Why bees?

I sort of jumps into the middle of the story with my very first post, and decided I should backtrack a bit and fill in the background story.  The two top questions about that background would probably be “Why bees?” and “Why top-bar hives?”.  This post will try tackle the first question.

I am guessing that I am the only person who can say that I got into beekeeping because of reading about artificial intelligence.  Its a bit of a roundabout way to get there, but thats how my mind works some times.  It all started with me reading slashdot, something I often do.  There was an article about trying to use social insects as a model for artificial intelligences in machines.  Instead of trying to make a “smart”robot, you just make a “swarm” of simple robots.  Each alone follows very simple rules, and communicates what it has done to the group.  As a group however complex decisions can be made.  The examples used to explain this were ants finding the best paths between the nest and a food source and a swarm of honeybees choosing a new hive site.  I won’t go into the details here, you can find lots of info on both by searching on google.  I found the topic on the bees interesting and wanted to know more about swarms.  This lead to more and more reading that moved into honeybee biology and beekeeping.  I don’t know what would have happened if I had decided to try and found more info on ants.  Would I be building and ant farm now?

I really can’t blame all this obsession on a random article on slashdot.  I’ve always been interested in science and nature.  Understanding how things work fascinates me.  On top of that, as I have gotten older I have become more and more interested in agriculture.  Growing or producing things seems to have a attraction for me.  I don’t want to be a farmer, but but being a gentleman farmer sound good.    I just need to work out the “wealth or income” part.  Bees are a fascinatingly complex and wonderful species that appealed to my curiosity.  On top of that they also provide the connection with the earth and our environment that I like about growing things.  The mix seemed irresistible.  It seemed like a perfect hobby.  Interesting and useful.

Is there something wrong me when a hobby seems more interesting because it includes 100,000 stinging insects?

Preliminary hive plans

First off, my blog’s look is still generic. I was hoping to make it prettier before I started making entries, but oh well. I know some HTML, but have to learn more about CSS before I can customize the template for my blog. If anyone is actually reading this, you will have to put up with the basic design until I get around to customizing it. I did some customization, and like the look now. Thank you to everyone who puts photos on Flickr under a Creative Commons license!

I have gone through a whole bunch of plans for how I want to build my top-bar hive . I have probably spent too much time fiddling. It gave me something to do this winter while I still didn’t have bees though. Now that the time for getting my bees is approaching, I have to finalize my plans and actually get the things built. (I pick up my two 3 lbs. packages April 21 from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm)

I am calling this model version 0.8 (its still in beta ) Its not the simplest design, but I don’t mind a little more work in construction. Right now I only plan on making two, so having them a little more complicated is not a problem. I am sure some time in the future I will want to make more, but I assume by then I will want to make a bunch of changes to the design. I have tried to keep them reasonably economical though.

Some of the design aspects are for functional reasons, some for aesthetic purposes. I wanted a screened bottom (with removable board) for mite drops and ventilation. I originally wanted to keep my top-bars 19″ so they could fit in Langstroth hives, but gave that up so that I could have a larger volume. I like the Kenyan style sides (sloped) partly for function, but mostly for looks. The sloped roof has mixed reasons too (better looking and weathering). Amid all this, I wanted to be able to make my two hives using 1 sheet of 3/4 ” plywood, 1 sheet of panel board (4′ x 8′), and 2×4’s. The plywood would be the main body of the hive, the panel board for the roof and removable bottom board, and 2×4’s for the legs, frame of the roof, and top-bars (ripped and cut to size). In addition, the roof will be covered (wrapped) with aluminum flashing that I found in rolls 10′ x 20″. I found it in the roofing section and though it adds a little to the cost, its not to bad and I like it for good weather proofing of the roof.

I used Google Sketchup (free) to do the design, and once I finalize it I plan on putting the full design here (and possibly in their 3D warehouse). It was useful for planing it out, and has all the measurements for when I build it. I really liked to be able to make sure I liked how it all fit together and how it looked.