So, I'm currently in the process of thinking through a potential cockomamie scheme. My dad was working on chainsawing some downed trees in one of our pastures, and he discovered a tree with a significantly sized hollow cavity in the center. One piece is about 50 inches long and the other is 16.5 inches and inside is a 6 in. diameter hollow. The logs themselves are around 8-10 inches in diameter, and the bigger log has a section that protrudes out where a significantly sized limb used to be, but it's only open at the top and bottom. My calculations put the cavity volume at around 31 L, so pretty close to the preferred 40 L volume that Dr. Seeley recommends for a swarm trap.
I'm thinking that I could potentially make a traditional Appalachian bee gum out of this thing. It's pretty tall and skinny, but I could probably put a cross of sticks somewhere in the middle of the log for a second comb attachment point, close up the top and bottom, drill an entrance hole in it, and strap it to a tree to keep it off the ground. I'm a little bit leery of a colony being able to store enough honey to overwinter in it, so I probably would never harvest from it. I could just set it up basically as a swarm trap, or I could catch a swarm and hive them into it (I actually have a swarm on a branch right now, but I don't know if I'll be able to get this set up in time to put them in it). The point of this essentially would just be a heritage experiment.
Does anyone have any experience with bee gums, log hives, or the like? Any concerns or considerations that I'm not thinking of that would convince me this is a bad idea?
