Maine Beeyard 1

[Ann]

We went up to Tony's Bees in Buckfield, Maine last weekend to pick up the three hives for our Maine beeyard. They are NWCs, and we're hoping they'll overwinter better than bees from the south. There were lots of people picking up bees that evening, here is a shot of a few of the boxes waiting for pickup. Our mediums are the two green ones you can see in the lower left:



In the truck and ready to go:



At home, behind the garage, Greg had prepared the area where we were going to put the bees. My mother had this thick landscape cloth for us to use (professional grade, not the stuff from Home Desperate - it'll never rip, nor will anything grow through it):



We dovered it with a thick layer of stone dust. Doesn't matter if it spreads out a bit, we've got plenty more!



See next post for finished product (only four pictures allowed per post)

[Ann]

Here is the full installation:



Here's Greg (aka woodchopper on this forum) filling the last feeder:



And here's the happy beek with his finished product:

[williamandlea]

I love the set up. Wish mine was that nice. Best of luck to you and the bees.

[Budster]

Nice looking bee area.

[nursebee]

Rock on! Great pics and set up.

[sistone]

Very tidy, hopefully mine will look as good soon.

What do you think of the type of feeder I see in the picture. Rossman sells them and says the syrup always goes to the edges so it's available to the bees. Do you find this so?

[Ann]

Yes, the feed goes to the edges, and the bees don't drown, and you can open the top to feed the bees without them flying all around, but I will say some of them don't fit as tightly as they could, so you end up with top entrances - both front and back - which some might think is a good thing, however on new packages when the temps don't get out of the low forties (and that's the high temp!) for over three weeks it's a little disconcerting (for the bees too, I'll bet!). When it got warmer out the plastic settled down and they fit better. Long story short I like them better than the wooden ones, but they've still got room for improvement.

We lost one package out of four (down here at our southern yard) while I don't blame the feeders specifically I do wish we'd put something different on to feed them. Live and learn.

[newbee 101]

Awsome setup! Nice pics!

[Jeffzhear]

Thanks for sharing; it's nice to see how others set their yards up...

[Jesus_the_only_way]

Great idea with the ground cover. I used an old pool cover when I installed my initial hives. I have since spread out and gotten lazy now I just wait till dusk and weedeat around them.
Just curious what the fencing is for in particular?
Thanks for posting the pics. That sure is a killer looking setup.
Tom

[Ann]

Great idea with the ground cover. I used an old pool cover when I installed my initial hives. I have since spread out and gotten lazy now I just wait till dusk and weedeat around them.
Just curious what the fencing is for in particular?
Thanks for posting the pics. That sure is a killer looking setup.
Tom

There are black bears in the area, we've never seen one ourselves, but since we're not there full time Greg wanted to make sure they got a good snoutful if they ever tried to get at our girls. We've also got raccoons that are almost the size of the bears! He's going to make it higher, we ran out of the connectors.

[woodchopper]

There are black bears in the area, we've never seen one ourselves, but since we're not there full time Greg wanted to make sure they got a good snoutful if they ever tried to get at our girls. We've also got raccoons that are almost the size of the bears! He's going to make it higher, we ran out of the connectors.

Adding to Ann's post: Because we live on a Pine Barren we have ALOT of blueberries on our property. Skunks are thick in numbers when the blueberries are ripe. The raccoons we've seen are big enough to rip the screen off a bottomboard so we are worried about them as well. Later on today we'll have to electric fence turned on and we'll be able to sleep at night knowing our girls are somewhat safer. Between the fence charger and using aluminum wire we were told that fence combination will put out quite a jolt to anyone or anything that touches it. The charger is suppose to be cheap to operate and has a three year warrantee.

[Barry Digman]

Ya just gotta make sure you have enough juice....

(WARNING!!! GRAPHIC PHOTO OF VERY DEAD BEAR)


http://s29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...ectricbear.jpg

[sistone]

that to make your fence effective against bears, you'll need to bait the fence. That way they will get zapped on the nose and will leave your bees alone.

[sistone]

[QUOTE=Ann;236284]Yes, the feed goes to the edges, and the bees don't drown, and you can open the top to feed the bees without them flying all around, but I will say some of them don't fit as tightly as they could, so you end up with top entrances - both front and back - which some might think is a good thing, however on new packages when the temps don't get out of the low forties (and that's the high temp!) for over three weeks it's a little disconcerting (for the bees too, I'll bet!). When it got warmer out the plastic settled down and they fit better. Long story short I like them better than the wooden ones, but they've still got room for improvement.

Mine is wood and I added screen so they could climb down to the syrup. The cover didn't fit as well as I'd like as bees were also able to get to the syrup that way and some drown. Kind of counter productive to lose bees that way. I'll pick up a couple and adding them on warmer days so they can get a better shape.

[MountainCamp]

Nice set up and good luck with bees.

>>What's the fence for? - Kids!

Actually, I assume (which may get me in trouble) the fence is for bears.

I would make a few suggestions if in fact the fence is for bears, vs. kids, skunks, and coons.

Move the hives back from the front and left side of the fence line. I have had bears reach over a low fence and push at the hives. He would be able to push the left side hive over and get at it. It might also take the fence down. Then the other hives are his as well.

I would also add another strand or two higher on the posts, at least on 3 sides, if the fence was set up for stepping over to get in. He will use the corner 4x’s to lean on when he is reaching in.

I would also bait the fence at snout level. This is the first point of interest to him and his first lesson in beekeeping.

Good luck,

[MountainCamp]

Sorry, missed page 2 before I posted above.

I would also bait for the coons and skunks at their level. You want to draw everyone to the hot wire and make it effective.

[hummingberd]

way to go Ann! Looks really nice. I'm probably going to use your idea as inspiration for my own bee yard. I only have one colony now, but just wait....
I'll have more soon. I know it!

-K-

[Ann]

Thanx, everyone!

As for moving the hives, I agree, but the power-that-bees (DH) put them there with the thought for room for expansion, so hopefully the baited hot wires will stop anyone from doing much harm. We've heard of bears in Lebanon but we've never seen one in the yard. Raccoons and skunks, definitely, as well as fisher cats, although I don't think we need to worry about them WRT the bees. And yes, another course is going to be added to the top of the fence. We're also going to raise the stone dust at the base.