Che Guebee Apiary: Got new pallets and resizing the Deep TBH

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Got new pallets and resizing the Deep TBH

I went grocery shopping today and was not lazy nor shy to aks the salesman if they have a few spare wood pallets and she said yes, take four :)
So I returned home with some more material for making top bar hives. I still didnt make any bait hives yet!
I decided to resize the deep top bar hive I made last year. It was inspired by Dennis Murrel's deep Wayoming TBH which acrding to him work great in his freezing climate. On the other hand, I was corresponding with Erik Österlund (famous swedish small cell beekeeper) and his opinion was that this hive is way too deep for the Swedish winters. Even though I have huge respect for Dennis Murrel the fact that I live in Sweden made me take Erik's advice.
One can see in this photo the newly acquired pallets and the resized top bar hive on the work table;

1 comment:

Patrick SellmanFebruary 21, 2013 at 1:49 AM
I think your choice was right but I think deep hives are good in winter. I still dont like them because it will be to hard to handling the cakes. A better way must be to insulate the hives like you do.
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

What is Natural Beekeeping?

"Natural Beekeeping" is a concept, an idea which springs from a human mind and as such will differ from one person to another, from one culture to another, depending on our limited and conditioned perception about what it IS being a Honeybee. Since natural beekeeping is an idea and not the actuality it is not to be taken rigidly. Instead it is to be directly inspired by the Actuality. But let's avoid going too philosophical about it and let me simply describe how I see "natural beekeeping" benefiting honeybees (these are only guidelines not a dogma);

- free wax comb construction resulting in clean wax and various cell size

- bees overwinter on their own honey stores (feeding sugar syrup ONLY if absolutely necessary)

- lots of peace (low interference from the beekeepers part)

- treatment free (The only way to have a sustainable system of beekeeping is to stop treating, instead making splits from survivor colonies seems the most natural way to me)

- bees are allowed to raise as many Drones as needed (no drone culling)

- natural Queen selection resulting in the strongest Queen (no queen cell culling and only working with local Queens or my own)

- pesticide free bee zone and supporting organic farming (this is a global issue and must be dealt with locally first through environmental organisations and by buying and growing organic food/clothing, etc ...)

- expanding my apiary every year by making splits using Queen Cells from my own strong survivor colonies or catching local swarms. This is the best way to counteract winter losses.

- planting for the bees flowering trees, bushes and plants covering all seasons. Biodiversity is the best healer for the bees and all other creatures.

Natural Beekeeping

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Got new pallets and resizing the Deep TBH

1 comment:

Catching my very first Prime Swarm