I made some improvements to the design of my ventilator rim (a.k.a. a ventilation eke). It’s still cheap and easy to make and should do a fine job at improving the ventilation of any Langstroth hive. First, I cut four pieces of wood for the front, back and sides of the rim. Here’s a shot of the side pieces:
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THE FOLLOWING WAS LAST UPDATED ON AUGUST 22, 2011.
Well, not really making a ventilator rim. I already made it and it looks like this:
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Like the name implies, it provides ventilation for the hive. And as far as I know, it’s good to have on the hive any time of the year, though for the winter we might stick with our insulated inner hive covers. They worked out well for us this past winter.
Read on . . . »
THE FOLLOWING WAS LAST UPDATED ON SEPT. 14, 2011.
I finally got around to making two dummy boards today — also known as follower boards. Rusty over at Honey Bee Suite says:
- “…the bees can collect on the follower boards without sitting on the brood. In hot weather, the bees have a hard time keeping the brood cool enough, and sitting on it makes it worse. So both follower boards and slatted racks give the bees a place to “hang out.” This also reduces the feeling of congestion in the hive and congestion is a major factor in swarming.”
The dummy boards also reduce the risk of rolling the queen during inspections. All of which means nothing if you don’t know what dummy boards / follower boards are or why I’d want to make some, so read the following posts from Honey Bee Suite for an explanation of what it’s all about: Follower boards in a Langstroth hive and How to make follower boards for a Langstroth hive.
Kinda cool, ah? (I assume you just got back from reading those posts.) I made the two dummy boards by following Rusty’s instructions, though I did it all without measuring anything, and then I got creative and added a little extra something to the design at the end of it. I’m an incompetent carpenter, so by necessity I have to keep it simple.
I began by using a hand-held jig saw to cut the top bar down the middle:
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People with fancy schmancy table saws can cut in a straight line. I’m not one of those people. It wasn’t exactly a smooth cut but close enough.
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I don’t have much to say today, but I’m going to say it anyway. (This will be a long rambling post signifying nothing.) I begin work on a month-long feature film shoot next week, which means I won’t have a life for the rest of June and you might not hear much from me again until July. Beekeeping in June will be restricted to the few days I have off. So I hope the sun is shining on those days. But let’s talk about now. How about this thing?
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NOTE (April 11/11): The following has been updated more than once since it was originally posted. The updates appear near the bottom. The title of the post has been changed to reflect the reality of what he had to deal with. Both of the top hive feeders leaked all over the hives and the bees. We had to switch to inverted jar feeders instead. It was the messiest biggest headache of our beekeeping experience so far. We have no love for hive top feeders.
It was about 7°C in the backyard today. The weather forecast doesn’t call for much rain and the temperatures are supposed to be well above freezing all week. So we decided to add top hive feeders to both hives, filling up one side of each feeder with about 8 litres of syrup (a little over 2 US gallons). But first we modified the feeders by stapling screens to the reservoirs:
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THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE IT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED.
Here’s the short version: Take a piece of wood the size of a regular entrance reducer (15 inches / 38.1 cm long). Cut a notch in it that’s at least 1 cm high and 6 cm long (1 cm = approx. 3/8 inch). Drive thin nails in a row inside the notch so there’s 1 cm of space between them. The nails should look like prison bars. The holes in a regular mouse-proof entrance are slightly less than a centimetre wide, so as long as the space between the nails is no wider than a centimetre, this should do the trick. Just make sure to brace it in place with something heavy or nail it down. It doesn’t get any cheaper or simpler. I haven’t tested the design yet, but I’ll update this post in the spring of 2011 and let you know if any mice got in the hives. I think it’ll work just fine. (See also Winter Mouse-Proof Mesh.)
It went up to 14° Celsius in the backyard today (that’s 57° F in Non-Metricland). I have a wireless thermometer set up under one of the hives. 15° during the summer was the magic number that got all the foragers and young bees out of the hive. But the magic number has been 10° since mid-September. The bees in both hives were out in full force. The backyard sounded like one big buzz. Check out how crowded the bees were before I opened their entrances all the way (I’ll post a quick video of it later on in the comments).
While I was out there enjoying the brief blast of warm of air, I decided to build my mouse-proof winter entrance reducers for both hives. That’s one piece of beekeeping equipment that falls well within my limited carpentry abilities.
Read on . . . »
THE FOLLOWING WAS LAST UPDATED ON OCT. 18, 2011.
Winters in St. John’s, Newfoundland, provide a messy mixture of rain, snow and high winds with irregular periods of freezing and thawing. Wrapping Langstroth honey bee hives with a Type 15 asphalt felt isn’t a bad idea. Neither is installing mouse-proof entrance reducers. Preventing condensation, though, is the top priority. A 1-inch thick piece of R5-rated hard insulation over the inner cover in the winter position will prevent condensation from building up inside the hive during the winter. We used a 1.5-inch thick piece of insulation during our first winter (because we couldn’t find anything else) up until the end of January. Then we had to switch to insulated inner hive covers because the regular inner covers don’t provide enough room for candy cakes and pollen patties. A shim lifting a regular inner cover up an inch or two would provide enough space. However, an all-in-one insulated inner hive cover might be more convenient. It requires moderate carpentry skills (which means we’ll probably go with the shims instead), and it’ll cost a little more, but here’s how we made them if anyone is interested. We’ve tested them, and they work.*
Read on . . . »
UPDATE: DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME. IT’S NOT THE GREATEST DESIGN FOR A FEEDER.
We installed 7-litre frame feeders in our hives over the past few weeks. The feeders take up the space of two frames inside the brood box and the bees go to town on the syrup faster than they ever did with the Boardman feeders, probably because about ten times more bees can get at the syrup. We like the frame feeders for that reason and because they only require re-filling every ten days or so, and they don’t seem to attract as many wasps as Boardman feeders. (Ants are another story.) The only downside to a frame feeder this large is that is doesn’t leave any wiggle room for the remaining eight frames. I had to use the frame gripper for the first time today because I couldn’t slide the frames to loosen them.
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We decided to remove the feeder from Hive #1 today because the bees have filled all the frames and they need the extra two frames of space the feeder was taking up.
Read on . . . »
THE FOLLOWING WAS LAST UPDATED ON AUG. 27, 2011.
We plan to install these frame feeders as soon as possible. They arrived today from beemaidbeestore.com. The feeders have bee ladders (photo): tubes of plastic mesh the bees crawl down as a way of drinking the syrup without drowning in it. The feeders hold 7 litres of syrup and take up the space of two frames in the brood chamber. (2 litres = 1.85 gallons.)
Our Boardman feeders attract ants, wasps and even big ugly slugs. (The Boardman feeders also encourage robbing at times from other bees.) It’s not a problem for Hive #1 because their numbers are so high. But Hive #2 is weaker and having wasps around probably doesn’t help.
Not having to poke around the hives as much may be another advantage of switching to frame feeders. Hive #1 sucks up about a litre of syrup from the Boardman feeder every three days. If the bees continue at that pace, it could take them up to three weeks to empty 7 litres from the frame feeder, though we’ll likely refill it every two weeks after regular inspections regardless. (UPDATE: The bees drink much faster from the frame feeders.)
Read on . . . »
I introduced some foundationless frames to Hive #1 this weekend. I’ll tell you why and I’ll tell you how. Here’s one of my foundationless frames:
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