Hello beekeepers thank you for watching today I'm just gonna do a really quick
demo of what I like to use to change out and support my bee hives this is a bad
example I have cinder blocks here and a very tall beehive that has made it
through two winters and it is leaning over so I have to do something I like to
use these beesmart design hive stands to temporarily stage my gear
on while I'm swapping hive equipment and look here we have crappy bottom board
I'm gonna swap out that bottom board with a new one and we're gonna replace
the bottom box in the process I've been using these anchors that auger into
the ground 18 inches they're really great but I'm swapping them out for iron
T posts these are T posts I'm using on other
stands I've had them in place and other spots in my apiary for a little over 10
years and they don't respond to frost heave you can weed whack around and if
you've got screened bottom boards they're great for that because in the
varroa and the small hive beetles and things like that fall right out on the
ground this one has wires holding it in place
we're gonna use u-bolts now in contrast here we have the flow hive - which has
its own support stand you can set that on concrete you don't have to worry
about it till ting because the feet are adjustable and it has built-in levels in
the bottom here and I'm not a huge fan of cinder blocks but if you've got level
ground that works just fine where I'm going to put this other hive stand for
this demonstration you can use it on unlevel ground so you can use on slopes
banks ditches things like that so we're going to use inch and a half diameter
this is a conduit an electrical conduit that's galvanized so it's great for
outdoors and it comes in 10-foot lengths we're gonna have to cut it in half you
can use a tube or pipe cutter like this one or you can use a sawzall with a
metal blade this plate has fine teeth specifically for cutting metal and
that's what we're using today and here it is cut off leave some sharp edges
there so you're gonna want to get some sandpaper out you're gonna dress it
and clean it up like this so the edges are smooth it's going to be out in your bee
yard people are going to be bumping into that you don't want it to catch your cut
anyone there so now it's ready to go we'll take
outside and put him in there you're also gonna want to have a level and in this
case I have a four-foot level here and we have the u-bolts these are inch and a
half few bolts that inch and a half dimension is the interior spacing
between the bolts so that's going to be great you also need a deep socket the
nuts here are half-inch and where I have a half inch deep socket so we need
that to cinch him up nice and snug we need six of them we're using six t posts
and now of course the time to it it's cutting house we have two five-foot
conduit pieces and this is a day we're gonna want to use smoke because we're
gonna be sending a vibration through the ground bees do not like vibration these
are the hive tools we're gonna use and I use nitrile gloves so that I'll have
good dexterity and of course the smokers lit and we're ready to go so we'll let the
stuff out here right in front of the other existing hives and we're going to
tamp it in here I'm using a post driver it's a metal post rubber very easy and
once you've got all this hooked up if things are a little off level you can
tamp one down a little more to level it up and now we're laid out here
remember these conduit pieces are five foot each now and I've got these bars
and the t-post spaced about 18 inches parallel and there we go all six of them
are in now it's time to bolt them up and we're gonna do one side at a time here
and you can see where it's pretty good now once you bolt the opposing ends and
you level those up put your level on there in the middle I like to not put
the middle bolt on yet so I have a nice smooth surface to lay the level on and
make sure that we're true before we continue and we are perfectly level
throughout the length of the pipe and then we'll add that middle U Bolt
here we are now we've got the front one as well it is also leveled so they're
parallel and again we'll add that Center U bolt last and we also want to
measure how well it's level from front to back so they are parallel but I want
the front to dip just a little lower you can see the bubble goes to the high end
there is a smidge and that's so that the landing boards will allow water to run
off and out of the hives you can also cut off the excess here with some bolt
cutters and that way if your sockets not deep enough to finish tightening things
up you can finish it up there don't forget to come back and grind or sand
off those tips left so that you're not having a place where people will be
scratched here we go and this really demonstrates how off level this hive is
these bars are parallel is perfectly level you can use this on any surface
and we pop the top here and look we've got some bee patties here by mann lake
the ultra paddies they've used them a little bit and it's time to pull those
off and get rid of them we've got plenty of pollen coming in Bee population here is
very good in this colony here we go again
lots of brood got some honey out on the ends it looks like they're building some
drone comb as well drone brood and that's gonna be great because we're
gonna need those this is gonna be a colony I plan to split this is the upper
black box let's go down and look at the yellow box too equally heavily populated
got some nice brood comb in there they've been hatching out of that this
is a fantastic colony of course we're gonna be working with this through the
summer and we're gonna do splits from it so here it is on the pipe and there's a
little paper wasp there not a huge threat to the bees nothing like
Yellowjackets and there's kind of a rule either move
your hive of two feet or two miles this is
within the two-foot range they're nice and level how clean and tidy does this
look and the bees had no problem of course finding the new location and
instead of running augers into the ground that we can just strap to these
iron tea posts and this thing is ready for a storm season that's about to come
I'm sure this was our first weather break and this great opportunity to get
outside here's the close-up and landing board bees are coming and going no
problem and they were not very defensive at all we did smoke them a little bit
here for this but I could have gotten away with no safety gear whatsoever but
I highly recommend if you're swapping a hive out and you're moving things around
you might think about wearing some bee safety equipment like your bee suit or a
veil or something like that these bees are very laid back they have lots of
resources coming in and they have nothing to be stressed about right now
this shows a close-up of the u-bolts the t-post
thanks for watching I hope you benefited from this I'll list the items that
are used here in the video description if you're interested thanks for watching
as always