Hi welcome back to Pine Meadows Hobby Farm. I'm your host Jerry Hanson.
Today's episode is beekeeping for the hobby farmer
Today I'm assembling some bait hives.
I had a phone call the other day. A friend of mine who has a bunch bees
fell ill a little bit was unable to
I deal with all the bees at the time when they are
beginning to swarm, so he invited me to set up some bait hives around his and try to
catch some swarms
and use those for my bee collection since I have no bees yet.
This would be an opportunity to get some free bees.
I really don't want any more than maybe two or three hives here on the
hobby farm
Its just primarily for
myself, my little family, and my neighbors. So
let's get started and I'll show you how I'm putting together a bait hive.
the bait hive basically
is just ace a brood chamber
that I took and I cut out some plywood
spare pieces of plywood that I had. They measure the same dimensions of the bee box.
it comes out nineteen and three-quarter inches
by 16 and one-quarter inches
and I just put four screws
this will be in the bottom, and then I will put one on the top
after I put some frames in. Lets finish assembling this one.
What I did was
I drilled a 7/8 inch hole here to allow the bees to get in.
I'll be baiting all along the outside of this hole
and on the inside, I'll put a Q-tip swab impregnated with some lemongrass oil
Now, Lemongrass oil I understand has a same
properties in it, the same chemical properties in it as the theramones that a queen bee
would put out
this way to send a signal to the bees especially the scout bees looking for a
new home for the swarm
and saying "this is your new home come and set up housekeeping."
I'm hoping that work out for me. O.k. the best information I gleen from the
internet setting up bait hive
is to select frames that actually has some brood in it.
This is just a regular black frame that has some wax in it. That's always helpful
and I've gotta a new black frame hasn't been used
They said that go ahead and put those on the outside but if you have any brood frames
that would be more inviting to the bees, put those in the middle, like here is
a little bit of brood
hopefully they'll attract them and help them build that up.
Again, I'm just another novices beekeeper I'm not a professional
I just trying to learn what I can online.
Yeah, here's a good frame. It's got some
supercedure cells on it.
And then hopefully this will be inviting enough to the bees.
to at least get them introduced to a new home.
And from what I understand, any frames that are
kind of iffy, the bees are going to build those out
and if there is any garbage on them, they'll clean them up.
So this is what I've got. We'll see what I got work with.
We'll see how it works out up there on the
hill where I go set my bait hives.
Hey, what I got is a couple of Q-tips
swabs and my vial of lemongrass oil
hey I was really blessed with this lemon grass oil. I was telling a
a patient at work and his wife
runs apothecary store in a neighboring community and she
heard what I was doing a she blessed me with some
pure are 100 percent lemongrass essential oil
and so I didn't have a go down and buy some. This stuff is really good.
So let's get this hive baited.
And all's I'm going to do
is dip that down in there,
bait the opening, to get that lemongrass scent on the opening,
and then saturate both ends of the Q-tip and lay it on the top.
Put the lid on.
Just put four screws in.
And I'll be right back.
I'm going to use the L-bracket to mount it to the tree
So I'm going to flip it over, put this on,
just put a short screw in the middle
that way its not penetrating through to the frames. And I'll put long one back here.
It will take a bite right down to the wood,
and it will give it more security. When I bring them back home....
Oh! One other feature I wanted to add is a way to cover that hole when bring them home.
What I got is metal can lid,
I'm just going to bend it.
make a little handle here. I'll show you why.
There! I have a lid to go over the top of that.
So it's open, and when I get ready to bring the bees home
I just pull it down and it's closed. And it locks the bees in there.
Ok, I'll just load these beehives into the Sububu (Subaru)
and we will take them up there and get them set up.
I'll take my cordless screw-driver and screws
that way I can screw them into the trees
So, let's go ahead and get them setup
(Margaret) What is the significance about the flowers?
(Jerry) The gal whom I bought the bee hives from she painted one set with blue flowers, one set with red flowers
(Jerry) and then another set plain so the bees
to these colonies could associate which one was their home if you had them close together.
(Margarette) We used to have different tops
(Jerry) Different what?
(Jack) Different tops. (Jerry) Oh, Yea.
(Margarette), and we don't have them that close
(Jack) If I have nothing else I'll just set a big X or an O
or whatever. (Jerry) A different shape to denote the difference in the colony.
(Jack) Yea, a different shape, it don't matter
(Jerry) Because their pretty keen to what their home looks like
I gotta make sure that my, the hole is clear for the bees to get in.
(Jerry) I should just take that one out
so they can get in the hole
(Jerry) and then that's my lemongrass oil on top
(Jack) Yea, we finally got some and put it in last year. And like I say
I put them up on top of my buildings
(Jerry) There. I saw online when these bait hives, you could just use a box like this
just use a rudimentary bottom top because your gonna take those off. (Jack) Yea.
(Jerry) And use this as your brood chamber anyway. (Jack) Right. (Jerry) And thats why I put the lid on here
so I can reuse it over and over again if I have to.
(Margarette) Thats a neat idea. (Jerry) I just dug those out of the trash today.
(ALL) Laughter. (Jack) It dont matter, if it works, it works.
So my friends Jack and Margarette are really hospitable in allowing me to place
bait hives over on their property around their bees
because Jack just didn't have time to tend to his bees and he's got
a couple of his colonies looking like they're ready to
swarm, so he called me and had me
bring my bait hives up so I could at least catch some of the
swarms and split the hives myself over here.
I will keep you updated to see how successful my bait hives were.
And I want to thank you for tuning in to Pine Meadows Hobby Farm. I'm your host
Jerry Hanson
Closing tune