I believe in 39 days the bees are coming! Yay! =D
Anyways, I was looking at the old posts on Observation Hives, on the Beesource forum. And I read that someone used a 10 gallon fish tank from Walmart, and installed 5 deep frames in it for her/his observation hive. This caught my interest, for I have around four 10 gallon fish tanks around my house! And one was smashed on the side, from when I fell and my hand smashed right through the side. Thankfully, I didn't even get a scratch! So I removed the remaining pieces of glass, and started planning. Here are some pictures(to show you what i have in mind, i did not build it yet):
The first two pictures shows the tank with the side removed and the seven top bars in place.
The third picture shows what is holding the top bars, for they are too short to reach from one end to another. I will put a piece of Plexiglas or wood right where the glass sticking out is. This is also where my feeder is going to be.
The last two pictures are examples of what the feeder is going to be like. I will drill a hole in the wood/Plexiglas side cover, and put a jar with a lid that has small holes punched in it; in that hole i drilled. The vacuum prevents the syrup from spilling all out. Also to be able to feed the bees without worrying about bees escaping, you can staple mesh over the drilled hole, from the inside. The bees will still be able to eat the sugar syrup. I'm sorry if this is confusing, I tried my best to describe this! I will post pictures once I make the observation hive!
Some people are discouraging me from doing this, because I will not be able to see the queen and because it will not be very likely that I would see brood, since its 7 frames wide. They think I will only see bees storing nectar. I don't really mind that I will not see the queen, and for the brood, I believe I can just move a comb with brood to the edge, and I would be able to watch some baby bees emerge from their cell. And how can watching bees store nectar, and produce honey not be fun? This would help me learn alot about bees, and my top bar hive will not be disturbed as much. Opening a hive too often can stress the bees out, and if you annoy them enough, they will leave the hive for a new home. Since I'm a curious newbee, I think that I will find myself opening the hive up too much. =P
Also on this blog, http://turlough.blogspot.com/2007/09/bell-jar-bees-complete-task.html, this guy put a bell jar on top of his hive and the bees built combs in it! You could probably use this as a 'super'. Stick it in a hole on the top of a hive, and put a piece of the queen excluder under it, so they queen doesn't lay eggs in it. Then you have a jar with comb and honey! Also this could be used for even closer observation of the brood, eggs and larvae growing and developing. I decided that I would put a small jar on my observation hive, when the bees settle down and establish their home, just to see what happens. I am way too curious to not do this! Hehe.
Have a great day!
Kris
7 comments:
Just saw your idea for a top bar observation hive. I'll be interested to see how this works!
Will they get enough in there or will they over heat ??
I'm not quite clear with what you are saying steveo. Enough bees? Well the bees grow their sizes very quickly, and they are more likely to overcrowd than not have enough bees I belive. The bees have their own ventilation system, so I'm not really worried about that. I am not going to place them in direct sun, or I would have just made a solar wax melter! Haha!
Also I will put a tiny bit of space between the top bars so the heat can rise and escape.
Abelisto- I am excited to see the results too!
i meant to say enough air.
Ohh...gotcha. Like in the previous comment, I will put a little space b/w the top bars. The bees can ventilate themselves, through the tube entrence too.
looking forward to see the results of your observation hive, wish you all the best and good luck with your bees
Libyan Beekeeper
I think that this would work as well as the observation hives that are a couple frames wide and stacked. I am sure you have seen pics of these. After all, they are glassed too. It will be very cool watching the bees make comb and doing their thing. Some people like to watch fish, some like watching bees. :)
Robee
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