Out apiaries

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Just thinking about how to make life easier in my 2 out apiaries in friends gardens next season. Keep numbers down to around 4 colonies plus Nucs plus a couple of colonies at home. One thing I’ve decided is to get common equipment onto each site eg polyhives in one, WBCs on the other, heavy WBCs at home. Also thinking of putting a large storage plastic box on each site so I cart less equipment about in the season. What else do you do to make life easier managing your out-apiaries?
 
You have covered numbers & commonality of equipment and ability to store extra equipment on site, I guess you could examine your management routines/techniques and see if any modifications might help.
 
Just thinking about how to make life easier in my 2 out apiaries in friends gardens next season. Keep numbers down to around 4 colonies plus Nucs plus a couple of colonies at home. One thing I’ve decided is to get common equipment onto each site eg polyhives in one, WBCs on the other, heavy WBCs at home. Also thinking of putting a large storage plastic box on each site so I cart less equipment about in the season. What else do you do to make life easier managing your out-apiaries?
Good young queens are great, so try to have them in place, if you can. Making sure you don't need to travel to feed too much is good too, so leaving plenty of stores with the assumption it will be a poor period ahead. Try to have everything that you might need cleverly selected and placed into totes that are in your car when you need them. Try to always take them. In the vehicle should also be the usual larger suspects like a queen excluder, frames, ropes, floor, box and lid.
 
Crikey!
Antipodes... we are really poles apart.!!..
Our Cornish Native Amm are as black as your bees are yellow!

On Out Aparies .... all of ours are, as although we have an acre of walled orchard we do not put bees bees too near to houses.
In fact access for the Defender next to the colonies is essential... I can not hop that far!!
Chons da
 
I've perchased two new smokers to leave at our main out apiarys along with lavender smoker fuel,hive tools and some boxes spare roofs and floors, straps.( all in small sheds)
And also converted wheel barrows because when the weather is bad I would rather not drive on fields.
The wheel barrows will come in handy if we have a honey crop to move rather than carrying supers by hand traipsing across fields in a hot suite.
It's hard work to say the least.
On occasion last summer I had to put boxes down to give my back a break.
 
Just thinking about how to make life easier in my 2 out apiaries in friends gardens next season. Keep numbers down to around 4 colonies plus Nucs plus a couple of colonies at home. One thing I’ve decided is to get common equipment onto each site eg polyhives in one, WBCs on the other, heavy WBCs at home. Also thinking of putting a large storage plastic box on each site so I cart less equipment about in the season. What else do you do to make life easier managing your out-apiaries?

I have a couple of Keter storage cabinets in my apiary. They come in a large range of sizes.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Keter-casi...&sprefix=Keter+storage+cabinet,aps,177&sr=8-3
 
Crikey!
Antipodes... we are really poles apart.!!..
Our Cornish Native Amm are as black as your bees are yellow!

On Out Aparies .... all of ours are, as although we have an acre of walled orchard we do not put bees bees too near to houses.
In fact access for the Defender next to the colonies is essential... I can not hop that far!!
Chons da
Sorry Apple, yes, Italian those. I pass no judgment upon them other than they are yellow and are scared of me, staying calmly on the frames during inspections and melting like butter down into the hive when I blow on them.:censored:
 
It's hard work to say the least.
You're right, Mark, and driving right up to bees is best, as the practical Donald Sims wrote so eloquently in 60 Years with Bees. Sims ran only out-apiaries, often hundreds of miles from home, and described his methods in one of the best beekeeping books written. The book has a couple of photos of Sims' Volvo 240 right next to hives in a field.

Only one of my apiaries achieves such direct contact but I can't be choosy in urban locations. Helps to stack kit on site early in the year, plus a smoker, hive tool + wash bucket and a wax bucket. No matter how the season pans out, the back of a Volvo 940 carries as many spares as a small shed.
 
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My Berlingo with back seats permanently removed:
 

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I have a couple of Keter storage cabinets in my apiary. They come in a large range of sizes.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Keter-casi...&sprefix=Keter+storage+cabinet,aps,177&sr=8-3
I have two of this one's big brother - picked them up second hand for not a lot of money. They will take two piles of supers next to each other with a bit of room to spare for other odd bits of kit around them:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Keter-Stor...=1611508557&sprefix=keter+maxi,aps,207&sr=8-5
 
I have two of this one's big brother - picked them up second hand for not a lot of money. They will take two piles of supers next to each other with a bit of room to spare for other odd bits of kit around them:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Keter-Stor...=1611508557&sprefix=keter+maxi,aps,207&sr=8-5
The Midi can also take two piles, although with less space around for other odd bits, but if space or cost are a concern it's a good bit of kit. You can definitely stack supers 6-high, possibly 7. I had 2 complete hives (floor, 14x12 brood, QE, 3 supers, crown board, roof) next to each other in mine.
 
That's a lot of money; how about one of these pallet covers? Sling a pallet down, nail on a fine mesh sheet or four QXs) stack up the boxes, slide on the cover and put a pallet on top.
I Picked my two up from Gumtree for £20 and £25 respectively.. I had to do a bit of a repait on one hinge and drill a few new screw holes on one but nothing to get excited about. The other got strapped intact onto the roof bars on my estate car ... looked a bit like a shed on wheels but it came home safely.

They will also take a padlock although it would only be a deterrent and they seem to be vermin resistant - if not vermin proof.
 
Just on the being-prepared-on-site theme, would it be wise to have/leave prepared frames (with foundation) in kit boxes at apiaries or would the temperature changes make it a bad idea?
 

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