The Cube Hive Makes its Debut

Sorry, I don't have a 'what the yard likes like' pic, I keep forgetting lately.  I've been working on expanding my egg operation to two dozen a day.  Actually, you'd probably be able to see the edge of the chicken yard in such a pic.  I have a movable poultry net fence.  It allows the chickens to eat more bugs and less feed, which is good.

But on to the topic du jour, the Parker Cube Hive.

 Here, you can see the basic form of the hive.  It is intended to be all mediums as a 14 frame medium is about the same comb area as a deep.  A 12 (regular) frame deep is heavy as is, without any bees in it at all.  But all I had was deeps with bees on them, so I had to build a deep to use for transition.  The bottom is a purpose built box, bottom attached, 1.5" hole entrance.  Eventually it will probably have a disc entrance on it for skunks.

The top is a Michael Bush style top, just a piece of plywood (though thicker than he uses) with two shims to elevate one end.  Just for fun, it has a bevelled edge on the front, maybe to keep rain and snow out.  I don't know, I didn't design it that way.  I just happen to have a piece of plywood left over from building my chicken coop and it had an angle on it.

I have two hives made up, two purpose built bottoms, two lids, 6 supers, 1 deep.  The purpose in my mind for this project is to see if placing successive boxes with frames at right angles to each other will have any effect.  I'm also wondering if square boxes will have any effect on cluster size.  A side benefit is that for the same comb area, using boxes with extra frames results in significantly shorter hives.

Here's the entrance.  In it, you can see the bottom end of the PF-120 frames.  They have been trimmed to 1.25" end bars.  I put the older queen of the double queen hive from the previous post in this hive.  If I had to guess, I'd say they are eagerly intending to supersede her again as a number of supersedure cells were under construction.  I should keep an eye on this hive to hopefully be able to divide those queen cells up for new hives.

Behold, the Parker Cube Hive!

A while ago, I decided to build a set of square hives.  Traditional Langstroth hives are 19 7/8" long and 16 1/4" wide.  I think it had something to do with the size of a wine box at the time. 

So I decided to build a hive that was the same length as it was in width.  Inquiring at Beesource, I discovered that this idea was not new and that there are square hives in other countries.  At some point I discovered while building it in Google Sketchup, that three mediums is about 19 7/8" tall.  Presto, three medium hive is a cube hive.  Coincidentally, it's also approximately equal to three deeps depending on how you calculate the comb area.

Some benefits I'm expecting:  more efficient use of wood, shorter hive, more spherical cluster, bigger hives, and the ability to place successive boxes at 90 degrees to one another.

Here's a picture of a deep I made to help make the transition from deeps to mediums.  12 standard frames fit comfortably.

Here are frames trimmed to 1 1/4".  Notice you can fit 14 frames and not be tight at the ends.

Finally, as I mentioned above, three mediums forms a cube.  It's not precisely a cube on the inside due to the thickness of the wood, but that won't stop me from calling it the Parker Cube Hive.  

Hopefully I'll get the opportunity to utilize them fully this year.

A Long Hard Summer and New Developments

Here's the most recent photo...

Business has been good.  I just sold my first two nucs last Saturday.  A gentleman drove up from Texas to purchase some late season nucs.

As you may be able to see in the picture, the grass is green again but it hasn't rained in two weeks.  Here's about the worst it got.

Here, I recorded temperatures of 114.8F and went from June until August without significant rainfall.

Fortunately, the temperatures are far more reasonable than they have often been throughout this warm season.  Since I last posted, I have set up my second outyard at a local organic free range chicken farm.

This pallet is on the bank of a small pond which is often dry.  I put extra bricks on top in case the local goats decide they want to play king of the hill.  With that many bricks, it's quite stable. 

In preparation for the move to mediums, I have been buying equipment that will fit.  As you should know by now, Mann Lake sells 4.95mm (PF-120) plastic frames which look something like this:

You can also see one of the medium division board feeders I bought and am currently using even though they're being used in deep hive body equipment.  In fact, two hives have two each due to the fact that I sold those two nucs.  And one could go even further if one wished.

Here are four feeders in a box just for fun.  That would total about five gallons of syrup if you really wanted to pound it down.  However, the drowning of bees could very well be quite significant.

I also purchased a little batch of Walter Kelley's foundationless medium frames.  As is my custom, I trimmed the end bars to 1 1/4" and as you can see, eleven fit in a box.  The box they are in is a former deep box which I trimmed down after the lower part rotted.  There are five more that I have marked for this same modification.  I did notice that the space between the topbars is pretty small, but I think it's still large enough for small cell bees to fit through, especially after the endbars have been propolized a bit.  In the future, I think I may trim the topbars a little bit so as to maintain a larger beespace.

Here you can see the beveled edge of the Kelley frame.  I was expecting more of a sharper edge, but we'll see how this works.  I have heard good things.

I am going to have to make a financial decision on which direction to go.  These frames are priced a little bit lower than Mann Lake's medium frames (which are standard types, not foundationless).  On the other hand, Mann Lake's frames are clearly superior in quality.  Mann Lake will be getting my business for the PF-120's which I plan to offer at a ratio of about 2:1 to foundationless frames.  Kelley also offers cheaper boxes as well, but I am not sure which direction to go on that either.  But that still may be in the future.  I still have to cycle through all my large cell equipment and systematically sell it as nucs.  10 frames down, 600 to go.

Going into fall, situations surely could be better.  I harvested no honey and many of the hives, in fact all the new ones, are either very low on stores or have none at all.  I am usually against feeding artificial feeds, but in this case, even if I had all the honey I ever produced, it might not be enough to get these hives through.  So I have to feed.  The heavy splitting I did earlier in the season allowed an increase in hives but a massive decrease in honey.  Such are Arkansas' seasons.  I am considering the fact that in the long run, it may be far more profitable to produce nucs rather than honey.  We shall see.  Until then, I need to get these bees through the winter.  Lately, every week I have been taking two and now three five gallon buckets filled with four gallons of 3:2 sugar syrup to the yards.  That's $15 a bucket.  No bueno.  Soon, I'll fill the feeders up with granulated sugar as the bees will stop taking syrup.  Then, it will be up to them.  Gotta keep a little survivorship in there.

Don't forget to check in at parkerfarms.biz from time to time as I continue to add content there as well.  Suggestions are always welcome.  Visit beesource.com where I am the moderator of the Treatment-Free Beekeeping section of the forum as well.

My First Outyard

Yesterday, I moved my first hives away from the home yard.  Here's what the yard looked like mid-move.

I started by designing and building a pallet to hold my hives.  I used the design of my bottom boards and my ten frame deep nucs as a center piece.

The result is a very sturdy and strong pallet of which two fit in the back of my pickup.

And here's the result in the field. 

The hives went to my church's farm, called "The Farm" which provides food to subscription holders and those subscriptions also pay for food for the economically disadvantaged.  So, I'm essentially treating it like a free pollination job.

I've discovered that the flat dark green paint I used to paint those boxes makes the hives way too hot, so I've begun switching them out.  While this is probably only a problem this time of year when it has been over 105 just about every day at my home for the past two weeks, I don't want to put the bees at a big disadvantage.

To Do:  Need to repaint the green hives. 

Thinking about making a slow switch to medium boxes.  I have 68 deeps which is the equivalent of approximately 100 mediums.  If I start selling nucs, it will be easy to sell anything away, and replace deeps with mediums in the process.  I don't need to get rid of the boxes, they can be trimmed, but it is a little harder to trim the frames, especially those with good comb still in them.  I think it can be done pretty well in a progressive fashion, as I sell 5-frame nucs.  All I need to do is sell two nucs, trim one box, buy eleven new frames.  Eventually I'll have nothing but mediums left.  But that means I'll have to sell about 130 nucs.  Could take a few years.

Also, learning about how to do combs.  As I now trim all new end bars to 1 1/4", I can fit eleven frames to a box.  So I do that for three deeps or five mediums, then above that place nine frames to a box for honey storage.  I'm also probably going to switch to Michael Bush's frame system where he uses mostly PF-120's and the rest foundationless.  The only difference is, I trim the endbars, which was his idea, but with is volume he hasn't taken the time to do it on all the plastic frames.

A Lot of New Stuff

Today's picture:

This last week, I have done quite a few things.
First, I ordered some Mann Lake PF-105's.

These are black plastic frames with a cell size of about 4.95mm.

I trimmed the end bars from almost 1 3/8"

To about 1 1/4".

This for what could be called "Narrow Frame Beekeeping."  Michael Bush's website explains it here.  The basic idea is that with smaller cells, naturally, the space between the combs will also be smaller.  Also, you can fit 11 frames in a 10 frame box, or nine frames in an eight frame box.

So, today, I was out working the bees to try to catch up the behinders and make the first split of the year.  I finally found the queen in the big hive who I was unable to find before.  Here she is.  She is a biggun.

I took her and about four frames of brood and placed them in my new 10 frame nuc design.  It's a ten frame sized box that is about 3/8" deeper than normal to account for bee space under the frames.  It has a disc entrance which can be closed in case of skunk predation or to be moved or whatever.

I had added some foundationless frames a week ago as an experiment.  Here is one of those frames after one week.  That is 100% drone comb by the way, and it already has eggs in it.

Here are some five frame nucs I made from plywood.  They are inexpensive and I added the disc entrances for an added measure of utility.  They could be used to catch swarms, as bait hives, as nucs in the yard, or to sell.  They are made from 15/32" plywood and one sheet can make about four and change.

So, now for the rest of the month and into next month, I am working to get enough brood to start the four new hives that will be made from the four queens coming in the mail in the latter half of May.  I hope these bees can explode and reach critical mass in time.  The skunk predation is still reverberating through the months.  Depending on conditions, the new queens may be starting with a very minimal population of bees.