Tag Archives: top bar hive
Yes, my engineering side shows in this article’s title, what can I say?
Newly Selected Bee Packages
The day our bees arrived we took off work early to drive down to Virginia Bee Supply to pick up our two packages and equipment. Picking out our packages was a very unceremonious process, we gave our names and then were told to grab two packages from the trailer covered in bee packages. We had no idea what to look for so I looked around a little bit and picked out a couple packages that seemed to have fewer dead bees on the bottom and felt heavier than the others and put it in the back of our car. We then went to the back shed (which is the main store room for the business) and picked up our jacket, brush, and smoker. Continue reading
2 comments | tags: installation, installing bees, package bees, queen, queen cage, spray, syrup, top bar hive, video | posted in Beekeeping
Top Bar Barrel Bee Hive Chicken Coops
A bee hive chicken coop?! You probably think I’m joking, right?
If you recall our last post about the benefits of raising chickens, we were inspired by the idea of chicken tractors. Since we didn’t want to give up any more yard space from our gardening, we already had these wonderful top bar barrel bee hives built, and the space under the hives was about the same area as some of the chicken tractors we’d seen, that they’d make a perfect area for our own chickens. Continue reading
2 comments | tags: assembly, barrel, bees, chicken coop, chickens, cloth, coop, dogs, hardware, hens, store, top bar hive, top bar hive chicken coop | posted in Beekeeping, Chickens
Initial Rough Setup & Location
If you’ve been following our series on Beekeeping you know that we now have two fully assembled barrel top bar bee hives. We even had them nicely positioned on some left-over pavers from our patio project. As you can see they look pretty good and could be fully functional at this point. But Martha and I couldn’t leave well-enough alone!
Staining Bee Hives
The first addition we wanted to do was add a little finish and protection to the wood components so we used left-over deck stain that we had laying around and stained the wood. We hope this will extend the life of our hives as well as give them a more “finished” look! We have been very pleased with the result and would recommend others stain their wood right after cutting it prior to assembling the hive. Staining ahead of assembly makes it much easier and avoids having to worry about getting stain on the barrel part of the hive. Continue reading
Leave a comment | tags: add-ons, barrel, barrel top bar hive, bee hives, bees, divider, entrance, finish, reducer, stain, top bar hive, weather | posted in Beekeeping
Ark Like Bee Hive
You may recall that we decided on Top Bar Hives for our homestead, but beyond the general category of hives we still had to pick an actual design and find or create some plans. Some of the options were all wood top bar hives that look like miniature Noah’s Arks. Others are designed to be built from scrap material available in 3rd world countries and/or areas affected by disaster. Continue reading
2 comments | tags: barrel, barrel bee hive, blog, coupons, hardware, hive, instructable, tbh, tools, top bar hive | posted in Beekeeping
