Who on the Vine wants to keep Bees?

[Mrs Dobby]

A place where any aspiring Beekeepers may come to post their aspirations and possibly get some encouragement? Feel free to post even if its going to eb a year or two before you get your 'girls'!

[Aberdeenplotter]

Mrs D, I'd love to have a hive or two but unfortunately, I'm allergic to bee stings. Last time I got stung on the neck and I had a swelling like an inflated bicycle tube down and around my neck in seconds. Scarey stuff.

Good to see a dedicated section.

[Capsid]

Mrs D, I'd love to have a hive or two but unfortunately, I'm allergic to bee stings. Last time I got stung on the neck and I had a swelling like an inflated bicycle tube down and around my neck in seconds. Scarey stuff.

Good to see a dedicated thread though. I know some of the others have tried to have a dedicated section set up although that seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

A work colleague who keeps bees has the same problem, they got desensitised by regular injections of bee venom. Ask your GP about it.

[Capsid]

I'd like to keep bees but work away form home and my other half is not confident to look after a hive or two in my absence.

Also, the cost of hives seems very expensive. I'd like to make one perhaps from a kit or plans, are they available? I couldn't find any easily last time I trawled t'internet.

[OverWyreGrower]

I have been considering the idea for a while actually....

Am still getting over a bad wasp attack from a couple of years ago (involving broken bones and stings to my face etc) so still need to pluck up the courage!

What I'd be concerned about is the space I'd need for the hives to be safe etc, especially with 30+ poultry and 2 large dogs....

[Mrs Dobby]

Hi Capsid,

There are plans available on the net, tho most of the easy to build ones are for 'top bar bee hives', which are supposed to give you as close as possible the environment that the Bees would live in the wild. Only drawback is that to harvest the honey you have to destroy the honeycomb, which costs the bees a lot of energy (and honey) to make.

Most of the commercially available hives (such as Nationals, Smiths, Dadant, WBC) use the Langstroth spcaing, a 7/16th's bee space gap, any larger a gap and the bees will bridge it with comb, and smaller and they cant get thru and will block it up. Building your own National wouldnt be too difficult, as long as you are a good woodworker and able to get the correct dimensions.

We use a mix of Smiths (bought 2nd hand from one of the BBKA forums) and National Hives. Any frames / boxes / supers we need we usually buy in Thornes January sale, going for 2nd's, which usually means you can get a complete hive with 2 supers and mes floor, plus frames and foundation for about £125, not 'cheap' but definitely good value!

HTH

[Capsid]

Thanks Suzanne, that's very helpful. Do you have any websites links for those plans?

[Mrs Dobby]

Hi OWG,

The area you need for your Apiary can be as big or small as you like, it neednt take up a lot of room, nor be a problem to other livestocks. Our 2 apiaries are 8' by 10' and 14' by 20', the first one holds 2 hives (with space for a third) and the larger one has 4 hives (with space for another 6 at a push).

A friend of ours has 2 hives in a 5' by 8' apiary at his allotment, surrounded with bamboo type fencing, similar to what we've used to partition ours, this not only keeps the bees warmer, but forces them to fly up and out of the apiary, keeping them above head height.

Ill post a couple of piccies of our apiaries, they may give you some inspiration?


The outside of Apiary 2 (on plot 1) the larger of our 2 apiaries!



Apiary 1 to the left, Apiary 2 to the right, the bamboo fencing hides the hives well and makes a lovely sheltered spot for the bees!


Inside apairy 1 in our first year, the smaller hive on the floor was not in use, it was there to store things in and give us somewhere to put tools n stuff on whilst we were doing the inspections!

HTH

[Mikey]

I'm so glad that bees have a new home.

I've been looking into get a brood for about two years, I enrolled on a course, but broke my leg and had to drop out. Hopefully this year I can have a look again, albeit that chickens are taking up my every waking hour at present.

I'll be back when I need more advice.

[Nicos]

We're in the process of trying to buy the field behind our house. If we get it we'll certainly be getting some bees.
OH has wanted some for years!!!!

[Mrs Dobby]

Oooh Nicos, a field!! Im jealous!! What we could do with a field, apiary, chooks, orchard, goats, pigs, and a mahoosive veg patch! Good luck with getting it!

[Nicos]

Don't hold yr breath...it's like a slow mating dance - tis never straight forward trying to negotiate land out here...goodness knows how much he's going to ask ( we've not even got that far!!!!) but he has said he'll sell for a 'good price'

We're off for legal advice next week before we have our first 'proper' meeting with him!

fingers crossed!

[hailtryfan]

I've been thinking about this for quite a while now and I have to say that's it's great there's now an area on the grapevine for beekeepers (and aspiring ones). I live in a flat so I'm hoping the council will let me keep bees in a corner of the allotment site a little bit away from the main plots. I'm still very much in the research stage but am hopeful I'll set up a hive or two in the next few years.

Thanks for posting the piccies Mrs. Dobby, very interesting.

[ginger ninger]

I'd love to keep bees, but like Aberdeenplotter I'm allergic to bee/wasp stings. I've had to have an adrenalin injections when I was stung last year...watch this...sods law...I'll get stung tomorrow.

[Aberdeenplotter]

I'd love to keep bees, but like Aberdeenplotter I'm allergic to bee/wasp stings. I've had to have an adrenalin injections when I was stung last year...watch this...sods law...I'll get stung tomorrow.

Ginge, thankfully, I'm only allergic to bee stings. However, I hate wasps with a a vengeance.