LighterEquipment-BushFarms.pptVIP

Making a top entrance cover Nailing and gluing the shims Making a top entrance cover Finished top, upside down Cover (with wire clip) Making a top entrance cover Finished top in place Top entrance in use Bees at top entrance Caveats Remember, if you have no bottom entrance and you use an excluder you will need some kind of drone escape on the bottom for them to get out. A 3/8 hole will do. Bottom Feeders Classic Jay Smith bottom feeder Made from a standard solid bottom so no extra equipment to buy Can double as a cover and top entrance for the hive below Modified Bottom Feeder Screened fill area No bottom entrance (less robbing issues) Provides reduced entrance below for a top entrance on stacked nucs or hives Allows feeding stacked hives without unstacking Top View Bottom view With Hive Apartment Nucs Fill covers in place More information concerning top entrances, lighter equipment, natural cell size and varroa, horizontal hives, queen rearing, general beekeeping, observation hives and many other topics. Many classic queen rearing books. Huber’s New Observations on the Natural History of Bees Picture from Jay Smith’s Better Queens Contact bees at bushfarms dot com Book: The Practical Beekeeper * The hardest thing for me about beekeeping is lifting. Boxes full of honey are heavy. Deep boxes full of honey are VERY heavy. I know some will argue that the deeps should have brood in them and therefore not be full of honey, but sooner or later they WILL be full of honey. There may be some disagreement as to the exact weights of a full box of honey, but in my experience this is a pretty good synopsis of sizes of boxes and typical uses for them: * If you want a grasp of these and dont have a hive yet, go to the hardware store and stack up two fifty pound boxes of nails or, at the feed store, two fifty pound bags of feed. This is approximately the weight of a full deep. Now take one off and lift one box. This is approximately the weight of a full eight frame medium. I f