[music]
So, hi there. So today we are going to be talking
about hive equipment in general and just a few
sort of specialty type items that you might see
and are a little more common in our hives.
But anyways so starting from the ground up the
first thing that you generally start with
is something called a hive stand.
So this is what we use here, it is basically anything
that will get your hive up off the ground,
allows some ventilation from underneath there
so moisture isn't a big thing with rotting the
wood of the hive and also in the winter
a big thing is just so it doesn't freeze solidly
to the ground.
So this here is actually made out of pressure
treated wood.
It can be made out of any sort of chemical
treated wood.
This is something that is basically just the hive
is sitting on, the bees aren't actually in
direct contact with it, so the chemical and the
treatment won't be an issue with the bees.
Some other people use cinder blocks, metal,
again material doesn't matter it's just anything
to get that hive up off the ground.
So that's called a hive stand.
The next piece of equipment is what's called
a bottom board, so basically just a three
sided board which allows the one side without a
rim on it to become the entrance of a hive.
As you can see if we were to put our brood
chamber on that becomes the entrance of the hive.
The next piece is a bit of a bit of a specialty piece.
So this here is what's called a
screen bottom board and this is for monitoring
varroa mites and you can see how we do that
in our varroa mite film, but this when you use
this thing for sticky papers it actually ends
up replacing the entrance of the bottom board
with its own entrance from the screen bottom board,
so you have to flip around the regular bottom board,
put on your screen bottom board and
now this becomes the entrance into the colony.
Just because debris and stuff will be falling
down there anything metal or any other
material sort of tray can be slid in the back
basically to collect debris so we can later
on take that out and clean it up is something
you'll need with that screen bottom board system.
So that's the screen bottom board.
On top of that we will have our brood chamber.
So this is what's called a deep brood chamber.
It has ten frames inside of it and this is about the
minimum requirement for bees to get through
the winter in this sort of environment,
so that's what we use.
So we just typically use one of these brood chambers.
On top of that a bit of equipment we
use is called a queen excluder and they
come in a variety of sorts, so there's just the
metal bound queen excluder and then we
have the wood bound queen excluder, so again
it's metal in the middle but has a wood binding,
and then thirdly we have a plastic queen excluder
so this queen excluder is solely made out of plastic.
So we here use the metal queen excluder,
so we'll just set that on there.
And to further build up our colony the next thing
to put on is what's called a honey super,
a honey box and it's called a super because
it goes above that queen excluder, so we just
brought one out for demonstration purposes,
but throughout the year we'll have multiple
of these on top of the colony.
So just unfortunately jumping back to that hive
stand when you are putting that hive stand
down it's very important to get that level because
these colonies will grow throughout the year.
But that is called a honey super,
on top of that you'll need an inner cover.
So basically most bee keepers use these
wooden inner covers which have a notch that form
the job of an upper entrance, but that
basically allows the bees to stick that down so we
can pry it off without sticking down the lid,
which is next because we won't be able to pry
off anything with these sorts of lips.
So we have our inner cover and then our outer
cover or our lid, but it is just something that
sits on top and sheds the weather from the colony.
There are two little bits of equipment that we have
is firstly this is called an entrance reducer,
so it is a little beveled piece of wood that slides
into the entrance of the colony and does exactly
what it says; it reduces that entrance down
for reasons such as the cold in the winter
and also another term it might go by is a
mouse guard because when put in in the fall
it basically is also put in there to keep
mice out as they are seeking a warm spot
when the cooler temperature comes.
The last little piece when we are talking about that
screen bottom board, again this is just a
little beveled block of wood, if you were to use
this screen bottom board that also is a
wide open hole and the cooler temperatures of the
early spring and late fall and winter, so this
basically just plugs up that back hole
where the tray goes in during those sorts of
months as well.
And that should just fit right on in there.
So that's our basic hive equipment.
There's lots of other specialty bits of
equipment things out there but this is about
the bare bones for what you'll need
to start your hive.