05-20-2009, 05:00 AM
How does one infuse honey? Just soak the lavender in the honey and then strain it out? That would be an interesting thing to try. I'm kind of planning to make comb honey, but there's always liquid honey around the comb so it would be an interesting combination of lavender honey and non-lavender honey when the comb was cut.
I've got a bit of beekeeping equipment. Two smokers, a custom bee suit (sounds fancier than "home made" don'tcha think?), a hive tool and several traditional Langstroth type hives. Those consist of two brood boxes, two medium supers and four shallow supers. I don't have any extracting equipment so the traditional hives are a bit hard to deal with.
I'm looking into going into top bar hives since those seem a lot easier to work on a low tech level. There's all sorts of oddball lumber around here, I should be able to figure out how to build a top bar hive or two out of what's on hand. The top bar hives are also supposed to be healthier for the bees since they can make the size of comb they want instead of being constrained by the size of the foundation provided in the frames. Apparently smaller bees, which is what they become when they make their own comb from what I've read, have less problems with the varroa mite. Also taking the bottom out of the hive lets any mites cleaned off the bees fall to the ground, so these will be bottomless top bar hives, I think. We will see how they end up. My plan (we will see if it works) is to make a few top bar hives and then put a swarm lure inside and see if bees appear. I've also ordered a swarm trap for another method of bee acquisition.
We are still working on the paperwork on the farm. It may have expanded to one and three quarters of an acre so now there will be more room for experimentation.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
I've got a bit of beekeeping equipment. Two smokers, a custom bee suit (sounds fancier than "home made" don'tcha think?), a hive tool and several traditional Langstroth type hives. Those consist of two brood boxes, two medium supers and four shallow supers. I don't have any extracting equipment so the traditional hives are a bit hard to deal with.
I'm looking into going into top bar hives since those seem a lot easier to work on a low tech level. There's all sorts of oddball lumber around here, I should be able to figure out how to build a top bar hive or two out of what's on hand. The top bar hives are also supposed to be healthier for the bees since they can make the size of comb they want instead of being constrained by the size of the foundation provided in the frames. Apparently smaller bees, which is what they become when they make their own comb from what I've read, have less problems with the varroa mite. Also taking the bottom out of the hive lets any mites cleaned off the bees fall to the ground, so these will be bottomless top bar hives, I think. We will see how they end up. My plan (we will see if it works) is to make a few top bar hives and then put a swarm lure inside and see if bees appear. I've also ordered a swarm trap for another method of bee acquisition.
We are still working on the paperwork on the farm. It may have expanded to one and three quarters of an acre so now there will be more room for experimentation.
Kurt Wilson
Kurt Wilson