To help the small colony that I installed, I have added a frame of brood from another (regular) hive. You can see the top of the frame in the pic below.
I was going to remove the comb totally from the frame and attach it to a topbar, but my colleague, Emma, whose hive this will be, persuaded me to leave it attached by just the top.
I have to cut the corners off - but luckily these were just stores, and I put them in the bottom of the hive for the bees to eat and clean up.
The hinge and stay is a masterpiece, and a work of genius (if that's not too immodest a claim). My friend Emma can't lift heavy things like roofs, so the hinged roof is ideal.
There are two 16mm holes for ingress and egress.
And an aluminium roof. There's a brilliant shop in Bath called Avery, Knight and Bowler that sells everything metallic. The 2m x 1m sheet of Al cost £16.
Fingers crossed for the bees. The sealed brood on the comb that I added will emerge in a few days and add to the colony.
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I look forward to hearing how they get on. That's quite a different hive, is it a design you've found or one you've invented so that Emma can manage?
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm a bit confused - are the bees yours or Emma's?
We're sharing the bees. I have the ones that are black with orange hoops, and she has the ones that are orange with black hoops.
ReplyDeleteThe topbar hive is to a design by Phil Chandler at biobees.com. I have modified the design to add the hinged roof and the stays.