Beehaus Up & Buzzing
In May 2018, with 3 weeks of great sunny weather, I set-up my Beehaus (external link to Beehaus), dragged it up the farmer’s field and installed bees. Exciting times.
Before The Beehaus
Two 14×12 colonies, back to back, lots of bees.
After
Installing Bees Into Beehaus
Key points:
- Turned the two 14×12 wooden hives 90 degrees and moved them 1m away (see photo above)
- Allowed flying bees to enter the Beehaus
- Unable to find the Queens in my busy 14×12 wooden hives, I made two simple splits, making sure eggs in all 4 colonies (2 colonies in the Beehaus)
- Both 14×12 hives had brought in loads of nectar
Result
No idea where the Queens are but all should be OK.
One Week Later
- Left wooden hive – Found Queen (and eggs, brood, stores), marked her and walked her in to the left side of Beehaus
- Right wooden hive – Found 7 Queen cells (but no eggs) and removed 5. I left 2 queen cells right next to each other, so hopefully first Queen out will kill the other rather than creating additional swarms (both queen cells looked a bit on small side, so I wasn’t confident to kill them both)
- Beehaus – No eggs and no queen cells (and hence walked in the Queen from left wooden hive). Put newspaper between 2 sides of the Beehaus in order to combine
- I added supers to all hives as they had continued to pile in the stores despite a cold start to the Spring
Further One Week Later
- Beehaus – The bees in Beehaus had accepted the Queen and combined
- Beehaus – I saw Queen in left side of Beehaus, moved any frames with brood into left side of Beehaus and added QE so that Queen stays in left. In 30 days I will close right entrance and put blocker between left and right so that I have spare hive for a swarm
- I added the Beehaus entrance narrowers – “wasp” setting – as the number of flying bees is decreasing as they die off
- Left wooden hive – Found 5 Queen cells and removed 4 leaving 1 large Queen cell
- The left wooden hive had drawn most frames in super and filled half (uncapped) – so I added additional super
- I did not disturb the right wooden hive as it may have virgin Queen now
- None of the colonies bringing in much pollen
Lessons Learnt
- Add supers by end April – even if think it has been cold
- Queen from split hive can be walked back into her old colony one week later and accepted
Plan
- Not expecting swarms for next few weeks
- It’s 17C and rainy for the next week … so just as I want good weather for queen mating the weather is not conducive
- All colonies – I will leave for 2-3 weeks to inspect for eggs
- Beehaus – in 4 weeks, seal and close right hand side so that this is a spare hive for swarms
Read More
- Detailed notes in My Apiary
- My Beehaus Review
- Beehaus (external link to their website to read about all features)
I would like more information about the Thermosolar hives for possible use in Australia. Could you please contact me by email or personal message on Messenger.
Thank you.