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Thread: Top bar hives

  1. #31
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    It's different with the cell raisers as you just keep moving all the brood to the top box above the excluder and moving the drawn comb down to the bottom box below the excluder.

  2. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Drone Ranger View Post

    Hi madasafish do you do any spreading of the brood in the top bar hive ?

    Yes: the main way to get them to expand quickly.. Can be a pia early in season due to closing bars - see above.

  3. #33

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    Thanks for the info madasafish there seems to be a lot more pages around on how to build one than how to use it afterwards

  4. #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Drone Ranger View Post
    Thanks for the info madasafish there seems to be a lot more pages around on how to build one than how to use it afterwards

    Precisley.

    I think the UK idea was:
    build one and then capitalise on it by writing a book and then find about how to run it afterwards.

    Bourne out by original advice not to use a bottom board.. and then subsequently rescinded when colonies die in winter....

    Unimpressed.

  5. #35
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    That post hoc explanation about bees living naturally in hollow logs; it would be interesting to hear from everyone who has ever come across a colony in the UK living in a fallen horizontal log.
    Been watching this one, in Dorset, all year:

    SAM_1537.jpgSAM_1639.jpgSAM_1513.jpgSAM_2318.jpgSAM_2320.jpg

    The latter two photo's show a). the nest area cut down to an approximately 18" long length of log -with a rather ineffectual 'cover' as protection from the rain and b). a part of the cut down log, still containing comb (and acting as a wasp's paradise) thrown to the side. None of which is anything to do with me, someone else must have decided to 'have a go'.

    Pure speculation here; I think that quite possibly there had been a nest in the tree at an earlier date which had died out prior to the felling after which a swarm probably homed in on the comb remnants. What ever, the current colony has appeared to be doing very well through the summer.
    Last edited by prakel; 21-11-2013 at 04:42 PM.

  6. #36

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    Hi Prakel
    Presumably the bees were living in the tree when it was vertical
    Can anything be salvaged now ?

  7. #37
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Drone Ranger View Post
    Hi Prakel
    Presumably the bees were living in the tree when it was vertical ?
    I think that there had been a colony in the tree but that it had died out (the entrance would have been very close to the saw cut and the fallen tree was left right at the side of a busy public footpath, two aspects which would probably have demanded removal at the time of felling). The current bees were then, I think, drawn to the log by the old comb etc. I can't be totally certain but I think that they quite possibly spent last winter in that log -that, or it was an extremely early swarm this year, something which I doubt based on what I saw of the local build up after last winter.

  8. #38

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    They could be a very hardy strain
    you might get a few grafts from them next year

  9. #39
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Drone Ranger View Post
    They could be a very hardy strain
    you might get a few grafts from them next year
    Not so sure now that some chainsaw-happy native has dismantled their home, and as far as I can tell, is planning to now leave them with a dubious roof and hardly anything by way of stores (their comb doesn't stretch to the top of the log which they now call home

    View into top of 'log'
    SAM_2322.jpg

    View of underside of 'log'
    SAM_2325.jpg
    Last edited by prakel; 21-11-2013 at 04:38 PM.

  10. #40
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    Quote Originally Posted by madasafish View Post
    Precisley.

    I think the UK idea was:
    build one and then capitalise on it by writing a book and then find about how to run it afterwards.

    Bourne out by original advice not to use a bottom board.. and then subsequently rescinded when colonies die in winter....

    Unimpressed.
    Indeed so. We ran up to six plus two tbh nucs for three years. One four footer lives in the beeshed, the other five are for sale....

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