Day 36: Moving hives Part I

This morning as I walked up to the kitchen, I found Agape cleaning up the small hives and comb savers that we had picked up yesterday from Mr. Hill.They had been in storage and needed a deep clean. Agape scrubbed all the comb savers and washed them, and I helped in re-threading a lot of them. I even got to take one to bring home with me!
You can see the 2 foot hives resting against the wall, as well as their covers:

 The pile of comb savers, I guess you can never have too many. They are an absolute necessity when comb suddenly breaks:

Comb savers are definitely an item that a top-bar beekeeper should always carry when going to the apiary. Any bee book will tell you that there are "essential tools" that you should carry in a bucket with you. Mine (and my Dad's) include: 2+ hive tools, matches, smoker fuel, bee brush, fire extinguisher. Here in Jamaica it has pretty much been the same: knife, smoker fuel, lighter. I would now add comb saver, though breakages are rare here because of the hive dimensions.

Moving hives Part I

We began the process for moving two hives that are on the property down the road. These are the two hives that survived the hurricane but were knocked over by goats. I am glad to add the skill of moving hives to my knowledge arsenal. I am getting really excited about going back home with all of the things I have learned about top-bar beekeeping. The hands-on experience has been the most valuable by far. Anyways, we loaded up two 2-foot hives (top-bar hives that are 2 feet long) into the car and went to the site, baby on board.

We placed the small hive on the stand right next to the hive we were working on, empty and ready to go. We smoked both on-site hives and removed the cover on just one.  We took off the extra top bars in back until we reached comb. Then, we briefly inspected the comb to assess the hive and placed the bars with comb into the small hive. Kwao started from the front and found the queen (very large and more orange in color) so we were sure she was there, though there were signs of eggs as well. Once all the combed bars were in the small hive, the larger original hive was quickly moved away off the stand. The small hive was scooted to where the original hive was with the entrance in the exact same place and direction of the original (very important). Then, Kwao knocked all the bees that were still in the original hive to one side and dumped them into the small hive. We repeated the process with the other hive. We loaded up the two big hives, now empty, and trucked them away. The small hives, in the same place the original hives were, will stay there until all the bees go inside. We can go back and pick them up any time to move them. I'm looking forward to see how they are moved off-site.

When we got back we unloaded the empty hives and reorganized the hive storage area. It is a picnic bench out in the yard. We balanced the two empty hives on the bench, with three nukes on top. We had to put a shim under each in order to tilt them forward. Otherwise, rain would collect inside. The two hives that I built/helped build we placed upside down on the bench because they do not have covers yet (there is not enough tin to build them yet). All of the comb savers we placed inside the hives for storage.

 Sideview:

I am reading five bee books right now including:
Queen Rearing Essentials by Lawrence John Conner
Increase Essentials ibid
Bee photos by Rose-Lynn Fisher (microscopic pictures of bee body parts--amazingly beautiful!)
Basic Health Publications User's Guide to Propolis, Royal Jelly, Honey, and Bee Pollen by C. Leigh Broadhurst, PhD
Also, I finished Les Crowder's video about top-bar beekeeping which was really neat. It is very similar to his book.