A Bee House In Busso

G’day Pete,
Dunno about that, What I DO know, is my bees do not like noise, nor do they like fast movements near the hives. I can piddle around their hives all day long as long as I ensure my movements are not fast or jerky. They’ll leave me alone, but try quickly walking around them, then your in for a nasty surprise.

I moved on hive some time back, at around 1000 AM. my son assisted. After explaining to him, no fast moves, what does he do, walks straight up to the hive and grabs the bottom ready to lift it, with the predicted result. Yet at the same time, I was on the opposite side and they never went anywhere near me. Dunno if he’ll ever give me a hand again with the bees. L.O.L.

Cheers,

Eddy

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I think you mean “favourite colour”.:wink::wink: Beat our Dawn this time.

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The mind boggles:wink:

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I knew it wouldn’t be long before I got Bite. L.O.L.

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I only type color to keep spell check happy. Peter might do the same.

@Peter48, this morning was the first time I ever felt under a hive lid, to see how warm it was. Maybe that’s a good thing to do, feel under a lid after the sun has been beating down on it for a while.

I have some old lids that were unpainted gal. for many years. The masonite under the tin was badly buckled. Must have been from the heat. It must make the bees job that much harder to maintain the correct hive temperature.

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this week- on Thursday- it is now forecast to be 45C in adelaide. It’s starting to get tiresome I can tell you… the bees are thronging around their water sources- it must be hard for them to cool the interior of the hive. I think anything that helps the bees keep the heat out must be good. Last year we had a talk from a local commercial beekeeper. he said the last few years the climate has been changing- some good sites are not good anymore- winter feed is sparce and the bees struggle. He said in the future beekeepers will have to think more of feeding- and also making sure to paint all hives white to help them deal with heat.

When I purchased my solar wax melter (I melted wax in it today- inside it was over 100C and the wax was boiling!) and 2 frame spinner recently at an auction- the lot came with a home made insulated hive lid that sits perfectly over a 10 frame migratory lid- it fits over like a telescoping lid like they use overseas. I assume it’s for additional protection from the sun or insulation in winter. I have put it to good use and I am sure that hive appreciates it today. I will cover some of my other hives with shadecloth this evening.

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I once had a similar toilet, but underneath was a bin. Good old fashioned outdoor dunny. After a number 2 :poop: add a sprinkle of sawdust or similar and close the lid. When it was full, it was rotated out and the bin lid put on. I think there were about 4 or 5 bins. Once you got the oldest one, it had all composted down and could be tipped out somewhere in the bush (lived in the forest/bush). (no smell etc)
Saves a lot of water and processing by third parties.
That’s a really simple way to do it, but I’ve seen great composting toilets built into houses that don’t need any of that stuff done once the system has been installed in the house.

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Hi Jack, I feel for you, with a forecast of 45C. We’re whinging about 31C. To make it worse, I’m slaving in the kitchen, baking baguettes.
PS Jack, this is one of the 3 and a half lots I baked in 2 & a half hours.

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If I type color the spell checker red lines it. When spelt correctly in Australia, colour does not get red lined by the spell checker. We read so much of the American spelling that it is becoming the norm.:cry::cry::cry:
PS: We will all eventually succumb to the US spelling and probably accent in time.:upside_down_face::upside_down_face::upside_down_face:

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You just need to change your dictionary/spell checker to “Australian/Brittish English”, it’s probably on American English @JeffH

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I agree Faroe, I need to do that for sure.

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You are right, any sudden movement can trigger the bees into action.
It was many years ago I was told that bees do not have ears and therefore no hearing as such but they are sensitive to the vibration of sound. I’m not sure if that isn’t ‘splitting hairs’ though. Science is sometimes ‘a bridge too far’ for the likes of me.
Cheers

I can’t stop think’n about that 240 litres of good stuff. If these worms breed up from a few wet grass clippings & wet shredded paper, imagine what they’d do with 240 litres of magic brew.


cheers.

Just one tip: they don’t like shredded plastic.

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The problem would be space. The nitrogen (urine,poo, ect) needs to be balance out with carbon (paper,dry grass sawdust ect) in a ratio of 1:25 so the composter would have to be at least 6500 litres.
Thats a big compost bin.
Mind you when we were first starting out here near 35 years ago I had 3 compost bins each 2m wide X 4m long X1.5m high and I’d fill 2 bins and turn them over in turn to an empty one with the front loader on the tractor. But that was yesteryear. Can hardly see where they were now.

I agree Busso. I’m mainly kidding. I just wanted to show off those worms, that to my surprise, discovered them yesterday. Only about 10 or more days ago that pile of worms was a pile of fermenting grass clippings & shredded paper that smelt equal to strong cow manure. I wouldn’t put my hands in it, it smelt so bad. Now I can pick it up, full of worms & it has no offensive odour.

I have 6 bucket type worm farms.

I use the worm wee, slumgum water & my own 24/7 urea as a liquid fertilizer, using a hose end sprayer. Some things really love it, especially potatoes, last season was a bumber crop.

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Crickey if you get from wo to go in this thread you have done well …it is very long.
Well I now have both hives in place and all is as it should be.


Both hives are very busy at the moment. Here’s why:

These two (of many many) are next door about 500 metres as the bee flies from my hives. Jarrah trees in the SW of West Aust flower in late Spring early Autumn except for a tiny enclave along Witcher Ridge around where I live…they flower in June.

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Your bee house is such an accomplishment Wilfred!! So happy to see it with busy hives :heart_eyes:

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Thank you Eva, I’m pretty happy too.:slightly_smiling_face:

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