Once upon a time I was going to comment on my beekeeping learning curve
. That lasted about 2 weeks. My natural tendency to poke around in old periodicals and books took over and this has become a journal of what I am reading or researching...with most of my posts centering around the mid 1800s.
I like insects.
I had kept a colony of Gromphadorhina portentosa, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, for a couple decades. I'm rather fond of them in an impersonal way...the colony is my pet, not any individual. Bees are like that only much more so...the colony seems much more active and fascinating than my roaches. Hissers are couch potatoes, happy to sit quietly anywhere it is comfy, rarely moving unless spurred to a little romantic action or competition.
I also like mechanical things and clever people.
These interests came together when I bumped into an Indiegogo page for a new hive called the Flow Hive. That is what got me to stop thinking about getting bees, and to start preparing to get them next spring (2016).
Then I read about high density polystyrene hives, which make sense to me as a non-bee keeper, so I bought one of them.
And, of course, I have to have a regular wooden Langstroth hive.
I admit it, I am playing!
Emma Craib. February 5th, 2016
July 2017 - Update:
I am using 4 high-density polystyrene hives now, but intend to customize one of them to take a FlowHive super next year.
I never used the 8 frame FlowHive this year. The woodwork was poor, cracking after one year (and initially needing quite a bit of chisel work to get the dovetails to fit). I still like the concept and can't wait to try it. The one year I had the super on there was a major drought and no honey was ever put in the FlowHive mechanism, although the bees carefully applied propolis to whatever crack they perceived.
. That lasted about 2 weeks. My natural tendency to poke around in old periodicals and books took over and this has become a journal of what I am reading or researching...with most of my posts centering around the mid 1800s. Why beekeeping?
I had kept a colony of Gromphadorhina portentosa, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, for a couple decades. I'm rather fond of them in an impersonal way...the colony is my pet, not any individual. Bees are like that only much more so...the colony seems much more active and fascinating than my roaches. Hissers are couch potatoes, happy to sit quietly anywhere it is comfy, rarely moving unless spurred to a little romantic action or competition.
I also like mechanical things and clever people.
These interests came together when I bumped into an Indiegogo page for a new hive called the Flow Hive. That is what got me to stop thinking about getting bees, and to start preparing to get them next spring (2016).
Then I read about high density polystyrene hives, which make sense to me as a non-bee keeper, so I bought one of them.
And, of course, I have to have a regular wooden Langstroth hive.
I admit it, I am playing!
Emma Craib. February 5th, 2016
July 2017 - Update:
I am using 4 high-density polystyrene hives now, but intend to customize one of them to take a FlowHive super next year.
I never used the 8 frame FlowHive this year. The woodwork was poor, cracking after one year (and initially needing quite a bit of chisel work to get the dovetails to fit). I still like the concept and can't wait to try it. The one year I had the super on there was a major drought and no honey was ever put in the FlowHive mechanism, although the bees carefully applied propolis to whatever crack they perceived.
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