Observation hives while attractive are pretty horrid on the bees. Agree with BC. Make some crown boards’ve got a couple of pieces of Perspex left over from making crown boards and wondered about trying to make a simple observation hive…
Curious why you say they're horrid for the bees? At my last house I had one in the living room. It held two deep frames, was double glazed plus insulated closures over the windows. It could be turned around a central pivot, which was also the entrance/exit for the bees to outside the house. The whole thing was made of oak & nicely finished. Visitors were fascinated!Observation hives while attractive are pretty horrid on the bees. Agree with BC. Make some crown boards
OK, just my opinion. Was yours a hive set up so you could observe it?Curious why you say they're horrid for the bees? At my last house I had one in the living room. It held two deep frames, was double glazed plus insulated closures over the windows. It could be turned around a central pivot, which was also the entrance/exit for the bees to outside the house. The whole thing was made of oak & nicely finished. Visitors were fascinated!
As I recall the bees did ok in it.
exactly - totally different to an observation hive to take to a show or whatever, where the bees are cooped up there all day, no way to ventilate if it gets too warm. I've often seen bees getting stressed out in observation hives in these events - and not even at the height of summer.Curious why you say they're horrid for the bees? At my last house I had one in the living room. It held two deep frames, was double glazed plus insulated closures over the windows. It could be turned around a central pivot, which was also the entrance/exit for the bees to outside the house. The whole thing was made of oak & nicely finished. Visitors were fascinated!
As I recall the bees did ok in it.
Absolutely. I watched in horror one time as bees tried to remove dead pupae, pupae that had died from exposure to heat and lack of ventilation. An SBI once told me he hated seeing them at shows as they were always under stress. One he spotted had obvious AFB for heavens sake!exactly - totally different to an observation hive to take to a show or whatever, where the bees are cooped up there all day, no way to ventilate if it gets too warm. I've often seen bees getting stressed out in observation hives in these events - and not even at the height of summer.
That sounds fascinating. Did you build it yourself?Curious why you say they're horrid for the bees? At my last house I had one in the living room. It held two deep frames, was double glazed plus insulated closures over the windows. It could be turned around a central pivot, which was also the entrance/exit for the bees to outside the house. The whole thing was made of oak & nicely finished. Visitors were fascinated!
As I recall the bees did ok in it.
Woodworker uncle!That sounds fascinating. Did you build it yourself?
How do you go about any sort of management…presume you didn’t open it up in the living room?!I have a plan to build a workshop in the garden if I can get planning permission.
I might set it up in there.
I remember our postman enquired about the bees coming and going through a plastic "waste" pipe in the wall. He came in and had a look: thought it was amazing.
With just two frames to fill did they regularly swarm?Pretty much leave it alone. It was pre-varroa though!
You can "inspect" any time of course!
That’s really interesting, I had no idea a two frame colony would be viable long term. I wonder why they didn’t swarm…I never saw swarm cells, would have been fascinating
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