First Encounter of a Top Bar Hive Kind

I met Patrick several weeks ago. He is the first Top Bar Hive beekeeper I ever met in person and he lives only a few miles away from where i study self-sufficient householding. What a concidence since Top Bar beekeeping is not popular in Sweden and there is just a handful of beeks practicing it at this time. I made sure to pay him a visit and thats what I did today. He keeps the Nordic Black Bee. His farm is high up on a hill facing south and the view is awesome. The whole area is pure woodland. Dream land for a bee colony. He kept bees in top bar hives for 4 years now with great success.

Patrick uses duvet as winter insulation with good results  :)

two beautiful Kenya Top Bar Hives coated in Linseed Oil and Wax.

Winterising TBH - taking out empty comb to reduce hive space

I decided to take out all the empty comb and move the follower board closer to the bee cluster. One hive has 8 full combs the other 10. I am still feeding with sugar syrup via Jar Feeder which is behind the follower board. The bees dont eat it that fast anymore. 

Varroa is our Friend certainly Not the Enemy

The Varroa is a little red mite

it comes from Asia so they say

it came all the way around the world

and now its living in the USA

Its living on the comb

and looking for a home

When the first time I saw the Varroa

It was sucking on a Bee

After a round of brood I saw it again

and it made a whole family

Its living on the comb

and looking for a home

Well a beekeeper took a pesticide strip

and he put it in the hive

now all the honey and wax are ruined

and the mite it still aint died

Its living on the comb

and looking for a home

I tried oils and powders and poisons

but still the mites are strong

the bees got weak and sick

and now almost all are gone

we ruined their home

we cant leave them alone

Well the Varroa told the beekeeper

you better get some more bees

a coupple of 3 pund packages

make a tasty meny for me

I'll make 'em my home

and make them disease prone

Well the bees didnt make much comb

and they didnt make much honey

all year long Im pulling out my hair

and spending all my money

Im hooked on bees

someone help me please

If anyone should ask you

who was that wrote this song

tell 'em the only beekeeper

and all the bees are gone

They left their home

looking for cleaner comb

I aint gonna fuss about nothing no more

I know I cant fight the mite

I'll get out of their way and then one day

the bees will be allright

Happy in their home

Living on the comb

Happy in their home

just leave them alone

A song by Sam Comfort from Anarchy Apiaries

Natural Comb has Various Cell Size

I have built 2 Kenya Top Bar Hives for the school of Self-sufficient Householding in Sweden and am taking care of them. I have removed a few emprty combs from the back of the hive so to move the follower board closer to the cluster which will contain the warmth much better.

One of the combs cought my eye. The cells on the left side of the comb were small and the cells on the right side were large. After measuring them I figured out the right were Drone Cells and the left one ranged from approx. 4.8 to 5.2 mm I have not measured this carefully but it was obvious that the cells on one single comb were of many different sizes (unlike wax foundation) and it was amazing to see how the bees decided to place the Drone cells to the West side of the hive and the Worker Cells to the East. Does this mean anything? Doesnt matter. What matters is that bees can decide what is best for them at any given time and build accordingly.

Here are the shots of the same comb and the same side of the comb (the comb is dark because of the mould);

Bee devastation: Campaign for total ban of neonicotinoid pesticides

A third of UK bee colonies have been lost over the last two years and there have been many explanations given for this. There is strong evidence that neonicotinoids – a class of pesticide first used in agriculture in the mid 1990s at exactly the time when mass bee disappearances started occurring – are involved in the deaths. The evidence against these chemicals is strong enough that they have been banned or suspended in France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia – but not yet in the UK.
Neonicotinoids work as an insecticide by blocking specific neural pathways in insects’ central nervous systems. The chemicals impair bees’ communication, homing and foraging ability, flight activity, ability to discriminate by smell, learning, and immune systems – all of which have an impact on bees’ ability to survive.

It seems bees genetic make up makes them particularly vulnerable to neonicotinoids. Recent mapping of the bee genome has revealed that bees’ capacity to detoxify chemicals is much lower than other insects. Instead bees have two strategies to protect themselves. On the first day of foraging in a new area, scout bees are sent out first to taste the nectar and pollens – if any are adversely affected they will be expelled from the hive immediately, and the colony will avoid the area.

In addition, once foraging begins, nurse bees in the hive clean foragers each time they return. These strategies protect the colony from mass exposure to lethal doses of chemicals, but they do leave honey bees particularly susceptible to sub-lethal exposures to any contaminants they encounter.

The other really important factor is the complex behaviour of honeybee colonies. For example, the 10,000 forager bees in a typical hive need to co-ordinate their quest for nectar – and they do this through the famed ‘waggle dance’, which communicates the flight direction and distance to sources of nectar. The complexity and precision of these dances is breathtaking, and success relies on the integrity of a nervous system where each synapse is crucial. It is no surprise then that honey bees have been shown to have a higher number of neurological receptors than other insects.

Honey bees live and work as a colony, not as individuals; what seems to be happening is that the cumulative impact of small doses of nenoicotinoids on thousands of bees over time is affecting individual bee’s ability to work and communicate effectively as part of a colony. Because lots of bees in each colony are behaving sub-optimally this can lead to the sudden, and devastating, outcomes that we’ve been witnessing in recent years.

The Soil Association believes that there is already enough evidence to justify an immediate ban on neonicotinoids today.
http://www.cbgnetwork.org/2821.html

Source http://beelore.com

The Creation of Che Guebee Apiary

My wife and i started removing the trees i cut down the other day. As mentioned earlier I will establish my apiary here in front of the white shed. I have built 3 hives based on top bar beekeeping. I will be buying 2 families of Elgon Bees bred by the known Swedish beekeeper Erik Österlund. He told me his bees have regressed to the 4.9mm cell size several years ago. This is good news. I am willing to start keeping bees which are able to fight Varroa on their own. Small Cell is not bullet proof but helps alot. It takes several years to get bees regress from the conventional 5.4mm cell size. I dont think i am willing to wait that long hence buying Elgon Bees from Erik.
By the way, my dog friend Bailey also helped ... digging a hole ;)

Let The Sunshine In

"Let the sunshine

Let the sunshine in

The sunshine in..."

There is so much algae on our summer house and some timber is starting to rot I would say. A little bit of investigation made the obvious even more obvious ... the house is surrounded by tall trees and bushes which are casting a heavy shadow on it. The trees make it less aerated also so lots and lots of wet wet wet conditions to rot the timber. I decided its time for some action and this is what I did:

On this photo you can clearly see algaae growing on planks

Excuse the bad photo quality. I just made a fast photo not being aware that I shook the camera. Any way, it will serve the purpose for Before and After image :) So, this is Before I went in with a saw and ax ...

... lots of sweating ... ah uh puh ... and this shot is the After math. A beautiful open sky :) ah I can breath now.

I was surprised at how much there was to cut down ... lots of timber for winter I guess ;) It will take me ages to chop this by hand ... well I have all winter for it. All must go away from this spot since in May next year this plot is to be my very first private Apiary :) which is another reason for cutting down the sun barrier. Our summer house is on the North side of a small hill so South Sun is something we really need to let in.

At the end of this working day a well deserved organic beer while enjoying the new open view :) Cheers

Who Is Killing Bees? Our Governments maybe?

Che Guebee Apiary got 3 different hives to start with

The Log Hive

It is approx 70cm tall

the inside diameter is approx 25cm. The volume of this log is approx 137 litres.

tickest part of the wall is 90mm

the thinest part of the wall is 35mm

This log will house the first swarm I catch next year 

I placed two supers and a roof with insulation on top of this log

Kenya Top Bar Hive

the first 13 top bars are 34mm wide and the rest got a 10mm stripe to get them wider, 45mm since the new research have shown that bees build honey combs much wider (44mm) than the brood comb (38mm).

The observation window

the winter mouse guard entrance - 2x 8mm holes

the summer entrance witth a landing board and 2 x 25mm holes

blue insultation for the winter time

Vertical "Perone Style" Top Bar Hive

Moving bee info to this blog

I will move bee info from http://chopwoodcarrywaterplantseeds.blogspot.se/search/label/Top%20Bar%20Hive to this blog as soon I start preparing my new Apiary for May next year. Stay tuned.