Lee's yard, note the dirt on the middle colonies hive. Also note the torn up dirt in front of all them. The middle box also has the honey super on it. Johns yard. The two outside ones have the honey supers on them the middle one with the red box has a feeder on it. All five at Johns, Due to a shortage of feeder boxes I have the two feeders on the left covered with a brood box and two honey super boxes. Green house bees. Note one with a feeder box and the far left one with a honey super. Di's yard. You have to keep the hives covered at this time of year when you are not working one or it will set off a robbing frenzy. At Lees yard and Johns we use a herbiside to control the weeds. At the green house we trim since the owner has no fear of the bees and mows close. At Di's yard I have to mow since the owner is afraid of the bees and won't mow very close in front of them. Al
I think I would let you mow in front of hives I had as well Al 8) Quite an operation you have going here and very well organised if I do say so A question: why do you need to keep the hives off the ground?
Wood rots faster sitting on the ground. Can't use treated lumber either because the honey is extracted and sold to and for human use. Also does detur insects and mice from having an easy access into the hive. :-D Al
That would have been my initial guess but wood rotting was a plainly obvious one too (slaps oneself on wrist ). Thanks Al
There are a lot of things we use and will use in the honey house that were used by dairy farmers at one time. This tank/tub was used at a dairy farm to wash milking equipment in. We use it to catch the caps we cut off the honey, which drain into a pail sitting under the drain. Not real fancy but is does work very well for us. A frame of capped honey. The uncapping of a frame of honey with the heated knife. The big radial loaded with frames to be spun out. The motor was running just fine, :'( then it stopped. The motor being very old just gave out. We ended up spinning all the honey out with our two frame hand crank job. Took most of the day but we did finish before dark. The two frame hand crank extractor isn't a radial. Two frames sit in a basket and one side of each frame is spun out then the frame is turned so the oppsite side is faceing the tank wall. It works very well and isn't as hard to do as one would think. Still I am shopping for a new electric motor for the big radial before we pull the remainder of our honey. :-D Al
OH YA we got 300 pounds of honey. Honey is sold by the pound weight. 300 pounds fill five five gallon pails. Seen in back ground of small extractor picture are five gallon pails/buckets. :-D Al
