3 Reds New Long Lang

[Wandering Man]

3Reds has wanted a hive she could operate herself - no heavy lifting.
I started looking for someone to build one for me this past August.  I settled on a guy in San Antonio who makes weird hives, and I thought he could build it for me.  I think it might be finished before the end of the year.  I hope it is finished before I end up in Houston for a seven week "vacation" I didn't want.

Christmas was coming, and I hadn't heard from the guy, so I contacted my second choice, a non-beekeeping cabinet maker.  He built the one in the picture below in about two weeks.  3Reds was out of town over the weekend, and he brought it out to the apiary for me and helped me put it in place.













I had to give it to her early because a) she's going to have rotator cuff surgery on Thursday and so couldn't work with it for a long while; b) I didn't want to chance the weather turning bad before we got the bees in there; and c) well, because I couldn't wait to show it to her.  She saw it yesterday, and we went back out today to transfer the bees:






It didn't take long for the bees to figure out where their new home is:

[Wandering Man]

My only concern is that my carpenter didn't know about bee space.  Those slats he made for me sit directly on top of the top-bars.  I guess that would be okay, but I can't put SHB jails between the top bars, or use a frame feeder if I use the slats.  We'll try it without the slats for a while.  I may end up with comb on the underside of the lid.  I'll miss out one of the advantages of a Long Lang; being able to uncover only a few frames at a time.  Well, 3Reds will miss out on the advantage.

[iddee]

Very nice, but you will have the lid locked down with comb and honey in the inner part of it. Cut a piece of heavy canvas to act as an inner lid before you have a mess you don't want. Tack it to the bottom of the lid.

[neillsayers]

WM,

Very neat. I'll be looking forward to hearing how it works out for ya'll.

[Wandering Man]

The bees are respecting the lid, so far.  They haven't locked it down.  We are using the slats that our carpenter made for us, and that seems to keep them from trying to hang comb on the lid.  This week, we swapped out some of the slats for ones that allowed bee space under them.

The back of the lid had enough space to allow bees to use it as a back entrance.  I didn't want the bees to have too many different places to guard, so I laid down some steel wool. 

The cover he made for the Freeman Beetle trap trays allows water in, so ended up with three trays full of muddy Diatomaceous Earth.  I think I'll tack a bit of canvas to the back rim of the hive and let it drap down over the leaky lid.  That should take care of both problems.

So ...
The above was the hive that I ordered the first of December and was completed in two weeks.

Below is a hive I ordered from a beekeeper who makes and sells hives (not Long Langs) in August, and did not get until Christmas Eve:










There are some things I like on both hives and some things I don't.  There are some things both have wrong with them, but I think I can fix or get fixed.

The bees don't seem to care.  They just want a home.

[Wandering Man]

3Reds had rotator cuff surgery a couple of weeks ago.  What you can't see in the picture above is that we squeezed her arm in the immobilizer into her bee suit.  I remembered to tie off the dangling suit arm before we started working on the bees.

3Reds is very much a "i wanna do it" kinda girl, rather than a "let me watch" girl. 

I had removed the legs from the hive before moving out to our little apiary, and had to put them back on once we had it near the right spot.  It took me a couple of legs before the thought occurred to me that I needed to let 3Reds do some of the assembly.  I thought I could let her fasten the washer and nut on a bolt while I lined up the next leg with the hole in the hive. 

I handed 3Reds the nut, washer and two wrenches and said "here, put this on."  She looked at the wrenches in her hand and gave me a dark look that I couldn't really see because of her veil.  I suspect if it weren't for the veil I'd have holes burned in me somewhere.  But, 3Reds is not the polite silent type, either.  She let me know I had just done a stupid thing, asked me how I expected her to fasten the nut in place with only one hand, and some other things I've blocked from my memory.    

I think I was able to placate her by handing her one wrench, while I took the other in hand and we tightened the nuts together.

[iddee]

I'm betting you don't make that mistake again for awhile.     

[Lburou]

I got quite an education about 'bee space' when I made my horizontal hives.  The second, or revised, horizontal hive is always better than the first go at it.  Still, there isn't much lifting involved, just a frame or two.  I hope you enjoy those new hives and that surgery heals rapidly. 

[Wandering Man]

We now have our third Long Lang:







3Reds can do most everything.  She's still going through PT for her rotator cuff surgery, so she needs me to hold the heavier frames for inspection.  She's looking forward to turning me into the "go-fer".

One problem we have is that the wind will catch the lids and slam them down on you if you're not careful.  3Reds wears a plastic beekeeper's hat under her hood to keep the wind from blowing the veil against her face during inspections.  That hat came in handy earlier this week, keeping her from getting a hard hit on the head.  I've bought some brackets that I'm going to experiment with.  I tried a stick to prop it up, but it ended up splitting the lip of the hive where the rabbit lives when the wind came along yesterday.

The "45" on the sides of the box were a surprise I had added for 3Reds.  We'll be celebrating 45 years of marriage in June.

[neillsayers]

The "45" on the sides of the box were a surprise I had added for 3Reds.  We'll be celebrating 45 years of marriage in June.


Congratulations, you two lovebirds!