second years' bees took off, my wife decided we were done with bees. I have allergies to a couple of antibiotics and developed or discovered an allergy to a third one. She felt that the risk of more infections was not worth it, and she also no longer enjoyed the bees themselves. When we started, she'd go out and pet the bees - which you can totally do barehanded when the bees are feeling docile - but by the end, she didn't want to be near the hive without protection. I feel that keeping bees in your back yard has to be a unanimously supported decision. Everyone needs to be on board with the idea, and you need to be ready for someone who was initially enthusiastic to become less enthusiastic each time they have to scrape a stinger out of their skin. Especially if they are allergic, develop an allergy, or get an infection. All that said, I would still keep bees myself. I enjoyed it a lot, it felt very rewarding. I imagine it's not that different from keeping and caring for any sort of livestock, and if you go into it with that attitude, you'll be fine. You are caring for live animals, and you don't get to take time off or just be bored of your hobby for a few months, the way you can with woodworking or sports or something. If you neglect your bee hobby, you will lose your bees. If you keep with it long-term, it can be very rewarding. We gave honey as gifts to our friends and family and I think they appreciated a quart of our beautiful, raw, golden honey we harvested ourselves far more than some $50 thing we bought on Amazon and had shipped to them. A pint of honey makes a great gift when you show up at a party, or as a housewarming present for a neighbor. Speaking of, we only had one neighbor that was even aware of our hive: his kids were afraid of it, but we gave them honey and they had no actual complaints. Nobody but us ever got stung. They did not even notice an increase of bees in their yard. Technically we were required by regulation to keep the hive at least 25 feet from any property line, but that was literally impossible so we ignored the regulation. I am not saying you should do that, but the point is, if you have a fence, the bees fly as high as they need to go to get past obstacles and then remain at that height until they descend at their destination - so the "bee line" stays above neighbor yards unless they're actively working flowers in that location. So Catberry, your mileage may differ. You'll want to find out what beekeepers in your area do. It may be too cold over winter, but they keep bees in Russia, etc. so it's probably not impossible. Winterizing a hive in cold climates is not something I ever had to learn about, but it can be done. The real questions have to do with whether you're interested in managing some (very very small) livestock on a routine basis, almost year-round. Most of the year your inspections will take 15 minutes. Two or three times a year you'll need to dedicate most of a day to your bees: installing them, harvesting honey, winterizing/breaking down the winter stuff, dealing with some issue like a swarm or a succession or a disease or infestation. If you're willing to learn and have 15 minutes every two weeks and maybe two to four days a year to dedicate, you'll be fine. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Mar 18, 2017 |
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Mar 18, 2017 18:59
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Leperflesh posted:So, we paid I think like $25 to rent an extractor for two days. Vs. like $400+ to buy it, it was a no-brainer, using it once a year. We wound up only keeping bees for two years, so a lot of our investment was down the drain at the end (we wound up giving away our hive stuff to another beekeeper when we got out of the hobby). You're right that keeping bees is a time commitment. This is an amazing post (Worth linking in the OP) About swarming. I heard that only became an issue if the queen became 3+ years old and that people avoided that by replacing the queen once she reached 3.
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Mar 18, 2017 19:49
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Absolutely not. A hive can swarm with a young queen. The main reasons a hive will swarm are A) the hive has grown too much in population for the amount of space the bees feel they have, or B) the bees decide the current hive is unsuitable for habitation for some reason. I'm sure there are other reasons but this is the main two. The former happens in a good year and is actually the natural reproductive cycle of bees. The queen flies off with a sizeable portion of the hive. As soon as she's gone, remaining bees will start feeding royal jelly to one or more suitably young hatchling grub. If they get fed royal jelly young enough, they turn into a queen. Sometimes I think they'll start making supersceding queens before the old queen leaves? They'll definitely try if she dies or leaves, though. When they finish being grubs and turn into queen bees, they'll go on their "virgin" mating flight, and then suitably fertlized, return to the hive and start laying fertile eggs, and there you have a new queen with fresh genetics from somewhere else and all is well. Queen breeders can take advantage of this process to deliberately produce and breed queens. If you buy a package of bees with a queen, you are getting that queen from someone who is repeatedly forcing hives to split and generate new queens. If your hive is too big and/or you can't add more supers to make it bigger, you can split the hive on purpose to avoid a swarm. You can buy a queen and introduce her to half the bees which you have removed from your hive, or you can remove half the bees and the queen while leaving a brood chamber containing plenty of fresh eggs, and let the girls do their thing the natural way. There is always a risk with the latter that the superceding queens don't survive or return from a mating flight, or the bees mess up and kill them, or something, so buying a queen is the safer route. B) is what happens if say the hive becomes very weak due to invaders, disease, it's leaking and they can't seal it, it's too hot or too cold, or they just don't feel safe. The entire hive leaves in search of a new home. You want to avoid that. You are correct that a hive with an elderly queen may swarm because the queen is no longer fertile, or she dies, or her egg laying slows down too much. But that's just one way for it to happen. I think the above two are more common. It's definitely the case that queens slow down as they age, so a lot of beekeepers including I think most commercial beekeepers kill and replace their queens annually as a matter of course. This may sound bad but... look, it's just a bug, you don't have to inject your human emotions here, the bees don't actually care. Because hives naturally swarm all the time, and are more likely to swarm if they're successful, wild swarms are highly prized by beekeepers. You can assume that a swarm found in the wild has genes from a queen whose bees survived seasons in the wild... e.g., they're "survivor stock." Of course you have no idea what sort of survivor stock, and they could just be a swarm that escaped a beekeeper's hives, but there's at least some chance that a wild swarm gives you "better" bees that are more adapted to your immediate climate and environment.
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Mar 19, 2017 01:06
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I think I may be the source of the old queens swarm thing. I had a very old queen and had the hive "practice swarm". It's very uncommon, which is why I mentioned it here. Basically, they were seeing if they were capable of taking off because she wasn't that much longer for this world. They "swarmed" into a tree near their hive, then went back into their box a couple of hours later, so I guess the queen couldn't do it (they won't take off without a queen in mass like swarms). So yeah, it's just a freak thing/bad luck so I mentioned it because it was weird. I bought an extractor because I'm one of the only folks that seems to be active on my end of town and I decided the cost was less than the annoyances of driving to the other end of my metro area, especially since I knew I was going to likely have at least one baby the next year. I figure goons can relate to spending money to avoid talking to people and driving an hour each way just to do manual labor. Sinister_Beekeeper fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Mar 19, 2017 |
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Mar 19, 2017 07:45
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What about those grates to prevent swarming? I think they're too small for the queen to escape or so? I feel like a bee swarm in a random bush will undermine all neighborly good will that free honey can offer. Edit: I can totally relate to spending money for savings in effort and socializing. Money is just paper but having to not talk to people i priceless. Catberry fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Mar 19, 2017 |
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Mar 19, 2017 07:51
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Queens will stop eating for a bit and stop egg production to slim down to swarm (they don't fly well or at all if they're loaded down with eggs inside them). So they'd go through a queen excluder if that is what you're referring to. Swarms are harmless and they don't stick around that long. Now ending up with bees in someone's walls would undermine some goodwill, but that usually doesn't happen in places where there are lots of better options (trees).
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Mar 19, 2017 08:04
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Is this too metropolitan for bees? Side 
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Mar 19, 2017 08:32
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