Skeptic Bee - Apiary

Home Page Apiary TopBar Hives March 2009

Sceptic Bee Home Apiary

This is the 60 second guide to the Skeptic Apiary. Whatever kind of beekeeping you undertake you will need a hive, some smoke, an hive tool and something to wear. This is what the Skeptic Bee has.

The Skeptic Longhive

The long hive, pictured here during the spring flow in May, has contained bees now for three years. Ooops, they have attempted to swarm. Skeptic Queens are clipped and she is hanging about outside the hive entrance with a disgruntled clump of swarmy bees. Not everybody approves of clipping queens but when time is severely limited it is important not to lose bees and antagonise neighbours. When the bees are ready to swarm the queen and flying bees are separated from the brood and young bees by a division board. The two halves of the colony come and go from entrances at either end of the hive. A new queen was raised and the colony united again in July.

There are two supers on this colony, but it is actually very difficult to get bees in long hives to go up into supers. Mostly supers are not used on long hives and as honey is not a priority for this year they were later removed.

The hive is constructed of shuttering ply and this is protected from the weather by a combination of roofing felt kept in place by 6 mm wire mesh, obtained from Wickes, a UK DIY store. This keeps the ply in good condition and the wire mesh gives the woodpeckers a nasty shock.

Pacifying Bees With Smoke

Beekeepers use smoke to keep their bees under control. There's nothing worse than frantically trying to revive a dying smoker whilst the bees are creating havoc around you. Ok, this is too much smoke but the Skeptic Smoker is based on the premises of maximum deterrence - it won't get used but if it does you'd better watch out. The smoker is powered with a 12V electric computer fan, purchased from Maplins, and burns fine wood chippings, which can be purchased in bales from pet stores. Light a couple of pages of newspaper in the firebox and turn the fan on. When they are well alight add a fistful of wood chippings and allow to catch fire whilst you put your bee jacket on. Then turn the fan off, before it melts and add more fuel. Turn the fan on again briefly three or four times for the next five minutes until the fuel is well alight. It will not now go out for the rest of the afternoon and to avoid damage to the fan, and bees, it should only be turned on when smoke is required.

Now that is just right - a smoker full of coarse sawdust which is well alight will stay that way for the rest of the afternoon. Skeptic Apiary Bees have been very well behaved this year and smoke is mainly used to stop their little fingers getting pinched in the door when closing up. Squashing bees is not very nice and the bees officers say it spreads disease, particularly nosema. Beekeepers use all types of fuels to keep their smokers going but whatever is used it is important not to use too much. The smoke from the smoker is completely unregulated and honey is after all a food stuff - we're not allowed to smoke in the kitchens are we? Langstroth preferred to use lightly sugared water to pacify his bees, which makes quite a lot of sense. Natural cell beekeepers are more an more in favour of this and Skeptic Bee is interested.

Hive Tools

A beekeeper's best friend, after smoke, is the hive tool. Hive tools are orange, to distinguish them from grass which is green. After many years the orange will have worn off your hive tool but don't worry, you will have learned to look after it by then.

Hive tools are mainly used for easing frames apart, aiding their removal from the hive. The Skeptic Apiary frames are mostly easier to manipulate because they don't have lugs, (by design, not because they've all snapped off). Frames which hang on lugs are great because you can argue about the relative merits of short lugs and long lugs and this passes the time agreeably. Skeptic Bee's frames stand on the floor and as there are no supers anyway this is fine too. We'll have a look at some Skeptic Bee frame designs later on.

You will need two hive tools because from time to time they like to take holidays or even gap years. The orange hive tool recently took a winter vacation at the bottom of a nucleus hive. Skeptic Bee sez he knew where it was but it was Nick the bees officer who found it in April.

Apart from easing frames apart hive tools are exceptionally versatile and can be used for scraping wax, seperating boxes and crown boards, woodworking, repointing brick work, slicing cheese, weeding, mixing concrete, assassinating dictators and slaying dragons. Don't expect Skeptic Bee to leave you his hive tool in his last will and testament, he's taking it with him. It will come in handy for spreading ambrosia on his toast in the morning or pulling chesnuts out of the fire if he goes to the other place.

Goon Suits

You'll probably need one of these as well, hopefully not as grubby as this one but it has just been washed. However mild your bees are there's always one who will get wound up in your beard (or pigtails), try and march up your left nostril or even sting you in the eyeball. Skeptic Bee also finds wellington boots very comfortable and don't forget to zip up the veil. I know that natural bees are all incredibly tame but you will often find bees flying round inside your hood or marching up and down the small of your back, (you know they're going to sting you but you don't know when), if you neglect the zip. In his first year of beekeeping Mr Crumbly wore a veil which had a hole in the front of it. It was surprising how many kamikazee bees made straight for the holes in his vale, which was swiftly replaced.

Welly Boots and Gloves

Don't forget the welly boots as bees can be ankle biters and even a good natured bee crawling up your trouser leg can be off putting. As for gloves, these should be wOrn when the bees are in a fearsome tizzy but if you can manage without so much the better. Bees Officers wear disposable light plastic gloves to minimise the risk of cross infection between hives but the bees are easily able to sting through these - its upto you and the bees how much protection you need. Skeptic Bee has to admit there have been occaisions when he has walked through hedges backwards to get away from the little pe rishers but is pleased to say they have been as nice as pie all this year (2008). He puts this down to the fact that busy bees are contented bees, and bees that make their own comb and have lots of room to fill are busy.

New Hive Constructed 2008

This is the latest addition to the Skeptic Apiary. It is a framed long hive but, as combs are replaced, there will be no foundation used in the frames. The frames are lugless and stand inside the hive, rather than hang. The bees were provided with splendid entrances at the end of the hive but prefer to use a gap between the wall of the hive and the floor. Will have to take that into consideration in future hive designs. Bees like to weasle their ways in through narrow gaps in the architecture at the base of the hive. This picture shows hive in summer 2008 and the roof has now been covered in the usual roofing felt and metal mesh weather proofing. The extra long legs are especially useful as the hive stands at a convenient height for inspections. There was plenty of room in this hive during the summer and they didn't try to swarm but may have superseded in the autumn.

Mouse Protest

Mouse is not pleased with the legs on this new hive. How the hell am I going to get up there he sez. Promise to buy mouse climbing ropes and abseil equipment for Christmas but will probably forget and send cheese as usual. Mouse is a fur coat button which Mr Crumbly found lying on the pavement by the Thames Embankment. He has blue tack eyes, mouth and nose and a tail made out of garden wire painted brown. Sad to relate Mouse has not survived the move of office, which Mr Crumbly has recently suffered. Mr Crumbly is afraid he has been kidnapped but, never the less, he lives on, virtually at Skeptic Bee. Long Live Mouse; I am sure he will return.

Don't Look So Worried, You're a Beekeeper Now!

Twenty years ago, or rather more, I went to Riverside Apiaries and collected a nucleus of bees. I must have looked worried because this was the advice I received.

Help!

On their first day at home the bees took control and chased me up the garden path. The following month, having feasted on the remains of a neigbouring Oil Seed Rape crop they swarmed. That year was a baptism of fire but eventually we came to an understanding, but not before I had retrived them from a neighbours roof and been chased through a hedge backwards.

Nationals and Commercials

For many years after that I did my beekeeeping in national and commercial hives. One of the first things you must realise when keeping bees is that you must never experiment with new methods or dally with anything unconventional.

Longhives and Top Bar Hives

So now I keep long hives with frames which sit on the floor so that you can riffle through them like the leaves of a book and last year I got interested in the top bar hive and built one. My beekeeping is much more relaxed, the bees are much less agressive and I don't harvest honey because its rather boring very heavy and incredibly sticky. Anyway, I've got a bucket of the stuff somewhere.

Natural Cell Beekeeping

Now I have dispensed with the use of foundation and have become a natural cell beekeeper because I think it is much easier to work with the bees and provide them with the things they need if you are prepared to let them build their own comb in the way they learned to do over millions of years. In the course of this blog we will visit this debate.

Hello Bees

We get on quite well now - "Hello Bees" I say. They don't sting very much at all now, they never chase me through hedges and they know they mustn't swarm into roofs. I should be very sad if there were no bees There's the Queen - Hello Georgeous - i say but she's already popped around the back of the comb and is diving down into the depths of the hive where she can be left alone.

2008 Skeptic Bee - IE tolerated - Firefox Preferred

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