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Thread: Cool and crazy beehives

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    Default Cool and crazy beehives

    So here are two, from the net, what are your crazy ideas?
    and this from Philips

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    And I'll be building a three frame version of this observation hive soon I hope (two frames are too small - frames have to be constantly removed and removing 50% is too much)...

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    Senior Member EmsE's Avatar
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    http://www.honeyrunapiaries.com/observationhive.phtml

    How many bee keepers would be allowed to have one of these in the house? Not me already had that conversation.

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    My wife gave me permission for this in our garden:
    http://www.imkerverein-osnabrueck.de...chaukasten.pdf
    So I'll have to get a wiggle on if I want it in the garden this spring!

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    Calum ... Is that a kit for sale (in which case where from?) or a DIY observation hive? Apologies, I speak no German other than what I've learned from The Great Escape. The second thing on your link translates to a "Dance protractor" which I presume is to decipher the wiggle dance and work out where the bees are foraging. Whatever, it looks great ... I might try and persuade SWMBO to allow me to swap the mini-nucs for one of these.

    __
    fatshark

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    Hi Fatshark,
    thats to make for yourself. The frame sizes I use are different, so I had to recalculate all the lengths and heights, I am working on the assumption that the width needs no alteration as the comb width and bee space should be a constant.
    Whats a SWMBO?
    You are right about the dance protractor, I fancy I'll make one when I have my observation hive up and running, hours of fun for all the family and visitors. Nice gimmik to be able to show customers where the honey in the glass they just bought could have come from!
    ttfn
    Calum

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    SWMBO - She Who Must Be Obeyed.

    re the dance protractor. LASI use a series of plumblines down the outside of the hive so wherever the bee happens to be dancing there should always be a plumbline in shot. I can also send you the formula to work out the distance of the dance if you like.

    Regarding association sizes, I wonder how much has to do with the the relative sizes of the countries. I know the UK/France respective populations are very similar, but France in terms of area is nearly 4x as big. In Bristol we have nearly 150 members (for a 300,000 population city, Blagdon which covers a lot of the outlying villages to the West is actually bigger) but space is very much at a premium and in terms of agriculture a lot is Animal Husbandry so generally very little immediate need or desire for hobbyist beekeepers. Most of our members are concentrated into areas of the city that have big gardens and/or allotments and probably 30-50% of those members are within a mile of my apiary yet this is a city that I consider pretty "green" in comparison to others.

    Maybe this is a discussion I should move out of the cool hives thread

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    Senior Member fatshark's Avatar
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    Nellie beat me to it ... SWMBO would need to approve of an observation hive in the garden*. On the assumption she might, I'll be very interested to see how your hive develops.

    * not out of the question as there are two mini nucs and a six frame poly there at the moment ...

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    I've copied the posts regarding Beekeeping in Germany into a separate thread. Rather than delete the posts here and having people wondering if they're going mad I thought I'd leave them be and hope that the conversation just drifts organically back to looking at "cool" beehives

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Not a man made hive and probably at least 1000 years old but this one is definitely cool.



    I came across it last Sunday in Atlimeyaya, Mexico.

    The tree is an Ahuehuete.

    ahuehuete-bee-tree.jpg

    I should also point out that this is definitely Apis mellifera Sp. as I managed to get stung while taking a photo.
    The bees were a bit darker than most you see in Mexico which tend to be based on Ligustica.
    There was a second colony in the same tree as well.
    Last edited by Jon; 24-02-2012 at 09:54 PM.

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