The final hives

Three days after starting the second beehive both beehives are complete with perspex windows and bee logos.A bee's eye view:

Robbers!

The second hive is progressing in much the same way as the first except that it's a bit quicker as we know the pitfalls to avoid. So this post is going back to visit the bees at the original hive.

We had been told Autumn had arrived but with the hot weather we've been experiencing in the South of England we hadn't believed it. Opening the hive last week we noticed that the bees had begun to move their stores of honey towards the brood chamber in preparation for winter. It was decided that it might be time to start feeding the bees.

A thick sugar syrup (2 parts sugar to 1 water) was made up this morning and poured into a chutney jar with a hole in the lid and a small piece of pipe. When tipped upside-down the syrup runs out for a moment until the pressure drops in the air gap and this holds the syrup in the jar. We decided to poke this (pipe only) through a hole that had been made in one of the bars earlier in the year, which the bees had recently closed up with propolis.

As the jar was turned upside-down a small amount of sugar syrup landed on the ground and just like a cat or dog a bee arrived to gobble it up. Once the bee had gone we wiped up the syrup so it didn't attract wasps and thought nothing more of it.

Returning to the hive a couple of hours later we noticed a Buckfast bee around the hive, thought nothing of it and noted that the bees had already taken some of the syrup - hungry bees!

Another two hours later and we noticed there were lots of bees at the entrance to the hive, several Buckfast bees and quite a few wasps. Checking in the books we realised what must have happened...because the sugar syrup was not immediately cleaned up, bees from other hives had been attacked to our hive. It is quite common for bees to try and rob other hives and this time it was ours that were under attack! Attacks can result in honey stores disappearing and bees being killed or starving through the winter. Over time the pheromones of the robbing bees can mix with those of the hive and they become accepted into the hive being attacked.

Apparently bees robbing the hive will climb up the side of the hive and when they take-off will initially dip down because of the weight of the honey. However, I'm not sure I could spot them from the other bees and even if I could - what could I do about it?

Another two hours later and all is quiet at the hive. The bees appear to have got rid of the robbers and settled down - horray for the hive!

A Second Hive

Following completion of the first give there was more than enough wood remaining from the pallets and plywood to make a second. So today we set about joining and cutting wood for the body of a second hive.

Bars and Darwin

Following a long day of hive building yesterday I didn't get chance to update the blog. I spent most of yesterday making bars for the top-bar hive (the bars are in the hive below).


The original hive built at Christmas had bars with central lines routed out and filled with wax. The idea of this is to provide a guide for the bees to start building on and would be common in a top-bar hive. However in the original hive we built, the bees began by creating comb across the bars (cross-comb). In an attempt to resolve this some of the original bars were fitted with half strips of foundation which have worked well so far.


For the new hive we split the bars and placed foundation inside. As the new hives will not be in use until next Spring when there will be new swarms, most of the bars did not have foundation added incase of wax moths.
Inside the hive from the window:
Today we visited Down House in Kent, the home of Darwin. Darwin noted that where there were cats there were low levels of mice but high numbers of bumble bees and clover. In the grounds there is an observation hive, great to see the bees working, hopefully the window in our hive will let us do something similar.

Taking shape

Today the body, roof and legs were all attached. The window was given a shutter with a fastener, a wire mesh was added to the underside of the body and a tray was created.
The mesh allows the varroa mites to fall out of the hive and prevents other animals such as wasps getting into the hive, stealing the honey and killing the bees. It's important to keep track of the number of vorroa in a hive and the tray allows you to count the number of varroa mites that have fallen out of the hive.

The last job of the day was to put raw linseed oil on all the wood (except for the inside of the hive body) to weather proof it. Raw linseed oil has none of the nasties that other weather proofing materials have such as solvants that could get into the honey. The only problem with it is that it will take several weeks to truely dry!

Window for bee watching

Today the body of the hive was constructed. Improving on the first top-bar hive, Tom decided that there should be a viewing window for watching the bees without opening the hive.

We also managed to construct the roof before the end of the day. Mostly made from recliamed plywood, it seems like the lightest option that will shed water quickly.

Hot hot weather - lets check out the bees

Today has been scorchio!
So decided to check out how the bees are getting on in the original hive made at Christmas.

Opening it up, some of them were making comb on a new bar!

Check out the video:



There was a discussion about whether to take some honey, but the bees in this hive have been affected by varroa mites quite badly we decided not to. Instead the first varroa treatment went in and corks to stop up all but one hole to help protect the bees from wasps.

The building site

Reclaiming Wood

Today we visited the mid-Sussex wood recycling project to purchase wood for the beehives.
We came away with 5 pallets and two large sheets of ply, which were delivered for us :)

The first big beehive building activity was to dismantle the pallets.


After a lot of nail and staple removal these are the piles of wood (with a couple already cut for follower boards).

Starting out

These pages chart the progress of bees, behives and honey at Longacres Croft in West Sussex, UK.

In December 2008, Tom and I visited and built a top-bar beehive from thrown together plans. There's been no honey yet and with Autumn round the corner and wasps being kicked out we're thinking of plugging up the holes.

Tom has worked on some refined plans and over the next week we plan to build two more top-bar hives, ready for next year.