Categories
Mississippi

Bee Solid

[Today’s run: 4 miles (Limerock road)]

One of our bee hives was slowly sinking into the mud.  I had not supported it very well.  And a bee hive full of honey probably weighs 200 -300 lbs.  It was tipping to one side.  The bees rely on gravity and careful construction to keep the honey in the comb.  A tipping hive is a bad thing.

So before the season really started warming up we built this little piece of concrete footing.  And we moved the hive over onto a couple of concrete blocks.  It looks really neat and clean.

I can already tell that doing the mowing around this is going to be a lot nicer than the wood box we were using before that had grass growing up on all sides.

The sections of a hive are usually just stacked up without any kind of attachment between  them.  As they are working, the bees glue things together.  When you come back later to take it apart (to get the frames and honey out) you have to use a pry bar to get the sections apart.   What I’m saying is, this stuff is just stacked up.  Concrete blocks, 2×4’s,  hive base (with little entrance opening),  and 4 “supers” (look like boxes but have no top or bottom), then the lid.  The base has screen, so the bees actually can see down into the concrete blocks.