Homestead Beekeeping: Installing Bees In a Homemade Top Bar Hive

hey guys welcome back to the simple
ground homestead as you can tell I have
donned my bee suit and I'm having my
first experience with bees. I think that
bees are a great part of the landscape,
you know, they're a very important part
of the ecosystem they're very important
when it comes to you know pollination
and life cycle and so on you know
they're kind of declining kind of an
important thing for those of us who can
to raise pollinators you know but it's
also important for the life cycle of a
homesteader you know a great source of
sugar... So anyway all of those things
combined I decided to take the plunge
and I feel like I'm just jumping off a
cliff into something I don't really know
and understand and I'm doing it the best
I can but I'm trying to make it
interesting and applicable to you guys
as well, and the way I want to do that is
to compare a top bar hive... as cheap
as something you can actually
get... and the flow hive which is probably
as much money as I know how to spend on
on bee hive and so today we're going to
see the inexpensive version
This is my hive... I built this hive with about 35 to 40
dollars worth of wood plus some scraps
that were from my build project and you
can tell it's a little dirty a little
scrappy but you know it's going to do
the job for dollars worth of paint on
the outside to protect it and I built a
nice little box lid it covered it with
some leftover material that was used to
cover our bundles of wood and I'm using
a box of bees instead of a NUC of
course a NUC isn't meant to fit in a
hive shaped like this but it's also
usually a cheaper option so in the end
I'm hoping to give beginners that
taste of what it is for somebody who's
new and doesn't have any be experience
to try the cheapest option versus the
most expensive option and we'll see kind
of how it goes
well watch me install my box of bees and
we'll go from there
all right that seems to be working all
right that was my Bee feeder just a Mason Jar
with a few holes in the lid
sugar syrup and I set it up on a couple
scraps of wood there just need to make
sure all my top bars are in place and
everything's covered up before I
install the bees...
so I have here a top bar and I've
attached a piece of quarter round on the
face of it and a little bit of honey I
was recommended beeswax or honey bees
wax first didn't have that so honey it is
I'm really quite lost .... if it's a good
idea or not I have no clue but that's
the way it is and I've started it with
my first nine and the rest of them don't
have one I had some assurances that
that'll do it we'll find out just as
long as I do the right maintenance we'll
see
I'm donning my hood it's a friend said
to me a few times but it's not really
necessary that is suit up for this first
one but it's going to keep me calm I
think so I'm going to do it anyway here
goes
I'm just spraying the bees here with a
little bit of sugar water apparently
this keeps them a little busy calms them
down just a touch my task here is to
remove the Queen make sure she's doing
okay and is alive and well
brings alive
very vigorous that's good
this Queen cage just had a cork wood
plug and I had to install the candy plug
I'm fascinated with this Queen I found
it a little trickier than I expected to
ever crawl in the right spot while I
installed this it's just worried that
she'd come right out so I just watched
her for a minute till she crawled to the
top when as fast as I could
the next job was to fasten the Queen
cage to the top bar
I started this way found out that it
would be in the way so I used a piece of
tape taped it down a little bit lower so
far so good
now comes the moment of truth
who
Oh
what
No
well I went as quickly and as Abele as I
could depending on what I edit out or
whatever I did have my moments of being
a little nervous but for the most part I
did okay I have a few spots that I would
like to pin up or patch up a little bit
but you know my brain has been taught my
entire life to hear these and to be
cautious around them and I don't think
that's something you should change but I
overcame it in the first few minutes
that's nice anyway I might watch these
for a little while as they work their
way into the hive most of the bees are
out of the box
already some of them are in the air hmm
they're trying to make their way up and
above well guys that went really quick
quite painless um could have been worse
I've learned a thing or two about bees
they're still flying around me and I
learned a few things about me thanks for
watching this video of course and I
should say keep your eye open for these
next videos it'll be at least a couple
weeks before I get my nuke or the slow
hype and when I get that I'll install it
do a video on that so just keep your
eyes open for the B series and you know
let's see how this works let's see if
one makes it or if to make it or it's
none make it if if Gardening is green
thumb is this just full and um I don't
know I'm not sure if I'm a good
beekeeper or not if you're new to the
channel it's good to see you welcome
aboard
take a look around we've just recently
moved the Pacific Northwest we're making
a go of building a homestead we're
currently in the middle of building our
house our off-the-grid yurt you can
click around and check out that one it's
been a lot of fun it's been a great
experience and you know if you like what
you see you know the drill give it a
thumbs up subscribe so you can see my
next step you know we really enjoy it
especially the comments thank you guys
for all your awesome comments now
speaking of comments I could see all
kinds of comments from this video and
you know what they're welcome please
send them my way
whether they're critiques or suggestions
or whatever because the purpose of this
video is for the community to learn and
myself so I need to learn I we all know
that I'm the newbie but anybody that
comes to my channel and sees that I made
a horrible mistake should be able to
find it in the comments and that will be
positive for the whole
all new beekeeper community so do it
whether it's happy or whether it's angry
send them my way share it with the world
that's what we're here for comment yep
we want those and until next time thanks
for taking this journey with me on
simple ground so I'm going to drop the
box I'm going to pull out the can we're
going to put the lid well no I'll pull
out the can set it down pull out to
clean make sure most of the fees are off
whatever and I'm going to cover the hole
with my thing bees will come out more
than likely and I forgot one of my steps
that's why I'm doing this this is one of
the important steps in a spray em too

Homestead Beekeeping: Installing Bees In a Homemade Top Bar Hive

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