Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[zaunreiter]

Since I find bees very cuddling and always wanted to live in a beehouse, I jsut made my dreams come true. However, the bees have moved into my house - and not the other way around.

I have located two hives in the attic. Through an entrance hole in the wall the bees have access to the outside. The attic is directly above my bedroom - separated by only a relatively thin wooden floor. I can hear the bees peacefully humming at night. At three or four clock in the morning I hear some sort of a "conversation", because they are a little louder. It's like sleeping in a beehouse!

In addition, the entrances are directly above the bedroom window, so I hear and watch the first bees fly out in the morning and the last ones return home in the evening.

It's nice to be so close to the bees and live in a "bee-house". The bees like the lofty height apparently. I like to lean out of the window and watch the bees shoot out in a straight line from the entrance hole. Due to the free view I can follow which direction the bees take.


View from outside. The red arrows point to the entrances.





View from the inside. Left and right of the window the Warré hives. When I open the hives, the bees fly into the light out of the windows and return to the hive through the entrance.




Observation from a different point of view!




I have build holes into the wall and in front of it wooden boards with a slit as an entrance. I want to paint it and still looking for a nice theme. The bees doing very well. I connected the floors beetight to the entrance. For this I also used a wooden board inside fastened with dowels, and all around smeared with mortar. Through the lowest hive window I can see from the back through the entrance to the outside. The corridor is well protected by guard bees - it looks, as this can be well defended!





The industrious bees establish their apartment - I saw eggs in the outer comb.





Beautiful wax discs grow down there.




Greetings - buzzing in my sleep!

Bernhard

[Bush_84]

Very cool!! It also answers my question about what happens when you open the hive.

[GarlyDog]

Excellent!

[jumbleoak]

A happy house!

[bilbehr]

That's great, Bernhard. I may evict my family and move in some bees.

Bill

[RodneyWT1180B]

Very nice idea! I'm thinking very good for the bees as well. Stable environment and no chance of large predators or vandalism.
Rodney

[zaunreiter]

Yes, we do have severe cold winter winds here in the flat lands. At least the hives are protected from the wind (and inspectors ).

I'm just pondering how to get a glass hive into our living room.... Hope that my wife gets fascinated enough from the bees that already are in our home. Step one....

We don't have a TV, you know. An observation hive would be a good alternative.

Bernhard

[colobeekeep]

That's great!! I wish I could do that, but our attic gets way too hot in the summer. Thank you for sharing the set up and pictures!

[zaunreiter]

It's 1:24 am in the morning - again the humming of the bees rises a bit louder (what I described as conversation before). It is only one hive. The humming still is satisfied, just more intense.

Bernhard

[RodneyWT1180B]

[Paz]

Excellent set up Bernhard - I like it.

[zaunreiter]

[RodneyWT1180B]

Those exposed combs are just awesome. What is the background on those?
Rodney

[zaunreiter]

If I remember right, those colonies can be found in a Spanish (?) beekeeping museum for education purposes. The colonies start in a box. Once the comb is attached to the lid, the lid goes up and fixed at the ceiling.

Bernhard

[colobeekeep]

I'd like to visit that museum!

[professor]

Pretty neat Bernhard!! Thanks for sharing.

[Benjaminkeith]

Do thoes have glass around them? Do you have a wider shot?

[Morlock5K]

I joke to my partner about getting bees in the house, though think she would fall out with me on a epic scale if I actually did:(

[steved6530]

Hello Berhard,

Great idea if you can persude your wife. Who needs TV with those cubesin the front room?

[zaunreiter]

Some more impressions:


Two short videos:
http://www.immenfreunde.de/vids/beehousevid1.mp4

http://www.immenfreunde.de/vids/beehousevid2.mp4

Bernhard

[david3649]

Bernhard,thank you for sharing this with us.

It must be a wonderful experience to lie awake at night listening to the contented buzz from the hive in the attic.

When I have enough experience I would hope to do something similar. It would be an ideal way to keep the hive out of site while at the same time keeping the bees flight path way above the heads of my neighbours.

Perhaps this could be a way forward for others in suburban areas

[recon]

thats great stuff!!

i'd love to do the same, but i know in my attic in summer, you could cook stuff up there so hot!!!

solar sauna!!

DD

[zaunreiter]

A short update on the bee house from last weekend. The bees used the sunny day to get outside after a series of cold rainy days.

Video:
http://www.immenfreunde.de/pics/OktBees.flv

Picture:


The picture is in the morning (no flight), while the video was shot in the afternoon. The picture shows how densely packed with bees the hive is. That is the way it should be and is a result of downsizing the hive to two boxes.

The picture below shows, how bees are capable of closing down the combswith their bodies, thus saving/retaining the nest scent and heat.:


Temperatures go down to 5 degree Celsius at nighttime (outside temperatures), while in the attic it is 12 degree Celsius. Because the bees are in contact with the outside through the entrance, they probably feel a lot colder as the attic temperature might implicate. At least the bees are very calm when clustering, and they cluster, which let me think, they feel the cold outside more than the inside temperatures.

Bernhard

[Bush_84]

Very cool! Thanks for the update. Did you gather any honey from them? Notice any difference?

[zaunreiter]

I harvest just as much honey as I need for my own consumption, so I left the stores of the two untouched this year.

There are little differences to other colonies outside the house. The entrance is deeper, like a tunnel. The bees need to crawl about 30 cm through the brick wall into the hive. It seems that wasps have no chance at all to get into or through the tunnel, because that passage is filled with bees. I didn't need to reduce the entrance yet.

Flight activity and clustering also is similiar to other hives. So I observed no real differences yet.

Bernhard

[zaunreiter]

To now there is a constant bee flight almost every day. Just a series of three-four days with no activity. Scary!

10. January 2012
http://immenfreunde.de/pics/10Jan2012.mp4

Even in rain the bees peek out between rain showers.
21. January 2012
http://immenfreunde.de/pics/21Jan2012.mp4

The hive box is packed with bees.


The floor doesn't show any alarming. Three combs of brood already.



Bernhard

[zaunreiter]

Today it has been 8°C outside and in the attic it was 15°C.



The bees went out and collected water.


Bees in lichen:




Inside the hive the boxes are still full of bees:


I checked the stores. Through the windows the combs appeared empty, so I opened up the hive. Stores were all good.


Phenological Pre-Spring just has started with coltsfoot and snowdrop blooming.






Bernhard

[zaunreiter]

Today it has been 12°C and the bees were out. Flying like crazy.

Within the hive the cluster is loose and the bees walk all over the hive, even to distant combs and open honey cells, relocating the honey closer to where the broodnest is.



I saw bees dancing, short distance dances, vibrating and such.


On the floor there are many pollen, some in very bright colors. 0-1 mites fall per week. You also see the debris from the cell caps.



Ready to take off into the blue sky!


Back with some pollen. Sometimes just a little....



...sometimes some more!


Coming and going!


Bring in the pollen.


The bees visibly enjoy the flighing and collecting. Me, too. (Observing them doing so.)


Bernhard

[zaunreiter]

The Forsythia is blossoming, which is the first sign vor "Prime Spring" how we call it. (Erstfrühling.) Gooseberry is getting first leaves as well.

In the hive all are very busy. The bees dance a lot. Of course some of the old bees die in those days - you find them in the front of the hive.


Pollen alert!


Some bees fanning at the entrance - moving the winter stale air out?


Pollen...


Pollen...


Jump!


Water collecting.


A bee collecting pollen from a Daffodil (Sort: Tete a tete. Has very small flowers, but blossoming very early.)


And....


..in we go!


Psychodelic picture...(Crocus.)


This bee bites and collects the dry grass for whatever reasons. Someone should tell that newbee that she isn't a cow...


Freaky as well - this bee collects hair from a Primula auricula's leaves.






Here she wipes her faces and put the hair into the pockets.


See that hair in the pockets:




Solitary bee.


Different angle:


Who's that hanging in here?!


Los bombus!


Search picture....


Zoom in: A sort of mini-wasp. Didn't see what kind of.


Bee in crocus.


On finger tip.


Pollen basket.



Bernhard

[BoBnh]

Wonderful pictures!
Thanks!

Bob