British National 11 Frame Hive & 5-6 Frame Nucleus

[oliver90owner]

Seems like you will be well set up with bees and kit for your first season.

You also now have enough kit to copy for further expansion. Good luck with your bees.

By the way, don't cut a hole for the bees to fly in and out. That would be far too big - all they usually do is crawl in and out and only fly outside the hive!

Regards, RAB

 

[Insy]

Thank oliver and yes i must finally sign up to the local beeclub but yer lots of building and repairing and ill be rearing to go and hopefully with these colonies they have up in lincolnshire/boston area for me should be lots of fun.

The hole in the nuc boxes is in the front otherwise there will be no was for the bee to fly in or out of it its nly going to be a small hole and ill have a little bit of wood screwed above to move over the hole and above the hole for transporting reason and such.

Ill get some pictures of the other gear aswell, some of it looks a little tatty but theyve been using them and theyve been perfect and the older they looks the less likely theyll get nicked

fingers crossed and must get back into the books as i bought another bee book yesterday so i have a few now

ben

 

[Insy]

Well good and bad news

Was inspecting the beehives and looks like all are useable couple need a side replace (not a problem) and a couple need a base replacing (not a problem), ive started scrapping down all brace comb/wax off of the first complete hive ready to be scorched i managed to get 1 super and 11 super frames and a queen excluding scrapped clean today.

Should i scorch the frame or sterilise them another way?

Looks like ive got 5 brood chambers and 6 supers and 6 lids. Most brood chambers are full of frames and 2/3 supers have frames rest are empty. Most hives have no foundation or very old comb inside which im removing except 1 brood chamber, this has VERY recent foundation drawn out and also has 2 frames with some stored honey and looks like pollen inside it.

Now this is my problem as a curious beginner i scrapped some of the wax caps off to get a good look and well all i can say is it went form the occasional 1 honey bee scout every 5 minutes or so to 1-2 hours later 50 honey bees going in and out constantly and was increasing. Now my guess are there from another hive just stealing the honey, this im fine with atm as the garden there stored in atm is to small for bees i believe and there only here atm cause i was trying to clean them .

I suited up with bee suit, rubber gloves and duct tape and managed to move this hive away from house behind greenhouse for now so its out the way. Ill just have to keep a eye on it and prey they dont swarm as if they do im going to have to seal up and move them quickly off the garden and maybe in the back field at work or the land we shoot on .

Was lots of fun watching the bees go in and out, i think maybe i should get a smoker just incase tho as grandad forgot to leave it behind hehe.

I have pictures of frame with honey and pollen, hives. cleaned frame and super ready for scorching and the nuc painted and pretty much finished, at work atm so ill upload tomoz or thursday.

 

[Insy]

Ok long time since i promised you them photos, progress well nucs have been put on hold atm i have been trying to repair and restore these hives passed down to me form my grandad. Ok so i have pics of the following ! Hive completely restored/repaired, the hives before i started repairing and restoring, the nuc box pretty much finished, the bees that been stealing that 1 frame of old honey in brood frame and last of all that frame with the honey ( which is now gone )

First Nucleus

Due to using a god damn handsaw which i can never use completely correctly the measurements were right but some how can only fit 5 frames instead of 6 so the gap at end i will be building and placing a dummy board.

Things left to do on this are cut hole in front for bees, place ledge up hole for landing of bees, cut hole in crown board for feeder and fit felt/metal sheet on roof.
I have all wood prepared and cut ready to make 4 more of these which will give me a total of 5 14x12 National 5-6 Frame Nuc/Swarm boxes.


Ok now this is a picture of the hives i was given on sunday

Now this is one ive fully prepared i might jsut blast inside again just to keep myself at rest .

Now i think i can get another national with 3 supers out of this lot i was given the rest require to much repairs id rather buidl from scratch myself, which im planning on doing next after restoring these 2 hives and buidling the 5 nuc boxes.

Ok now these are pictures of the bee (not best photo but all these photos were taken on the blackberry LOL and a picture of the frame with honey left inside a brood chamber.

What you think guys and ladies going well so far??? im so eager to get started with bees, i was playing about with the 40-50 that were robbing that hoey in the beesuit and it was great fun .

I think im going to challenge myself and try to catch a sawrm for my first hive, i know catching swarms can get u a aggressive hive but if to aggressive ill just requeen them then theyll been fine which is what ive read many people do so thats where i got my ideas from.

I will use a simple trick a guy off forums told me and buy some Pure LemonGrass Oils and rub all over inside and also soak cotton wool with it and place in container in hives. Thats when im ready to start atm my main focus is build build repair repair

thanks
regards
ben