Apidea Mating Hive

[Jonathan Hofer]

Hello, does anyone know of a local (Canada or USA) distributor of the Apidea mating hive?

http://www.swienty.com/dyn/DynamiskG...0l.jpg&max=500


I know that Swienty sells it, but they're in Europe.


Thanks

Jonathan

[Velbert]

Look at

http://www.beeworks.com


These are top bar type I like them very much 4 frame

[jean-marc]

Jonathan:

Just call the Co-op they can get them in via Mann Lake. They are not too expensive event for a small number of them. 1 queen will pay for the out of pocket expense of 1 mating nuc. Evidently there are other costs, but they are affordable in my opinion. The part that I like the best is it does not cost awhole bunch in terms of bees to stock these mini-nucs. That is by far the greatest advantage of these types of hives.

Jean-Marc

[sierrabees]

I bought ten of these from Mann Lake last year. I've had a lot of trouble getting comb built out but I found that I can fasten three mini frames to a standard top bar using rubber bands on the ends of each frame, and put them in to the honey super over a strong hive. Since the frames have no bottom, it is usually necessissary to cut the comb off the bottom of the center mini frame by the time they get the outer ones drawn out. I got them late in the season so I only was able to get two up and running this season, and that was by taking the drawn comb from the best frame out of three from all the frames of six different mini's. If you can get the comb started early in the spring when the bees first start building comb it should be easy to have them in operation the same season.

[bleta12]

I use Apidea, some from Man Lake and Bee Works in Canada. From these I like better the Bee Works because has more room.
I also build 4 plenty of 4 way half frames which I think are superior to anything else.

Gilman