Following board and Feeder station

When you gather a swarm or get a nuc of bees they don't need as much room as a productive hive
They might only a need four to six top bars to start with- this means the rest of the space in a metre long hive (like I have made) is just too much for them to guard and work in

So the suggested solution put forward by the top bar boffins on the web is a following bar
This is a top bar with a wooden panel to partition off the rest of the hive. The hive grows and needs more space - the bee keeper slides the following board back and inserts a few more top bars in the main section of the hive.

I also wanted to add a 'no drown' feeder station to the following board. This as most newly gathered hives or weak hives or maybe when honey flow and flower numbers are low - will benefit from a bit of feeding. (sugar/water mixture)

This 'following board' design is very simple, cut a panel to exactly fit the inside of the hive and attach it to a top bar. That's it. So simple. Again after much research online

Again I had my plethora of helpers today. They had enjoyed themselves so much last time, that they were banging at the door to help out again within minutes of lunch starting (students not out of uniform per say as we were having a fund raising day for sepsis prevention)

The image on right shows the hole for bee access to the feeding platform from within the hive.

As I wanted to be able to refill the feeding container without having bees fly at me and bees having access to the rear of the hive before they need to - I would have to build a funnel or tunnel to the feeding area that the best couldn't escape from

I also wanted to be able to remove the feeder access when needed.

So I built a little scrap plywood frame then stapled on some aluminium netting so that the bees could use to crawl out of the feeding liquid if they fall in. I build a wooden slot for it to fit in as well so it would move about.

The image below is what I came up with - the device can be held in place with a rubber band if needed as well. The foot of feeder apparatus (all wire) sits in a take away container of sugar/water syrup

 Again as I am no expert or creative genius (just ask my wife! she handles that side of my life!!!), this apparatus is an amalgamation of a bit of this and a bit of that from several videos online.

So now we have one for each hive previously made
We shall see if it does the job and modify if necessary if it doesn't

Next blog entry will be the construction of a bee vacuum - "what?" may you ask

Yes, a bee vacuum!

This will be built to help with the transfer of the farm kitchen cupboard hive into a top bar hive - which has about 10 or so combs of brood I want to save if possible and about 40-60 thousand bees I don't want buzzing about as I remove their home from the cupboard and placed in my top bar hive.

Later I can use the bee vacuum for swarm capture - using long hose sucking up a swarm out of a high tree maybe!

Exciting times ahead - will video the eventual removal and transfer of the cupboard comb and bees - and the vacuuming of course