Bee House

[gavin]

.... when you drop a frame it is just you and them in a small space.

LOL!! That paints a picture ...

[Calum]

yup. just like you imagine. But there are some colonies that have not seemed to notice they'd been dropped. Others - well just opening the hive during changeable weather can be enough.
I only wear a straw hat when I work so (in a shed with poor light and a hood you really need a led torch with at least 8 leds) is up close and personal.

[Trog]

Surely when the hives are opened bees end up inside the beehouse. How do they get back into their hives if the entrances are outside the house? (Doesn't apply with the open ones - though I can't see the advantage of the last couple of types in your photos; not much extra shelter - but the big one with the lovely scythe looked like a proper shed.)

[Neils]

There's a guy on one of the other forums who's built himself a beehouse on his allotment, I seem to recall he stuck some vids up on you tube, I'll try and track them down. As for bees inside the thing, leave the window open

[Calum]

Hi
normally 'windows' are installed with a build in gap in the glass/plastic/corrugated sheet of about 10mm at the bottom so the bees can escape. Otherwise you have to hang around to close the window once they have all left..
Yes Trog the last two offer no real protection from the weather. Third to last offers little security, and has very poor lighting. But it is 94 years old.

[Mellifera Crofter]

On our windswept hill I often wish for a bee house or bee shelter as in some of Calum's photos. Surely a shelter might give some protection?

I often wonder how flying bees in a bee house could find their way back into their hives without having to first find their way out of the bee house and then back through the pouring rain. Would it help if the hives had two entrances - one open to the outside, and a smaller one at the back?

There is a little diagram in Ted Hooper's 'The Beekeepers' Garden' (1988) on how to position a hive inside the bee house. I've made a pdf copy of that page, but I don't know how to attach it to this post - so if anybody wants a copy, just send me a private message.

You can also Google for 'An Introduction to Bee-houses' by David F Bates. It's a help, but still leaves me with a lot of questions.

Here is a link to the Finsbury Park bee house: http://www.honeyshop.co.uk/Bee.html.

Kitta

[Calum]

hi Kitta,
the problem with a small entrance on the inside is that it increases the chances of 'silent' robbing, 10 mm window gap is fine (also helps keeping smoke levels down), I'll take more pictures the next time I am in my new bee house.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Here is a link to the Finsbury Park bee house:

Sorry, I gave the wrong link. It should have been this one: http://www.taylorsgardenbuildings.co..._beehives.html

[Troutnabout]

yup. just like you imagine. But there are some colonies that have not seemed to notice they'd been dropped. Others - well just opening the hive during changeable weather can be enough.
I only wear a straw hat when I work so (in a shed with poor light and a hood you really need a led torch with at least 8 leds) is up close and personal.

If I build a bee house I plan on a perspex panel in the roof, paint the inside white and adapting those little solar power garden lights for the inside.