ballybees.blogspot.com
Bally Bees: First inspection of the year
http://ballybees.blogspot.com/2012/03/first-inspection-of-year.html
Experiences of an amateur beekeeper and his bees. Sunday, 25 March 2012. First inspection of the year. My patience has paid off and the weather has suddenly become more like summer than spring! The last couple of days have been really warm and I decided to have a look at my bees yesterday, just after midday, when the temperature was about 17 deg C. I carefully put the frames back and put everything back in place and closed the hive up. And so on to hive number three. There were certainly plenty of be...
ballybees.blogspot.com
Bally Bees: Materials and tools required
http://ballybees.blogspot.com/2012/02/materials-and-tools-required.html
Experiences of an amateur beekeeper and his bees. Wednesday, 1 February 2012. Materials and tools required. I'll be making the hive from mostly from 18mm (approx 3/4 inch) plywood. You could use 12mm (1/2 inch) plywood instead, but you'll have to alter some of the dimensions. I went with 18mm thick because it is widely available, strong, and relatively cheap to buy in 2.4m x 1.2m (8 foot x 4 foot) sheets. Now the power tools. This is where it gets a bit more complicated (and expensive! It is REALLY uisef...
ballybees.blogspot.com
Bally Bees: The May gap?
http://ballybees.blogspot.com/2012/05/may-gap.html
Experiences of an amateur beekeeper and his bees. Sunday, 13 May 2012. Anyway the bees in hive number three now have a chance to rear a new queen. They have been hopelessly queenless for about 6 weeks, ever since I killed the drone laying queen that was in the colony. I hope they manage to rear a queen and get her mated, but really their chances of success depend much upon the weather, which brings me on to the main subject of this post - forage. Hawthorne (also known as "May Blossom") just about to star...
ballybees.blogspot.com
Bally Bees: Crown board and clearer board
http://ballybees.blogspot.com/2012/03/crown-board-and-clearer-board.html
Experiences of an amateur beekeeper and his bees. Sunday, 11 March 2012. Crown board and clearer board. Time to get back to hive construction! Nail the rest of the strips in place as shown in the following photo. That's the basic structure of the crown board finished. And they will need to be a good fit. I recently bought some large circular escapes that I'm going to try (see photo). Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). Materials and Tools Required. Open Mesh Floor - Part 1. Open Mesh Floor - Part 2.
ballybees.blogspot.com
Bally Bees: February 2012
http://ballybees.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html
Experiences of an amateur beekeeper and his bees. Tuesday, 28 February 2012. Bees bringing in pollen. The photo above shows hive number two. I'm very worried about this one! There seems to be very few bees although the bees from this hive were flying well today and bringing in pollen. This colony was my best last year and yielded 30 lbs of lovely honey. Unfortunately there's no way to know for certain because the original queen was not marked. Sunday, 26 February 2012. Before fitting the final roof cover...
ballybees.blogspot.com
Bally Bees: Brood Chamber
http://ballybees.blogspot.com/2012/02/brood-chamber.html
Experiences of an amateur beekeeper and his bees. Sunday, 12 February 2012. Back to hive construction. In this post I'll go through how to make a brood chamber. I'll be making it to standard National dimensions with bottom bee space, but it would be fairly easy to adapt the design to another standard. Start off by cutting a strip of 18mm thick plywood 225mm wide. Then, from this strip cut two pieces 460mm long. These will form the front and back walls of the brood chamber. Now take the 32mm x 12 mm and t...
ballybees.blogspot.com
Bally Bees: Super
http://ballybees.blogspot.com/2012/02/super.html
Experiences of an amateur beekeeper and his bees. Sunday, 19 February 2012. The design and construction of the super is very similar to the brood chamber. The only difference is that the super is not as deep as the brood chamber (hence they are sometimes referred to as "deeps" and "shallows"). Start off by cutting a strip of 18mm thick plywood 150mm wide. Then, from this strip cut two pieces 460mm long. These will form the front and back walls of the super. 32mm x 18mm x 424mm long (2 pieces required).
ballybees.blogspot.com
Bally Bees: Roof
http://ballybees.blogspot.com/2012/02/roof.html
Experiences of an amateur beekeeper and his bees. Sunday, 26 February 2012. Start by cutting a piece of 11mm thick OSB measuring 505mm by 505mm. You can use plywood if you want - I have used OSB because it is cheaper and lighter. Our cat "Lucky" likes to help me when I'm making hives! Mark a line 18mm in from the ends of the 505mm long pieces and then mark and drill the holes for the screws. Glue and screw the 469mm long pieces to one of the 505mm long pieces as shown in the following photo. Now you must...
ballybees.blogspot.com
Bally Bees: Another Queenless colony!
http://ballybees.blogspot.com/2012/05/another-one-bites-dust.html
Experiences of an amateur beekeeper and his bees. Friday, 11 May 2012. As I opened up hive number one, I expected to see at least two or three frames of brood, but I found only half a frame of sealed brood - no eggs and just a handful of large larvae. I also found three sealed queen cells. Had I lost a swarm already? My nuc still contained a fair few bees, but again there was no sign of any eggs, larvae or brood. The inside of the nuc box was mouldy so I decided to transfer the frames and bees to a c...
ballybees.blogspot.com
Bally Bees: Moving and uniting colonies
http://ballybees.blogspot.com/2012/05/moving-colonies.html
Experiences of an amateur beekeeper and his bees. Friday, 11 May 2012. Moving and uniting colonies. Let me introduce the "Move-a-Hive-a-Matic" (patent pending). It is basically a pallet strapped to a wheel barrow with a piece of plywood screwed to the top to provide a flat solid support for a beehive. I've screwed small pieces of plywood to the edges of the pallet to keep it from sliding off the side of the wheel barrow. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). Materials and Tools Required.
