I don’t wear a full suit, only half suit and i get stung on my hands and legs when i’m wearing shorts. Then i started putting puffs of smoke on my hands and legs before opening the hive and it didn’t make any difference. so i got myself a pair of leather beekeeping gloves but they are too clunky and couldn’t seem to get a good grip. so i started using 2 pairs of surgical gloves as 1 pair isn’t enough and the stinger gets through.
Although the hive is mine but it’s located at a friend’s house to help pollinate his backyard orchard and i’m worried they will sting his kids if they get near it.
This hive is at a friend’s backyard orchard and it’s the only one there. i usually inspect this hive on the weekends while i do the ones in my back yard on weekdays. So to answer your question, it’s the first and only for that day.
Good Morning, the storm peaked while I was typing to you yesterday, then we lost power for a few minutes. All is good this morning. No hives blown over. I was a bit worried about one hive sitting on top of another one, but it was fine.
I was only advising someone the other day about his flow hive roof. I told him, once he gets over looking at the fancy design, he’s better off converting to a migratory lid with vinyl mats like I use. The bees propolise the lids down, that way they never blow off. With a crown board/roof design of the flow hive, the crown board gets propolised but the roof doesn’t. Hence the need to tie or weigh it down. This blokes roof blew off in much less wind then we had last night.
I guess another option for the flow roof would be to remove the crown board & use a vinyl mat so that the bees propolise the roof down. However I have one telescopic lid & I always find it harder to remove than the migratory lids because I can’t get my hive tool in so easy.
Yeah… the roof can blow off. If you remove the crown board the flow hive lid ends up over the piece of wood that covers the part where you put the flow key. I use a vinyl mat, the flow crown board and the Flow roof with a couple of bricks. The bricks tend to detract from the aesthetics a bit. I’m figuring there must be a way to add weight to the flow roof internally…
My husband went out midnight to put straps around the hives and stands. All went well. Sciencemaster has a hive in town by the river. I really hope he finds it. It’s very flooded.
Looks it’s gonna start raining again, must run check the bottom boards.
Our nucleus supplier had 50 hives south of San Diego by a river this winter. We have had record rainfall in January and February, and not only did the river flood, but the local sewage works north and south of the border with Mexico had huge spills. He went down to the apiary to scattered hives covered with evil-smelling sludge and a decimated bee population. He had to destroy a lot of the equipment, but he rescued as many bees as he could (50 years of experience and well over a hundred hives scattered around). His hives were all on raised stands, but the flooding was exceptional. Quite an experience.
I really hope @sciencemaster and his bees are safe and dry.
Same here, I also hope S’master’s hive is ok. After reading about @Kirsten_Redlich’s experience with Apithor beetle traps, it makes you realize how potent the poison inside them is.
I’ll go & check my main bee site, the hives are under trees plus I have about 10 nucs sitting on top of hives. We had some serious wind yesterday afternoon. A large N.I. Pine had it’s branches stripped for about 8 feet across the road from us. It’s the first time that has ever happened. I’ll get going, cheers
