Natural Bee Farm

Stack of freshly painted hive-bodies.

I often get asked what I buy and where I get my components from when it comes to building my hives. Entering into your first experience of shopping for components to build your first beehives can be daunting, even tho the beehives themselves are extraordinarily simple. There is very little product differentiation – only so many things you can do with a Langstroth hive – so you see a lot of redundant sources, nearly identical prices in some cases, and you’re forced to do the eeny, meeny, miny, mo thing in deciding who to buy your woodenware from. Since beekeepers often get asked about their own preferred sources – and having been in the asking position before, I figure I’ll list my preferences here. Note that I have not ever purchased a “Kit” that many of these retailers sell. Often the kits come with 5.4mm plastic foundation and I’m very particular about my frames and keeping my bees on natural comb.

Every beekeeper ends up settling on their own preferred sources so this is just a basic guide. It’s what has worked for me tho I’m sure there’s always room for improvement. Here is my basic shopping list for my hives. Remember, buying in bulk often saves you a bit – many have price cuts at 5 or more components for the major hive components and a price break on frames purchased by the case.

(more…)

Happy bees very quickly filling up their one-box home.

I borrowed a frame of brood and nurse bees from my strong hive to bolster a struggling hive and I put an empty in it’s place. While I was in the strong hive, I split the brood up. I opened up the brood-nest, leaving an empty frame between every two drawn and populated brood-frames. I only had three empties – they were filling up the box fast! That was last weekend. Today I decide to go give the hive another looksee. Normally I’d ignore the hives for several weeks while they’re busy working, but with seven of ten frames of this hive occupied, this one is nearing maximum capacity and in need of another box. If I wait too long, it will form a swarm-cell to raise another queen and then it’ll swarm, removing several thousand bees from the work-force and setting back honey production for that hive.

(more…)

Here are the top-bar hive chamfer trim comb guides in place and ready for bees.

There was a time when bees actually made their own comb from scratch. No really – they actually did. Honeybees really do know how to make their own comb! Unfortunately, their comb making often does not mesh with our desire for order. If left on their own, the combs will often have curves, which is not conducive to movable frame management. There are a few areas in even natural beekeeping where for the sake of managing the hive and extracting a harvest without destroying said hive, we must depart to a degree from the purely natural and give the bees more motivation to make straight combs. In this case, the use of comb guides has proven beneficial.

(more…)

My footer solution, simple as can be.

When I migrated from Top Bar Hives to Langstroth hives, I was faced with a conundrum. What the hives sit on. Most Langstroth hives sit on a foundation or footer of sorts. It keeps the bottom-board itself off the ground to reduce rotting issues. A lot of people seem to use bricks or build fancy stands to put their hives on. But, if you have a bunch of hives, either option is expensive. Not to mention that bricks are heavy to lug around and stands can have a tendency to tip over, especially as the colony matures and the hive gets very heavy. Additionally, the taller a hive gets, the harder it is to work. My concern is not with a short two-box baby hive, but a full grown hive that’s five deep-boxes tall or six even. Put that on top of eight inches of brick and it’s just that much taller to have to deal with.

(more…)

Swarm Bucket

One of the most useful tools in collecting bees is the humble swarm bucket. Trying to lug a heavy brood-box around to gather a swarm can get very cumbersome sometimes. The very first swarm I was exposed to as a six-year old – one that I aided the beekeeper when he wanted to snap a picture and had me hold a branch out of the way, inches from this mass of bees – the beekeeper used a brood-box to shake the swarm into. My first swarms I did likewise. But, it was heavy and hard to place when out in the brush. Some people swear by specially made bee-vacuums but I had a bad experience with a bee-vacuum killing bees, and it’s also inconvenient if you’re out in the brush too. Me, I like the simple 5-gallon bee bucket. The bucket is light and easy to lug and can be kept in the truck for those chance encounters that we all hope we come across as we’re driving around doing our errands. However, there is a caveat. Making sure I get all the flying bees but keep the queen in the bucket.

(more…)

Frame jig from scrap wood.

Putting together frames is actually a pretty simple thing, but if you’re doing a lot of them, it helps to have a jig of sorts. There’s a great design for a frame jig over at BeeSource.com but I had a cutout very soon, not a lot of fancy wood-working tools and just some scrap wood to work with and not the time to mull over it so I simplified it a bit for my current project.

(more…)