If the Instructions look vague...

Get a second opinion before you start bashing nails in.

*sigh*, keen as mustard we took my newly built hive up to the Apiary over the weekend, intending to make the most of the weather and shook swarm my bees into the new hive. Upon removing the roof, Andy took one look inside and said "oh, so you're going with Top Bee Space then? Interesting approach but you do realise that all my gear is Bottom Bee Space?"

As you've probably guessed, I was intending to make a "standard", Bottom Bee Space, National Brood Chamber. In my defence I claim that the instructions were vague and I'd lined up the side panels on the chamber wrong, then used the recommended, judicious, amount of nails to put it together. In short it's not coming apart again any time soon.

After a period of head scratching I decided to use the Castellated Spacers, originally intended for use in the supers, turned upside down and nailed to the side panels to convert the Brood Chamber back to Bottom Bee Space. Naturally the pre-drilled holes intended for use when having them the right way up were in the wrong place and I then had to make new ones.

I'm not entirely convinced that 4 nails are sufficient or that the spacer used in this way will be strong enough to support the weight of the frames once they're full of brood and stores, so I may yet have just created more work for me later in the year, but I am at least back to having all my gear set up the same way.

Dont Panic Mr Mannering!

If you've done the beginner's course, read through advice the association warns you about attempting to keep bees on an allotment and are still on course to have your dream Apiary on an Allotment then my one piece of advice to you is simply:

Have a backup plan.

On Thursday night my "no problem", allotment apiary suddenly seems to be heading towards "no way".

While I've not discounted the possbility that I'll be able to retain the site, I'll have to be honest and say that it doesn't really sound like they want me there at the moment and with that in mind I've spent the past couple of days trying to find a replacement site for my bees.

Avon Beekeepers might seem an obvious place to have started, but, I was mindful of the fact that I'm still very much an unknown quantity as a new beekeeper, haven't made too many contacts yet and will undoubtedly need some help along the way; hence beginning my beekeeping career by admitting that I'd lost my apiary site didn't seem the best course of action.

So I've been busy contacting a few carefully selected local farms and suppliers to ask if anyone might perhaps like a few beehives on their land. I've also had offers from other allotment plot holders on different sites and, as grateful as I've been for the offers of help, I feel that going down this road carries too great a risk of simply moving the problem from one allotment to another. This afternoon, however, I received a reply back from an Organic farmer sounding quite excited at the possibility of having a few hives around.

With the feeling of elation that it's all back on again subsiding, I've spent the evening doing some research in preparation for going to meet them for the first time to try and make sure I'm in a position to answer any questions that they might have. My first port of call has been to the Soil Association's Organic Standards for Producers to try and make sure that there are no implications for their status by my putting bees onto or next to the farm. As far as I can tell, the only implications with regards to Honey Bees are if I want to sell the hive products as organic. Just to be on the safe side, I've also put a query on the BBKA forums to garner the opinions of Beekeepers with more experience than me.

Time to go back to the shop for some staples and hive straps I guess.

Starting To get Ready...

In discussion with Andy, the guy I am taking over from, about inheriting the hive he announced his intention to carry out a Shook Swarm on the colony prior to handing it over and while we have (a far too brief) period to work together. Never one to shirk the opportunity to buy some new toys I figured this to be a good opportunity to obtain a new hive, supers and frames in addition to the "standard" kit such as a jacket, smoker and a couple of hive tools (on the basis that one has probably already gone missing). My reasoning is simple, if we're going to transfer the colony onto new frames, in a different broodbox, then I wanted it to be "mine". I get to build a hive, put the frames together, know exactly what the bees are going into and have that symbolic exchange of putting the bees into my hive at the end of it, not to mention I should now have a decent amount of spare equipment for later.

Having spent some time browsing various catalogues and websites, including the excellent BBKA forums, I decided that I was going to go to a supplier and buy in person so that I could get advice and touch/try on gear that I was interested in, I also wasn't happy with any of the starter packages offered by the different suppliers.

So last weekend we set off to Masiemore Apiaries for no other reason than they appeared to be the closest being just north of Gloucester.

To cut a long story short, I emerged, one football match between Liverpool and Manchester Utd later with:

1. 1x National hive consisting of a broodbox, open mesh floor and roof.
2. 1x Framed Queen excluder
3. 2x Supers (literally Latin for "on top of" or, in layman's terms, where the honey goes)
4. 1x Beekeeper's Jacket with Fencer type veil
5. 2x Hive tools (one has already evaporated remember)
6. 1x Uncapping fork for Varroa inspection
7. 1x Miller feeder (This could be a supplier specific thing, Thornes have an Ashworth feeder. It's a tray that sits on top of the brood/supers and holds feed)
8. 1x Crown board with 2 porter bee escapes fitted that have so far resisted all attempts to get them out without breaking them.
9. Several bags of nails
10. a Smoker in a cage with a hook for catching on pockets.
11. 12x DN4/Hoffman (self spacing) Frames
12. 20x SN1 frames
13. Not enough spacers for 2 supers
14. Wired foundation for all frames.
15. And one of those bulldog clip queen catchers, which is my first nod to gadgetry but also one I can see little legs getting caught in. I bought it as much to remind me what the alternative was of picking up the queen as necessarily wanting to use it.


This package set me back just short of £370. I dont claim it as a perfect starting pack but I do feel that I got a better deal than the starter package Maisemore offer for about the same price. Maisemore did say, when we were there, that their starter package isn't a "deal" in so far as it offers any discount price on what's being offered, it's what they consider to be a reasonable bundle of equipment to get you started and it's for that reason that I'm glad we went. It's not my job to advertise one particular supplier and I've looked at numerous different places such as Thornes and BeeBasics and in some parts they're all more attractive on price than others but I really felt that I needed to go, be there in person, be able to pick stuff up, try it out, talk to the guys and gals running the place and make sure I had stuff that felt comfortable.

I was advised to start, in the supers, with 10 frames in the first year and reduce to 9 frames in the second. With hindsight I'm lacking in spacers, both to do 10 frames on 2 supers or do 9 the following year. I'm hoping that this isn't something that will come back an haunt me.

Discussion on the BBKA forum suggests that I should actually consider 11 frames, DN4/Hoffman or otherwise, and a dummy board which, naturally, I don't have. Regardless, I will cross that bridge and avail myself of Royal Mail's special delivery if I have to soon(tm). By the end of sunday, that big pile of wood, vague instructions and sense of panic that you've done it all wrong looked like this:

Yes, the Hobbits have grown and they're coming for your bees!

Ok, so ignoring the big hairy lump, what we actually have is the roof, the brood box and the open mesh floor. The big pile of sticks on top of the roof will, later in the evening, turn into 11 more of what I'm holding once I've got the rest of the Foundation out of the boot of the car.

Minor points (like have I got a dummy board, will I be wearing flip-flops) aside, in theory I'm ready for bees!