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There's somebody on ebay <10 miles away from me selling these beehives they apparently found in a barn. Bidding is still 99p and it's buyer-collect, but do you think it would be worth looking at for somebody who's never kept bees before and is on a bit of a budget? 
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Jun 26, 2010 19:12
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It's a bit too late in the season...Unless the boxes already have bees in them?
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Jun 27, 2010 01:02
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They don't, but I was thinking more for starting out next year anyway.
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Jun 27, 2010 01:27
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You have to be careful when purchasing used equipment like that. There's no way of knowing what nastiness is in the wood or frames. I think Melodywise mentioned that she was going to do it with her gear after her colony failed but you can burn or torch the insides of the wood to ensure any parasites and whatnot don't infect a new colony. That said, I would rather see someone buy used gear than not get started because new stuff is so expensive. I'd say go for it. Just make sure you do a little prep before the next season starts and you should be golden. edit: Is it 99p for everything in both pictures?
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Jun 27, 2010 15:04
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TouchyMcFeely posted:edit: Is it 99p for everything in both pictures? Whoa, I just checked and it seems a lot of people are interested, price has gone up quite a bit. But yeah, that's for the lot. There's another picture and it looks like there's roughly 11 hives... Would have to hire a van if I did go for it... I guess I (or somebody who outbids me) could also buy it, just keep one or two and clean and paint and sell the rest on.
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Jun 27, 2010 16:59
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If you're really interested in becoming a new beekeeper, you'll eventually want to get into touch with your local beekeeper association (you are almost certain to have one if you live anywhere in north america or europe). Why not go ahead and contact them now? Maybe they'd be interested in sharing that lot with you. If you win the bidding, you could bring the lot to the next meeting and they can tell you what you've got and whether it's still worth using, and maybe a few keepers will buy some of the excess from you (assuming it's in good condition). Not a bad way to introduce yourself to the cool bee people and get on their good side...
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Jun 28, 2010 06:23
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Leperflesh posted:Not a bad way to introduce yourself to the cool bee people and get on their good side... I don't know what kind of beekeepers you've run into but all the ones I've met run somewhere between 10-degrees off normal to batshit crazy. Which is just all the more reason to make contact and start learning from them.
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Jun 28, 2010 23:55
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They're coming out of the woodwork everywhere, actually; it turns out a number of my wife's friends and associates keep bees. So far they all seem fairly normal. I guess 10 degrees off kilter might be true, though, given that it does take a certain abnormal outlook on things to accept and desire having 50,000 stinging insects in your back yard. But the universal constant I've seen so far among beekeepers is that they're all pretty friendly and want to talk about bees with you and give you advice about bees (witness this thread).
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Jun 29, 2010 00:59
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Something cool I learned today, The White House has a beehive http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/inside-white-house-bees
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Jul 1, 2010 18:14
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Yup! Hey guys, so we're starting to get really hot weather a bit. The other day when it broke into the 90s, we saw the bees fanning and my wife decided it was time to prop up the telescoping lid so that air can move through the whole hive. We've been advised that this is an OK thing to do provided they're not having any trouble defending the hive. Then last night it was cooling off (60s I guess) so we closed it up. Do you guys open/close your hives for ventilation? If so, what sort of temperature range prompts you to do that, and for how long? Second question: one of my wife's friends is a beekeeper and she is having a big problem with mites this year. She recommended we inspect the entire hive, which for us means removing two honey supers and then the top deep, so we can look into the bottom deep. That's splitting the brood chamber and potentially having the queen drop out if she's in the upper deep. When you guys inspect your hives, how much are you willing to break them down, and how often? It seems very disruptive to me, to split open a hive with four boxes on it into four pieces and poke around that much. Is there risk here?
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Jul 1, 2010 19:12
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Well, I am making my weird queen excluder. I cut it to fit my hive, which I do not recommend, because it is a GIANT pain in the rear end. Of course, it doesn't quite fit. So I need some way to make it impenetrable along the sides where it touches the wood. I was thinking maybe some kind of cloth? I don't know. Sigh. On the plus side, my bees were very well behaved when I opened them up today, and I saw lots of larvae so they are doing well. I don't see much honey though.
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Jul 3, 2010 19:38
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Ishmael, maybe you could get some thin strips of wood and jam the grid of the queen excluder into the wood? Like balsa or something. Anyway, big inspection today; we went ahead and tore all the way down to the top brood box. There was burr comb connecting each of the boxes and so, honey everywhere, it was a bit of a mess. Also putting the supers back on, it was impossible not to crush a lot of bees which we hated to do.  These images are all available in higher resolution. I went with 1200 across, which is a little bigger than usual, but only because so many of them came out so well. Let me know if you want a full-size (3264x2448, ~4Mb) of any of them, or full-rez crop, or whatever. First, the top honey super (of two):  All 8 frames were built out, and all had at least some honey in them.   Center frames had capped honey at the top.         My wife's folks were here to watch, so finally a pic of both of us working the hive.  Top honey supers off, and the queen excluder, which was built through with burr comb.  With the excluder off, the top of the brood box was now covered with honey. This was a delicious mess!      Now to the point of the whole exercise: I pulled a frame near the center, to check on the top of the brood chamber.  Capped honey surrounding capped brood, with mostly empty brood space in the center. I think this is OK, given it's the second-from-center frame in the upper box. Closeups revealed a few brood. We did not see any mites.   Rebuilding the hive. There were tons of bees all over the broken comb, within a minute they covered the top edges of the super. Smoke did nothing, brushing them off was ineffective...   Putting the lower of the two honey supers back crushed at least dozens of bees, maybe more.  The last box went on easier, it was lighter for one, and the bees were less thick, but I bet the burr comb trapped a lot of bees between the boxes too. In retrospect, we realized we probably should have been scraping up all this burr comb so the boxes would go together with gaps between upper and lower boxes/frames, but for some reason we didn't think of it at the time. I didn't like breaking down the hive this far. If it's not necessary, I'm not going to dig into the brood chamber again until after we harvest. Oh, regarding image hosting: I used waffle because rightload works with it. I wish there was a way to batch upload to tinypic, but they put in a captcha so I can't do that anymore. Does anyone know of a free imagehost that works well with SA and allows/supports batch uploads? Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Jul 4, 2010 |
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Jul 4, 2010 01:09
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Leperflesh posted:Oh, regarding image hosting: I used waffle because rightload works with it. I wish there was a way to batch upload to tinypic, but they put in a captcha so I can't do that anymore. Does anyone know of a free imagehost that works well with SA and allows/supports batch uploads? If you sign up for tinypic (which is free and you can use a throwaway email address) you can just click on "my stuff" and bypass the captcha completely. Also you can batch upload 5 at a time from that page. It's not great, but it's not too bad.
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Jul 5, 2010 20:18
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Tinypic is "no longer accepting" new accounts. Instead it redirects to photobucket or something (I already have an account there).
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Jul 5, 2010 21:27
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Leperflesh posted:Ishmael, maybe you could get some thin strips of wood and jam the grid of the queen excluder into the wood? Like balsa or something. Ooh, this gave me an idea. I will cut it smaller than I need, and then line the edges with strips of that blue foam board, which can compress into place.
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Jul 5, 2010 22:19
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Well poo poo. Looks like my hive is on the verge of collapse. Went in and checked it today only to find that the number of works is a fraction of what it should be, the only capped cells were drones and there were a handful of old queen cells that had long ago hatched. As best as I can tell, either my hive swarmed and I missed it or my queen died at some point. Regardless, I expect that my colony will probably be dead before the summer is over. Bummer bummer bummer.
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Jul 10, 2010 22:53
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I might be in the same boat. Luckily, my hive swarmed pretty early. It seems like whenever they make their own queen, it's doomed to fail. My beekeeper friend says that new queens have a 1/4 chance of not making it after their nuptial flights. Both of my hives failed, I had to combine the two and order a new queen. I'm not sure if they'll make it. If you have at least 6 frames of bees you should try and order a new queen.
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Jul 10, 2010 23:37
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Man, that sucks guys. In positive news, we're gonna harvest honey today. They've filled the second super with capped honey, and my wife is too impatient to wait for them to do a third, so we're gonna harvest 1 medium supers' worth of honey right away.
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Jul 11, 2010 17:25
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OK so we basically made this up as we went along. We didn't want to pay for one of the custom honey box things they had at Beekind, and extractors are even more expensive, so we bought a special "honey gate" which is really just a food-grade tap/spigot that opens up nice and wide. We went to Target and got a Sterlite box that was big enough for frames to fit, and also got some 3/4" square wood, canning jars, and we had some screws. First we did the build       After a minor adjustment, frames fit in nicely. Although we are only using mediums for honey supers, this should fit deep frames as well if we ever need to.  After washing everything out thoroughly with dish soap and water, I fit the honey gate nice and tight. It's a nice piece, with gaskets and such that will keep it watertight when closed.    Next we harvested. Last inspection we switched the fullest super so it was on top, so this time all we had to do was pull each frame, shake and brush off the bees, and then stick it in our nearby box and replace the frame with a fresh one.       Capped honey. The box was pretty drat heavy with 8 frames!  We moved into the kitchen.  We ran all these jars and lids through the dishwasher last night, so they're all super-clean and ready for honey.  Next we started uncapping using the uncapping tool. Now, technically you can just scrape it across the top and only puncture the caps, which leaves the cells intact. But you can also use it to just strip the caps and a good portion of the cell wax out, which lets you get more of the honey but destroys more of the comb.     After you do a frame or three, you get pretty fast at it. Eventually we got it so we could uncap one side of a frame with just three or four passes of the tool.      Cappings got scraped off into a smaller tupperware box. Lots of honey in here too. Oh my god it tastes so good! Like... a little lemony, very light. My wife was chewing on wax like crazy.  Slowly dripping... we intend to leave this to drip for a day or two at least.  We scooped all the cappings into a clean light dish towel and my wife got her hands messy:   Left that dangling in the box to drain as well, although I think we're gonna want to squeeze it a few times more. Eventually we'll use a double-boiler or something to do something with the cappings, I dunno, my wife read something in the honey book. I guess it's so we can use the wax? Anyway that went surprisingly well: not including the build, we probably only spent about an hour. This setup only really works for harvesting one super, though; we'll need another box or something if we're going to do more supers at once. My wife wants to rent an extractor, but at $25 I don't think that's economical unless we're harvesting three full supers at once (and even then it's kinda silly). We'll have to hook up with some local beekeeps and see if they've got an extraction-party going, but, unfortunately, we're a bit put off by the Mt. Diablo Beekeeper's website, where they indicate you have to join, and pay dues to attend their meetings (at which they have presentations and lectures and stuff). I don't like the idea of needing to pay money up front just to chat with my fellow local beekeepers. Their site does not host a forums or anything either. We haven't tried calling them up yet though, so maybe it'll turn out there's other meetings that are free and they just don't keep their website well maintained.
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Jul 12, 2010 00:27
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Wow, so you live near Mt. Diablo too? I'm not getting quite as much honey as last year. How the heck do you get the bees off? I harvested a frame today and it was pretty scary shaking all of them off. Now they're flying around the backyard, all confused. I'm so jealous of your two filled supers. Maybe I live in a crappy area!
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Jul 12, 2010 01:26
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There's a lot of Mount Diablos in America... but maybe we are near each other (Bay Area, CA?) First I shake the frame a few times, which gets about half the bees to fall down into the hive; then a bee brush whisks the rest off. It helps a lot that there's two of us, so one holds the frame while the other brushes. I try to brush down back into the open hive, but of course a lot of bees will wind up in the air too. House bees don't know their way back home, but pretty soon some bees will start fanning scent at the entrance, and they'll find their way back in from that. As for how much honey we have... I dunno, I guess we're just lucky? I don't really know where the bees are going for nectar, they just fly up and away. Might be a good source nearby I suppose.
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Jul 12, 2010 04:10
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Yeah, I'm from the bay area. Out of curiosity, which supplier did you buy bees from?
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Jul 12, 2010 04:49
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Maximusi posted:Yeah, I'm from the bay area. Out of curiosity, which supplier did you buy bees from? We bought all our supplies from Beekind in Sebastopol, but we bought our actual package of bees from Her Majesty's Secret Beekeeper in San Francisco (there are pictures in this very thread). Hers were a little cheaper, we didn't have to return the box for a deposit, but most importantly, the drive was a lot shorter, so less time for the bees to spend in the car. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Jul 12, 2010 |
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Jul 12, 2010 04:53
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Im a little worried. I only get a chance to check my hives on weekends, and it's been rainy for the past 2-3. I finally got in today before building a fence to protect them from cattle, and I didn't see any brood. A few capped brood cells here and there but mostly just empty comb (well, and lots of bees). I pulled out 6-7 out of the deep hive body and nothing but honey. At first I was happy but I'd much rather see some healthy brood. I'm going to give it a full running over next friday and hopefully be reassured but it doesn't look good :-/
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Jul 12, 2010 05:16
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Keep in mind that the bees think it's going to be lean for a month or so during midsummer (in most areas they're right), after the spring nectar flow is done but the fall nectar flow hasn't started yet. Once the hive population is up to full capacity, you'd expect them to slow way down in laying/raising brood; just enough to cover ongoing losses. Maximusi, I mentioned you to my wife and she says you should come over if you'd like to check out our bees and/or chat about bee stuff or whatever. Also if you need a frame or two of bees to get your hive back together, we'll be happy to donate some (we have Italians). Send me a PM or e-mail me at my username at gmail.
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Jul 12, 2010 06:13
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Leperflesh posted:OK so we basically made this up as we went along. We didn't want to pay for one of the custom honey box things they had at Beekind, and extractors are even more expensive, so we bought a special "honey gate" which is really just a food-grade tap/spigot that opens up nice and wide That's great! I wish we had that much honey - or any, really. Thanks for all the pics, it is great to see it all in detail.
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Jul 12, 2010 13:30
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Leperflesh posted:Keep in mind that the bees think it's going to be lean for a month or so during midsummer (in most areas they're right), after the spring nectar flow is done but the fall nectar flow hasn't started yet. Once the hive population is up to full capacity, you'd expect them to slow way down in laying/raising brood; just enough to cover ongoing losses. That makes me hopeful, thank you. 
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Jul 12, 2010 14:17
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TouchyMcFeely posted:Well poo poo. Looks like my hive is on the verge of collapse. I had a similar situation this week. My hive swarmed and when I checked the box there were no capped brood at all, just honey. This doesn't mean your hive is doomed though - it is likely that the new queen is still taking her mating flight (she can take multiple flights over a 3 day period) or that she has only just begun to start laying. I've been told that you shouldn't bother worrying about a lack of capped brood in hive that's swarmed until at least 10 days or so have gone by. Also, where were the queen cells? Were they in the center of the frame or the bottom? If they were at the bottom then the hive swarmed, if they were at the center then the hive replaced your old queen.
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Jul 12, 2010 21:27
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CHARLES posted:Also, where were the queen cells? Were they in the center of the frame or the bottom? If they were at the bottom then the hive swarmed, if they were at the center then the hive replaced your old queen. I counted 3 or 4 queen cells on a couple of frames that were near the center. I'll keep tabs on them to see what happens and keep my fingers crossed.
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Jul 12, 2010 23:20
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My hive has gone just crazy. From a 5 frame nuc at the end of May, they've now filled up two deeps and it's time to put on the first super. They're still devouring syrup from the top feeder, they killed 2kg of sugar in equal water in about 5 days. Glad to see I might get a bit of honey this year after all.
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Jul 13, 2010 00:49
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Leperflesh posted:Maximusi, I mentioned you to my wife and she says you should come over if you'd like to check out our bees and/or chat about bee stuff or whatever. Also if you need a frame or two of bees to get your hive back together, we'll be happy to donate some (we have Italians). Send me a PM or e-mail me at my username at gmail. Yeah, that'd be cool! Well, I checked the hive yesterday and I saw lots of capped brood, so I think they'll be just fine. Besides, I have Russian bees. But I'll shoot you an email soon. I took a frame of honey out and the honey is really orange-colored. It tastes like artificially flavored orange candy. It's really weird!
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Jul 13, 2010 04:53
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TouchyMcFeely posted:I counted 3 or 4 queen cells on a couple of frames that were near the center. I'll keep tabs on them to see what happens and keep my fingers crossed. yeah, I had the same thing happen with one of my hives last week. I'm going out this Saturday to see how they're doing. I really hope there are no problems. It takes about 10 days after the new queen hatches before you can tell if she's started doing her job or not.
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Jul 22, 2010 08:28
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OMG I am never being that lazy again. I harvested honey a couple weeks ago and didn't replace the frame. I just inspected it today, and the bees had made a huge honeycomb in between the space where the frame was supposed to be. We had to cut it off and the bees were really pissed. A bunch of grubs fell out cause it was half brood half honey. I think I got stung in my toe, but I'm not sure if it's a stinger or a splinter.
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Jul 26, 2010 00:31
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Maximusi posted:OMG I am never being that lazy again. I harvested honey a couple weeks ago and didn't replace the frame. I just inspected it today, and the bees had made a huge honeycomb in between the space where the frame was supposed to be. We had to cut it off and the bees were really pissed. A bunch of grubs fell out cause it was half brood half honey. I think I got stung in my toe, but I'm not sure if it's a stinger or a splinter. Heheh...I think that's a lesson quite a number of us (myself included) learned the hard way. If you want to do something you'd better do it right away. Otherwise the ladies will be more than happy to go along all fat and happy and get mad as hell when you change your mind later.
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Jul 26, 2010 05:29
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Does anyone start feeding again in the hot months of summer? My bees still haven't completely filled the deep hive body, and I'm wondering if the dearth of nectar this time of year maybe has something to do with it?
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Jul 27, 2010 16:57
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I've heard that some people do feed in the summer, if the bees don't have much stored honey and there's no nectar flow. Here in california, it's not as big a deal, we have a reasonable number of flowering plants throughout the summer in many areas, but it's still possible that someone might need to feed if their bees struggled to get going in the spring. Keep in mind though that they're also slowing way down on bee-production during the summer too. Fewer eggs, fewer brood to feed, less activity all around. They want to sustain their spring population for the fall nectar flow, but not grow bigger (unless it's a struggling small hive). If your hive has nothing but brood chamber and a little honey around the edges, I'd suggest feeding a little. It probably can't hurt.
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Jul 27, 2010 23:16
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I don't know if there is anyone else from Western Washington interested in bee keeping. The Washington State University is offering an Apprentice Beekeeper course at the Snohomish County extension this winter. Details are here- http://snohomish.wsu.edu/calendar.htm I'm planning on attending and hope to learn a bunch more about the awesomeness that is bee keeping!
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Jul 29, 2010 21:30
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Well, gently caress gently caress gently caress. All my bees are gone. Sometime in the last week, they all absconded. The hive was completely empty - not even a lone bee. I searched through the hive, there were no queen cells, swarm cells, anything. There were a large number of hive beetles though. I've always seen a few hive beetles in my inspections, but never this many. I don't know if the beetles forced out the bees or if they have taken over since the bees left and multiplied. In any case, I am really bummed. My hive wasn't very organized but it was really strong, they had grown about 5x larger in number since getting the nuc, and there was always a constant stream of new brood. But for some reason they didn't like the hive, and now they are gone. Bye, bees. 
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Aug 2, 2010 00:34
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Aw. That really sucks Ishmael. Are you gonna try again? Maybe this time with a package, since as you discovered, you can't easily drop in langstroth frames into your traditional top-bar hive.
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Aug 2, 2010 01:01
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Leperflesh posted:Aw. That really sucks Ishmael. I don't know at the moment, I am just pretty bummed right now. It's too late to restart the hive this year, isn't it? Also, I don't know if I will do a top-bar hive again next. I might just go ahead and get a standard Lang hive, build up some experience as a standard beekeeper before trying the top-bar method again.
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Aug 2, 2010 01:03
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