observation hive in cumberland house natural history

[grahambee]

I'm currently involved in setting up a observation hive in cumberland house natural history museum in southsea portsmouth we have yet to install the hive has been a delay on the build of the hive
We got posters pollen charts and two display cabinets which were hoping to fill with beekeeping related items
Is maybe a big ask but i'm looking for items you don't need with low value and willing to donate or loan to the museum with credit given to you
I'm looking for things like an old bee jacket smoker anything that you think that would be interested to put on display to the general public i've got a few things like wax comb. frame of honey. jar of honey .gloves
I don't mind paying for postage as long as it's not costing me too much or drop it off at the museum if you have not got things and got a good suggestion what would be nice to display them please drop a post

 

[grahambee]

Text to follow off to work

 

[Millet]

That look's interesting but i do wonder how you get the bee's out of the room if you have to open it up for whatever reason..

 

[grahambee]

That look's interesting but i do wonder how you get the bee's out of the room if you have to open it up for whatever reason..

Originally we were modelling this on the Oxford hive where they take the hive into the grounds to manipulate the hive, however ours ended up at 36kg when empty so by now must be at least 50kg! So, what we do is we put a king size quilt cover over the hive, get inside the quilt and reduce the number of bees in the hive. We take out a frame and bang it in to a box and replace the frame back into the hive. We also have a small car vacuum which we use to vacuum up bees which we use to put bees into a box to be relocated. We have done this 3 times now. The lights are turned off in the room and all the bees exit through the window with a little help from our fishing nets! Works like a treat.

 

[grahambee]

The hive has been installed for approximately seven weeks now, we have had to take out bees on three occasions due to overcrowding. Everything is ok apart from when we installed the hive, the top frame moved out of position which we didn't realise until they built lots of brace comb which you can see in the first two pictures, so they turned a three frame 12x14 hive into a five frame 12x14. We have decided to leave this now until next year until we make a decision on whether we reinstall the hive.

In picture two you can see the monitor with a live video of the entrance, walkway into the hive and a broad display of the room. This is also duplicated downstairs as there is no disabled access upstairs.

Picture three is of our queen, she is beautiful, we have watched her lay and do her queenly duties' we believe that she is a 2014 queen due to the amount of time it took her to start Laying from a swarm we collected.

Picture four is an outside view of the entrance.

Picture five shows the display cabinet with various beekeeping equipment, we are still adding to this as we go along.

Picture six is posters of the life cycle of bees and pollen charts.

We are currently doing a meet the beekeeper once a week which is advertised on Facebook so that people can ask questions and is very popular with the public.

On Wednesday 26th, the Lord Mayor is coming to Cumberland House to officially open the bee hive and on Thursday, the National Bee Inspector is coming to inspect the hive and this can also be used for training purposes which is the main idea for an educational project.