Boodarai's photos with the keyword: top bar hive

Ad the bear checks how our bee hive is progressing (nicely)

live bee action!

Two days later, and the bees are happily flying in and out and are all over our spring flowers. The box on the ground is the bee transport container. We couldn't get them all to drop out into the hive, but we hung the queen in her little cage between the bars, and put the remainder in front of the hive, close to the entrance. Next day they have all left the cage, bar the dead ones.

After we finally got our log yearned for bees, we brought them back from Garfield (the place, not the cat) and Fred and Nelly helped me to install them in our top bar hive, following clear instrauctions from William ( "The Bunyip Beekeper" ). At last! Someone willing to be helpful and informative about top bar hives! It went pretty smoothly, with just a small hitch with closing the hive, and just one sting to the neck (mine).

The bees have started building their first comb in our top bar hive. Behind it are the cut frames that Norman put into it.

As suggested by Norman, our bee mentor, we have put a small bucket of sugar syrup (in a dish of water) beside the hive, to help the settle in.

In position and occupied at last. Ad & Maxime fenced off a corner of the home paddock, levelled the ground, pinned onto that weed mat, put concrete tiles down for the legs to stand on (less chance of parasites entering the hive), and put an electric fence around it all to keep the cows off it. It gets sun for almost the entire day. This shot is in the evening.

We collected our bee-loaded top bar hive from Cape Schanck, with thanks to Norman the Cossack!

At last, our top bar hive is full of bees! We wanted to have bees to have our own honey but were put off by the amount of equipment you needed. Then about 5 years ago I read about the Barefoot Beekeeper and we decided to get a top bar hive (TBH). I met two other local TBH enthusiasts and one of them persuaded his Men's Shed (in Mirboo North) to make them. We bought one, but it has been sitting there for 3 years, waiting for bees. Most apiarists were not willing to sell me bees, as they would only sell me frames of bees, which would not fit into it. I tried asking a local who removed bee swarms, but he, too, was sceptical. Then our neighbour Angelo tracked down Norman. Norman is a Cossack beekeeper! We met in a car park on the Mornington Peninsula, and he overcame my scepticism of the whole deal, resulting in me handing over the empty TBH and a cash payment in advance. Just a few days later and he sent me this video. Whoah! BEES! Now we just have to pick it up and get it home, all 100kg of it.