Beekeepin and shit

[Anonymous No.1053185]

Has anyone here kept bees? I've found what I think is a huge hive in the wall of an old barn.
https://www.honeyflow.com/shop/flow-hive/flow-hive/p/133
This premade solution has a valve you open for honey to reduce work, but its fucking $700.
https://wasatchwarre.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/plans-for-p-chandler-top-bar-hive.pdf
This plan seems easy enough and would be quick enough that if I decide to say screw it, I won't be out much time.
http://theselfsufficientliving.com/10-free-langstroth-and-warre-or-top-bar-beehive-plans/
Which I found from the site above which has both poverty tier hives and some that look like too much of an investment.
If there is a better plan for a hive please post.

>I have all tools and skills to do any of these.

Also I've already ordered a bee suit and smoker/pellets that should be next week and I plan to relocate the bees about 300ft.
What are my chances of fucking up and just killing the queen and destroying the honeycomb? I mean I want the bees removed regardless, but honey out back sounds pretty cool.

[Anonymous No.1053212]

>>1053185
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1X2b0kq9EE&feature=share

[Anonymous No.1053221]

>>1053185
the flow hive is a meme product. Any and all of the pros on the forums and youtube agree it's overpriced for what it is and does.

[Anonymous No.1053245]

My Japanese style hive.

[Anonymous No.1053246]

>>1053245
Basically, it just simulates a hollow tree.
And because of how they naturally stratify the comb with honey at the top, harvesting is as simple as cutting off the top box.

[Anonymous No.1053247]

>>1053246
Here's looking up into it from the floor.

[Anonymous No.1053250]

>>1053247
Here's how I built it.

[Anonymous No.1053253]

>>1053250
From a single box, we were able to get 2 full mason jars of honey.

[Anonymous No.1053255]

>>1053250
Noice.
So to harvest what, smoke and unratchet, cut off top one and replace with an empty?
Or do you lift up the rest and put the empty on bottom?
>i have no idea about beekeeping, despite beeing in a country with major bee exports
Although if i go go aussie native bees i wont need the smoke, fuckers cant sting haha. Less honey though.

[Anonymous No.1053261]

>>1053255
You want to put the empty box on the bottom so they can keep growing the comb down. But you know, it might be interesting to see what they do if you put it on top - Might work fine, and would be much easier. I'll have to try it at some point.
Just get decked out in net hats, elbow gloves, and long clothes, everything tucked in.
Drumming on the top lightly will move them away, down into the hive - Though they will still be flying everywhere and potentially pissed.
Each hive has a different personality, it's neat.
Just be calm and move slowly.
You'll need a second person to help at least.
Separating the boxes was much harder than I originally imagined, so I'm gonna try making a hot wire for next time.

Pic is not mine.
Here's some links about Japanese beekeeping.
http://warre.biobees.com/japan.htm
https://www.youtube.com/user/mituro36
http://beekeep.sakura.ne.jp/CCP008.html

[Anonymous No.1053273]

>>1053221
I was wondering about it.

>>1053245
>>1053246
>>1053247
>>1053250
>>1053253
Pretty cool man, I'll look up on it tomorrow!

[Anonymous No.1054245]

Is it even profitable to harvest honey? I have about 100 acres.

[Anonymous No.1054248]

>>1054245
The $12 pints of local honey in my grocery store says it sure as fuck is. (and delicious)

[Anonymous No.1054250]

>>1054248
Cool, so how far should you space out hives from each other?

[Anonymous No.1054260]

>>1054250
Got me. I just dropped by to say I love honey. (not the other guy)

But I don't like being unhelpful, so I'll say... 11 and a half feet. Gotta give them their lebensraum.

[Anonymous No.1054301]

From what I understand farmers pay to have bee keepers bring a hive in to pollinate their crops. Had a beekeeper friend explain it once

[Anonymous No.1054987]

Are bees the proletariat and we, the bourgeois, taking from them? I feel like bees have seized the means of production.

[Anonymous No.1054991]

>>1053261

Thanks for all the info!

[Anonymous No.1055175]

>>1054260
> lebensuram

Looked it up hoping it was something related to lesbians. Boy was I wrong.

[Anonymous No.1055188]

>>1055175
Here, I'll help you out then.

A honey bee hive represents the ultimate feminist utopia.
The queen isn't a ruler, but a mother. All decisions (i.e. where the hive should be located) are made democratically by her daughters.
There are few male bees. They contribute nothing and just hang around and get fed. They are only kept alive so that they might send their genetic material to another hive. Upon mating with a queen, they die. When it starts to get cold, all that remain are kicked out of the hive and die.
All the worker and nurse bees are haploid female sisters.
All day every day they go out and make love to flowers with each other.
All winter long, the hive is kept warm via a hot honey fueled yuri bee cuddle orgy.

[Anonymous No.1055238]

OP here, my top bar beehive is getting niggerigged like you wouldn't believe. I'll have it done tonight and try to transfer the bees tomorrow.

This turned from a craftsman project to a the guy who lives next to the barn is terrified of bees and wants to just kill them all so I need to rush and get them the fuck out project.

If everything goes smooth, I'll build something better later.

[Anonymous No.1055255]

>>1053185
>cut finger joint
>screw together
please kill yourself whoever made this

[Anonymous No.1055258]

>>1055188
the only form of feminism i can admire

[Anonymous No.1055286]

I want to beekeep so fucking much, I have for years

However my wife is allergic to bees

[Anonymous No.1055287]

>>1055258
>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.1055288]

>>1055255
>lel
Never noticed that.
Its a gimmicky hive that is over 2x the price of a similar one.

[Anonymous No.1055300]

>>1054245
Yes, plus honey isn't the only moneymaker with bees

A bee keeper rents out his bees to farms to pollinate everything (bring the whole bee hive, normally a few hives)

[Anonymous No.1055480]

>>1055258
Lol true

[Anonymous No.1055683]

>>1053255
>bees that can't sting


You have my attention anon.

I get stung and flip out into an autistic fit of rage but if they cant sting id love these

[Anonymous No.1055775]

>>1055683
the australian native stingless honey bee
they're much smaller, like, housefly sized
they make these insane spiral combs too
they apparently don't produce very much of their `honey'
and i doubt you can get or keep them outside of australia, might even be illegal

[Anonymous No.1055799]

>>1055255
no, screws and finger joints make sense because interior hydraulic pressure as they fill the wax comb with honey + dampness from the hive + general element exposure will loosen glue. Reinforcing screws work.
that said, yeah if you want to cut dovetails for the boxes, you're welcome to. or are you saying that it's TOO fancy and they should have just gone with nailed butt joints?

[Anonymous No.1055825]

>over engineering the beehive

[Anonymous No.1055833]

>>1055825
>killing and destroying the entire hive when you want to collect honey
there's a difference between improving something and over engineering
though i would agree that the modern langstroth hive is crazy over built and silly
but topbars or these japanese hives are quite simplistic and nice
just enough of a useful improvement on a tree hollow to allow for a sustained symbiotic[parasitic] relationship, rather than simply dominating or destroying them

[Anonymous No.1055852]

>>1055799
I don't believe its functional, that the two compliment each other.
If the finger joint wasn't going to hold outside or some shit then why go to the trouble of finger joints just to uglify it with screws visible?
Drill out the fingers top to bottom and use a vertical rod to hold them together invisibly. Would look a hundred times better and I literally just pulled that out my fucking asshole, there are probably loads of better ways than this. They used screw on all but like 2 of the fingers? They aren't even symmetrical? Are they even countersunk??

[Anonymous No.1055857]

>>1055833
You don't kill bees to get to the honey, you just move them to a new skep.
And as for destroying it, it's only wicker. It was never going to last for ever.

[Anonymous No.1056669]

>>1055775
There are also stingless bees in Mexico

[Anonymous No.1056671]

>>1055857
What a waste

A good bee hive can last for a decade with reuse

[Anonymous No.1056677]

>>1056669
There are hundreds of species of native bees throughout the Americas. (Most of which are being decimated by our introduction of the nonnative invasive European honeybee...)
But few to none make honey.
Do these Mexican ones?

[Anonymous No.1056682]

>>1056671
Waste? Its made form straw and dung.

You can bung the entire skep in a vice a squeeze the honey out of the bottom.

[Anonymous No.1056689]

>>1055238
Sooo, OP, mind sharing how you moved the hive to their new home? I am in an almost identical situation, but the current hive is built into one of the support pillars of my barn. Seems I'd need power tools aside from some smoke and netted hat. Is there a way to make them come out of their hive? Does any beekeeper know?
No access to the mother, see above - she's behind a solid 6 inches of masonry.

[Anonymous No.1056738]

>>1056682
Still a waste of time

[Anonymous No.1056739]

>>1056738
To a lazy person

[Anonymous No.1056741]

>>1056677
Yes but smaller quantities

[Anonymous No.1056742]

>>1056739
You are the one that claims that it is excessive to make a reusable bee hive, yet you claim it to be lazy to want to not rebuild your hives every fucking season

[Anonymous No.1056749]

>>1056742
I never claimed anything like that.

All I've done is counter your ill-informed knowledge of a skep.

You can buy your honeyflow hive if you like it easy and simple.

[Anonymous No.1056765]

>>1056749
>I never claimed anything like that.
"Over engineering the beehive"
Your literal quote
>All I've done is counter your ill-informed knowledge of a skep.
You've done no counters

You destroy the entire fucking hive to take their honey and then leave them dying in the process then have to rebuild the entire skep (harvesting honey normality takes at most 30-50% so bees have food for winter and don't die out) that is the definition of wasteful and you've only countered it with "what are you lazy?"

It may be easier to build one skep than a japanese bee hive or a Langstroth hive, but you'll be building keps forever, that is wasteful and suggests you rather waste 20 minutes every year than 45 minutes a decade


>You can buy your honeyflow hive if you like it easy and simple.
I made no claims about the honeyflow, it's too expensive to justify, but a skep is immoral and and wasteful

[Anonymous No.1056770]

>>1055833
>>1055857
We call a traditional bee hive a Skep in the UK. They're far prettier than the modernist beehives and you don't usually need to destroy the skep to remove the combs. They are easy enough to make and it's a seasonal thing kind of an autumnal pleasure. The bees wax them up in a couple of months making them waterproof.

[Anonymous No.1056772]

>>1056765
The entire thread is about honeyflow aka an "over engineered beehive".

If you don't want one why are you defending it?

[Anonymous No.1056774]

>>1056772
I'm not defending the flow, but by posting the largely illegal skep you suggest the more useful hives like the Japanese hive that has dominated this thread and Langstroth hives are overengineered as well

[Anonymous No.1056775]

>>1056770
Skeps kill the colony because you rob the entire supply of honey

[Anonymous No.1056779]

Fucking bees.
> put up shed the other year. Live in far north qld / ausfag. Framed inside of shed with heavy pine against cyclonic weather.
> braced corners on interior with ply that was lying around because i could.
> had pegboard and hangsells lying around. Put that shit up too.
Fast forward to yesterday.
> notice bees around one section of shed.
> note to self - kill fuckers later on
> open shed door
> oh. Area between pegboard and outer cladding (colourbond steel) is a bee hive
> bees pisssd that opening big old door shook their hive
> cant get shit out of shed

> my shed is guarded by rotweilers and bees. Fuck them thieving niggers aint getting shit outa my shed.
(Last time nignogs attempted thievery they ended up using a 2.4m piece of pool fencing to save themself from dogs. Only worked as dogs trained not to exit the gate they went out through and left open

[Anonymous No.1056784]

>>1056775
You don't have to do that with a skep though.

[Anonymous No.1056795]

>>1056775
My mother keeps 3 skeps of bees - I know she transfers them somehow at the end of season..perhaps leaving some of the combs in or moving them to the new skep? I'd bee surprised if the colonies always had to die.

[Anonymous No.1056797]

>Not keeping wasps and harvesting marmalade

Plebs.

[Anonymous No.1056798]

>>1056795
>>1056784
From wiki
"Skeps have two disadvantages; beekeepers cannot inspect the comb for diseases and pests, and honey removal is not easy – often resulting in the destruction of the entire colony. To get the honey beekeepers either drove the bees out of the skep or, by the use of a bottom extension called an eke or a top extension called a cap, sought to create comb with just honey in it. Quite often the bees were just killed, sometimes using lighted sulfur, to allow the honeycomb to be removed. Skeps could also be squeezed in a vise to extract the honey. As of 1998, most US states prohibited the use of skeps because they can not be inspected for disease and parasites.[11]"

[Anonymous No.1056801]

>>1056779

Any buzzanon care to suggest a way for me to get these buzzy fuckers out of my wall nicely. Later today ill squirt em down with some nice restricted pesticide otherwise

[Anonymous No.1056804]

>>1056798
>From wiki

[Anonymous No.1056807]

>>1056804
> stale "Wikipedia is unreliable" meme

[Anonymous No.1056810]

>>1056801
1) are they bees or wasps?
if you don't know, i suggest spraying said pesticide directly into your mouth

2) if they are honeybees, there is surely a nearby beekeeper that will happily come collect them for you, free of charge

being that you would even consider just killing a honeybee hive, i still think my pesticide suggestion is prolly the best case scenario we're all hoping for

[Anonymous No.1056816]

>>1056798
Interesting anon - one thing I'm sure of, my mother wouldn't do anything to harm bees or any creatures, so there must be some way to harmlessly remove at least some honey if not all.

I know skeps are archaic and inneficient, but ours are kept mainly for pollination and just the beauty.. also as I said it's a tradition to weave these things every year or so which is in itself a great, therapeutic, time consuming and rewarding DIY activity.

[Anonymous No.1056819]

>>1056810
Bees.
That said, its more a time thing. I need my tooling, and they have overrun access to the shed.

Actually ive considered making my own hive etc etc such as the boxes above, but need the fuckers out of the shed to even do that

Nearest bee guy is several hours, and has no interest. Think way far north qld.

[Anonymous No.1056822]

>>1056816
edit to add - the last one I made is at least 3 years old and I'm pretty sure it's still out in the garden with bees in.. I'll have to check with my mother to see if the same family of bees is in residence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwLTl0i83tM

[Anonymous No.1056847]

>>1056819
>get a shopvac, a couple shopvac hoses, and a rubbermaid or some large container
>cut two holes, one on each side of the rubbermaid, for the vacuum hoses
>one goes to the shop vac, the other you'll use to collect the bees
>you'll want to attach a strainer screen or some kind of mesh separator preventing the bees from just going into the shopvac
>slowly and carefully vacuum up all the bees (hopefully you get and don't kill the queen) as you tear into their hive, they'll be collected into the rubbermaid container
>cut out some of their comb and move it to the new hive you've made for them
>dump bees into hive and close it up
Congratulations, your wild bees are now domesticated and making honey and wax to share with you.
Well worth the effort I assure you.

[Anonymous No.1057074]

>>1056801
I had a shed infested with them honeybees

No beekeepers wanted to come by and one guy suggested smoking them out.

He instructed on how to make a heavy smoking fire that wasnt a flame. Set it up in a firepit in the shed and closed the door to a little crack to let in air.

After a few hours of constant smoke there were no more buzz buzzes. We went in. Sliced off all the sealed combs and put them in a pale. Sliced off all the rest of the combs and pitched them on the fire.

[Anonymous No.1058589]

>>1053185
this helped me get my head around beekeeping

http://www.biobees.com/library/hive_other/popular_hives_UK.pdf

for your first go i would suggest getting a Top Bar Hive, then move on to the more difficult ones

[Anonymous No.1058593]

>>1058589
the most diy way of making a top bar hive ever
http://www.instructables.com/id/55-Gallon-Top-Bar-Barrel-Bee-Hive/?ALLSTEPS

[Anonymous No.1058811]

>>1053185
h..how does it know what cells have brood and what cells have honey in them?
wouldnt it crack open the brood cells to?

[Anonymous No.1058814]

>>1053185
Codys lab has been really helpful in my bee learning venture. However i dont have the room for a hive and its against my housings code
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w79-iEUhI1I&list=PLKhDkilF5o6_pFucn5JHd6xy7muHLK6pS

[Anonymous No.1058815]

>>1058811
My guess is there's some kind of queen excluder preventing her from entering the top box.

[Anonymous No.1058825]

>>1053245
>>1053246
>>1053247
>>1053250

That always interested me.
But I don't get it, the combs are fixed to what? Only those two pieces of wood in each piece?

[Anonymous No.1059038]

>>1058825
Yeah, and really you prolly don't even need the cross piece.
They affix the comb to the roof and sides quite sturdily, it was a struggle to even get some of it out.
Obviously this way, unlike with frames, the comb cannot be reused.

More construction pics.

[Anonymous No.1059865]

>>1056765
>Its immoral to kill bees

What are you a fucking vegan or something? Grow up you fucking faggot.

[Anonymous No.1059936]

>>1059865
Honey bees are currently going through an extinction level event with colony collapse

It is immoral to kill bees because of how hard a time they are having

[Anonymous No.1059984]

>tfw would like to bee keep and make own honey
>tfw fuckin scared of bees and live in an apartment

if only

[Anonymous No.1060079]

>>1053185

> Also I've already ordered a bee suit and smoker/pellets that should be next week and I plan to relocate the bees about 300ft.

i'm pretty sure 300ft is too little and they will storm back to the old location, find some field at least 2 miles away from the original location and put them there for at least 10 days

otherwise they will go back, bees have an austounding spacial memory

[Anonymous No.1060095]

>>1060079

also, after 10 days you can move them back if you want

[Anonymous No.1060110]

>>1059936
We need a super genetic modify bee breading policy.

Super bees with no stingers that put honey right into to the jars.

[Anonymous No.1060284]

>>1055775
I've actually got some of these in the backyard.
They just live in a big tree stump and their main purpose is pollination. They apparently produce about a litre of honey a year, so not really worth it for the honey production.

[Anonymous No.1060297]

>>1059038
Sexy as, man.

[Anonymous No.1060310]

>>1060110
So where do the baguettes come into play here?

[Anonymous No.1060384]

>>1060284
I don't think I've consumed a liter of honey in my entire 29 year life.

[Anonymous No.1060601]

>>1053185
definitely get in touch with a local beekeeping club, it's really hard to get started with beekeeping without someone who can show you the ropes. You can read all the books and a local dude could run circles around it.