Birminghams only bee shed?

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hedgerow pete

Queen Bee
Joined
Jan 26, 2009
Messages
3,648
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Location
UK, Birmingham, Sandwell. Pork scratching Bandit c
Hive Type
National
The great bee shed of birmingham was started with the offical laying of the foundation stone ( plank) in the year of our lord 2007. The general idea was that after some thiving git stole all ten of my bee hives and bees and stands and the contents of several other sheds of mine also incuding my most loved ducks . coupled with the fact that a close friend of mine for many years wanted to keep bees the only slight problem was he was very lazy and just because he had no legs from the waist down he wanted to do bee keeping sat down!!!!!
The shed its self was finished and stocked with bees for him just after the cancer came back and took him away that s why when you get to see the photos the wheel chair ramp to the door is not finished. The hives are all nationals , why because i like them , have loads of frames and dont want to change. y es there are better types of hives and better ways of doing it but the shed its self is a collection of what ever was spare from the last job i worked on that people would let me have. the floor is made from two and a half sheets of 25mm ply ( the reason the shed is only 10 foot long not 12)
The inside is being as we speak lined with fibre glass and then covered over with thin ply wood, the reason it has taken two years to get to this stage is finding free ply wood panels is getting harder and harder. Once all finished i will paint the whole lot whit inside.

The things i like so far has to be that i can inspect the bees when i want or have time to it does not matter that it is raining or not we can take our time do what ever we want to do with out rushing gone are the days sat in the car waiting to run up to the hives to get the inspections done before it gets to dark

I also have somewhere to store all of my junk as the wife would say. I live in a mid terrace rabbit hutch with not much garden so all my frames and spare boxs live in the shed and the extractor.

Its also great that i have several newbies who want to learn and as our local club is a bit snobby thet can come up to me. I have a battery power supply up there and use it to supply a shed light and most importantly of all i have a large table mounted magnifing glass. the ones used for crafts ect like the old lights on the two arms this is great for getting a great view of the laying patterns and of looking at the larva
 
If anyone ones knows of another sit down person who wants to have a go or just to see for themselves the path can always be finished off, the late john was going to have me build six of these bee sheds as they are able to take twelve bee hives and he was going to do be a proffessional beekeeper and make money at it?
 
If you want i will pm you with my e-mail you can send me the pics and i will put them up for you
 
Another option Pete is:

When you make a post you will see a paperclip next to the white smilie on the top row of the box,click the paperclip and browse to the picture you want then lcick "upload"...
 
i will take several tommorow inside and post the best shot. as you can see she sits on the top of a bank this means with a four foot fence six foot away thet fly straight over the top of you. my friends kids love siting still by the fence watching them go in and out. also because i have seval glass plate on the covers thet cann come in shine a torch and have a nose before mum gets them out and the kids dont like it ,it can get tight in there and with a big hive in the summer it can get a bit intimadating at times but you get used to it, my newbie wants one of my old wbc hives for her allotment when i get hold of a nuc i will set her up with it
 
What a fabulous story Pete. Good luck with the rest of the building. He is looking down on you.
 
Looks good, lots of hard work gone into that.
Does it get very hot in there during summer ?

anywhere near acocks green ?
 
Sweetums I dont think they get sun in Birmingham :laughing-smiley-014

Pete thats a great story! I am sure there are many other disabled guys and gals in your area that would love to see (jump at the chance)(sorry thats my poor attempt at humour)a working hive in a dry enviroment
 
Couple of thoughts here for what they are worth.

Having seen round a Swiss beehouse, and I can now officially tell you I know where the lederhosen thigh slapping dance comes from...., windows are imortant as when the bees fly inside the house as they will they need somewhere to be attracted to. Namely a window. Said window is well advised to have an opening at the top, note the top as bees will automatically crawl up the glass and so if the opening is open, ooot they go.

The one I briefly had also had the same arrangement with glass windows and a top opening. Worked well.

PH
 
more pictures , these show the rough i idea of the inside with three ,at the moment two hives to the front there will be in time another shelf to the left at low level for three more, the pile of ply at the far right is my collection stack, when ever i see a piece of ply or timber the correct size at work i put it in my tool box and at lunch time slurp tea and cut the pieces i have collected up in to 500 mm long by either 175 or 350mm wide these are then once a year resawn in to bee hives, supers and lids. I have most of the tools and hire what ever else is needed this year it will be either just after of before the spring show.i have a large tent which is set up at the allotment or at home if there are ladies present and its basicly bring what ever you have and have fun. it dont matter if you dont know what your doing i will show anyone what to do, after would you can have it built up or take it home flat back, i have loads of screws and ussualy end up having a air nailer and stapler as well and a big bucket of screws
 
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