Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Pictures on page 2 of this thread Mr Orange!
Once upon a time, there was a school teacher who had an idea, (well more than one actually.)
Twas late one night, in the darkness, 'xcept for the bright light of the 4wd and the flashing camera. It happened in the blink of an eye, they were wrestled into the cardboard box, hardly a buzz then whisked away whilst they slept in harmony and awoke to find themselves in a new home, Aaah!

Awe you make me sound special But alas I do have another idea, just need to find some community minded company with $100 000 to spare to make it happen - then I will share it

It all starts with a dream Mike, you can probably do it if you put your mind to it. I reckon you might get a lot of support, one way and another. Good luck!

Wow - thanks Burnsy. I've just done some further reading and I never knew about a bee swarm cluster.. That thing hanging from the tree branch is just a massive clump of beeds

So now I've done some reading, how do you plan to control future swarms? ie. prevent your hive from upping and leaving.

When they swarm they still leave a viable colony, just smaller. So if they want to up and leave at the moment they can (but shouldn't as they have to much work to do to fill supplies for next winter) if they do I will try to catch them and put them in another box I also plan on putting a super on top of the hive once it is full to increase honey stores as I am a bit of a honey pig.

The hive I have is empty to the right side and if you learn to read the bees you can eliminate swarming by using this end for swarm control. I am not full bottle on this yet but if you are really interested register at the biobee.com forum and order Phil Chandlers book "The barefoot beekeeper" from Lulu.com I have it and it was well worth the $20 it cost and covers much of this. If you are Ipod and Itunes savy he also has a lot of podcasts on Itunes that are available free and I am pretty sure one of these covers swarm control - have not listened to that particular one yet. He is well spoken and good to listen to, I have never listened to podcasts before and always dismissed them as being for other people but they are a pretty good way of getting info into your head while you are otherwise occupied driving to work.

This beekeeping is as cool as AP and has me hooked (especially seeing I love honey but can't eat fish ). I now have a standard hive as well that I filled with a swarm that had taken up residence in a couch arm (care of gumtree) and am experimenting with a super on my topbar hive. Every direction I look at home there are trees in full bloom so the bees are happy as

Hi Burnsy,

Is that the cover for the super in the last photo?

H.

If you mean is that the cover on the super in the second photo? Then yes but it is upside down as it is a bit tight and I need to rout it out a little so it telescopes easily over the box. At the moment it is just sitting on until I get to it.

If you mean the green/blue ply on top of the super in the first photo then yes that is also a cover, just a lump of ply I had lying around until I make a nice garden hive style lid for it and the topbar hive along the lines of the link below, that is if in fact the super works on this hive.

Thinking of a top and base like these for my next lang hive as well as it will be in my front yard and as such I would like it to look a little nicer.

[urhttp://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/8-Frame-English-Garden-Hive/productinfo/254CW/l][/url]

Hope the Gooseberry Hill fires weren't too close to you yesterday Mike !

OK, just something I've found with my Langs, with a telescopic lid like your proposing you wind up killing a lot of bees because you cant brush them aside when replacing the lid. I found that a lid that sits on top and flush with the super sides much better as I can just slide it on without killing the bees sitting under it. - just something to consider

As for the English garden Design, very nice.

H.

Chillidude, only heard about the fires, did not even get any smoke at our place.

Himzol, I had read about squashing bees as you mentioned and plan on some 6mm block on each corner to keep the roof from contacting the super edge. I originally only went with that particular telescoping lid because it was a hive I was carting around to collect a swarm in and wanted the lid to be secure to stop it coming off in my car, likewise that is why the ply cleats are around the bottom board to hold the hive in place during transport. I did strap the hive as well but really did not want to chance ending up with 20000 odd bees flying around in the back so will probably just end up keeping this particular lid for that purpose:shock:

I am going to make a flush lid as you describe with 1 inch vents in each side to try on one hive as they seem pretty popular with keepers over here. I have the vents already but am just awaiting holidays next week so I have a bit more time to play around with such things. I probably should go with this design when I make the garden style tops as well but I am partial to the look of the telescoping garden ones so will just have to see what happens. Anyone know where to buy thin sheet copper in Perth for the roof?

Sounds good,

I found that where I live that the vents weren't needed, as the winter is quite cold and wet (also gave the ants easy access). When I tried the bees just plugged them up with propolis so the next lid I made didn't have any.

I might have to take some photo to show off my hives

H.

What's this might business, you know the rules, photos or it didn't happen

Ok, Ok, I'll take some photos tonight, actually I'm half way through building another box which includes lid and base so I'll include those as well. may not be able to post the pictures until tomorrow as I am only able to access the inter-web at work for the moment. Even there I am only in the office spuradically.

Love the bees... How do you harvest honey from the bar top hives? Our langstroth hives are super easy, put the excluder on come back a few days later and take off the supers. I just wish the bees liked the plastic foundation.