Group of 12 New Natural Beekeepers in NW Donegal Need Nucs for their newly made Top Bar Hives
Call Aoife on 086 3042893
It would be great if we could get them ready to go into top bar hives but realise this is unlikely.
25 June 2011 - 3:58pm
#1
Aoife Valley
New Natural Beekeepers in NW Donegal Need Nucs for Top Bar Hives
great to hear there are other natural beekeepers here! i've been using a HTB similar to phil chandler's design for the past couple of years. my version has less of a slope in the sides so that i can drop conventional frames in alongside my top bars, as an easy way to transition bees from a nuke/conventional hive to top bars.
no bees in there at the moment (died over winter) so am going to refine my design before the next lot go in.
Hi Frost
Hope you got some more bees and they are healthy and happy. We have no bees yet but are still looking...
I have been trying to attract a passing swarm with two tasty wax and lemongrass coated hives but nothing yet...
i was given a small cast, which turned out to be 2 small casts, and we put them in to a single nuke. next time i checked half had moved out to my empty top bar hive that was in the same apiary, so i now have 2 growing colonies. have fed them a bit and conventional advice is to feed a lot to build them up for winter. on the one hand i want them to grow but there is decent forage now, assuing the weather is good, so i dont really want to fill them up on sugar syrup which isnt as good for them as the real deal.
will check up on them soon and see how they're doing. at least one has pollen coming in so hopefully that is a sign that the queen was mated and they're feeding brood now, but will lift out frames & see on next nice day.
saw a beekeeper just yesterday collecting a swarm so there are still some out there, hope you get some!