Natural Honey Bee Hive with a Nuc of Bees | DIY Gardeners Beehive | DIY Vlog #39

I made a Gardeners Beehive which is a natural beehive for honey bees. Although I didn't film making it I did film trying to get the bees into it.
You would normally leave this beehive in your garden and swarming bees should naturally go into it but we ordered a Nuc of honey bees last year which were ready to collect and thought we'd try them in the new hive.
This hive is not my invention, it is something I have roughly copied from the Gardeners Beehive website gardenersbeehi... so if this works all credit should go to him. His beehive intention has also been featured in Gardeners World magazine in a competition to win one. This competition ended in May 2020 so I have copied a cached page of this competition here webcache.googl...
Enjoy the video and let me know any of your thoughts or questions and please leave them in the comments below.
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[@Beyondact]

I've gone big in flowers and untouched areas to support the local bees. In a few years when its set to suply food enough all year round I'm probably going to get 2 or maybe 3 hives but right now the near by land is too heavily industrially farmed to last all of the year.

[@LCWDIY]

We do plan on adding a few more hives and the front part of the garden, where the pond is, we are leaving to grow wild with flowers etc.

[@raymondsheath7797]

Thanks, very interesting! I find nature seems to know when you're just trying to help.

[@LCWDIY]

Yes they are very interesting to watch and when you know what you're looking at its very clever. Like the bees at the front of the hive fanning there wings hard, when they are moving across, they are actually fanning the queens pheromones so the other bees know where she now is.

[@PaintedLady0510]

This is such a good idea. I'd love to have one or two of these at my allotment. I'm not bothered about the honey as such but to help the new population would be wonderful. I'd have to research loads though as I don't have a clue. I didnt realise the queen lays s new queen and then leaves with half the swarm for example

[@eco-beehive]

Hi there. Fantastic GARDENS BEEHIVE. ( a little credit for me the developer would always be appreciated. ) IF anyone would like to try this please do. But not for commercial gain. So I take the side off the nuc box and just mount the entire box on the side. They will the migrate from the nuc to the GARDENS BEEHIVE with very little disruption. Good job. Ps. How you getting on with the beekeepers?🤔😄

[@LCWDIY]

Hi, I have credited you in the video and put all the links to your pages in the comments, I couldn't take any credit for your design. The hive did far better than we ever thought and they had filled the hive entirely by August, but that's where the trouble started, they swarmed into a neighbours tree. We managed to get them out the tree and into the original nuc without to much hassle, so we now have a Gardeners Beehive and a National Beehive that the new swarm are living in. They are a bit weak though as they swarmed so late in the season and they are now being fed on fondant with pollen to hopefully see them through this winter. Your beehive has plenty of honey and stocks so not so worried about them.

[@eco-beehive]

@@LCWDIY fantastic !! Thanx its really appreciated

[@boxingday11]

Thanks, very impressive.

[@LCWDIY]

Thank you. Glad you liked it!

[@martynjohnson5380]

I have just watched your video. You were expecting this so here goes. This is not an attack, see it as help please. 1 you should not really be doing this to bees without some formal training. You know very little about beekeeping. 2 How are you going to deal with disease? Would you know how to recognise a reportable disease and what action you need to take? 3 The "hive" is very close to the public footpath, do you have indemnity insurance? 4 You killed about 15,000 brood as far as we can tell in the unused frames, so well done there. 5 wait till they are queenless and they become aggressive, you'll need beesuits then! (and your neighbours will love you). I could go on but feel I've made my point. Good luck

[@LCWDIY]

Yes I totally agree with you. I bet you weren't expecting that! Please could you tell this to Gardeners Beehive (He builds and sells these designs and has a KZbin channel). All the broad ended up in the hive, so not sure where you got the 15,000 from. You didn't see everything in the video.. The bees did very well, too well, and swarmed into our neighbours tree after 3 months as the hive was too full. That was in August but I managed to put them in a new hive and they survived over the winter, with me feeding them, as a very small colony. We now have 2 national hives of bees and 2 healthy queen's. We thought we had learnt a lot about bees before buying them but we now have learnt a lot more which is why they are now in proper hives. We haven't got them to make and sell honey so don't need indemnity insurance, they keep 90% of the honey they make and we just take a frame for ourselves and family. I didn't take this as an attack, we have learnt a lot more now and agree with you. Thanks.

[@martynjohnson5380]

@@LCWDIY Hi Lee, that's really good news, I'm very pleased for you both. It may sound strange but I felt I needed to say something to you, not to have a go as I'm not like that but to offer guidance. Iz and I have been bee keeping for 6 seasons now and still make mistakes and learn each time we're in the hives. She just made a split today for the first time, as the hive concerned was boiling over and about to swarm. I'd put a super on the hives if I were you as if the weather picks up you'll be surprised how much honey they will make. This will also reduce the likelihood of swarming. If we can be of any help in the future, please feel free to contact us. We're on Facebook if you want to contact us off here. Regards Martyn & Izzy (Johnson).

[@LCWDIY]

@@martynjohnson5380 Hi Martyn, yes the hive we bought came with 2 supers each. The hive that I dismantled {and yes I got stung several times doing it} has already built out half the super as they expanded very quickly and the comb from the old box filled the broad box and some of the super {showed that the Gardener's Beehive wasn't really big enough anyway}. I will be letting them keep the broad and 1 super box for themselves and then adding the queen excluder and 2nd super for us to take some honey. The only thing that concerns me now is the life expectancy of the first queen. When we got the nuc the queen had a white spot which I take as born in 2016 so not sure if she only has a year or 2 left to live. I know if I see a new queen cell to remove it as I don't want them to swarm but what happens if she dies and they end up queen less if I have remove the queen cells. Thanks for you input, I might do an update video on how the Gardener's Beehive isn't a good idea. He advertises that people can even put these on their balconies in blocks of flats. That would be a nightmare if they swarmed. I can't believe that they were featured in a Gardener's World competition to win one.

[@martynjohnson5380]

@@LCWDIY Hi Lee, if she is 5 years old (which I doubt) she is doing very well. Make sure you still have a queen before you destroy all Q cells (I have fallen foul of that!) Keep looking for Q cells and destroy all except the best one, especially if they are close to the top of the frame. These will be supersedure cells and the girls are going to replace the old queen. Cells at the bottom are swarm and anywhere else emergency cells. You can always split the hive with a cell if you want to increase your hives. I would buy yourself a book off eBay or Amazon, dummies guide to bee keeping, Haynes Bee manual are both good. Always handy to have a reference book. Martyn