# Cut-out in Melbourne, FL tiki bar (video)



## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

Not too sure what all to say about it.

The video pretty much speaks for itself:


----------



## jimsteelejr (Sep 21, 2012)

Your bee vac looked to be a lot stronger that the one we use. We always worry that too much suction would damage the bees. Have you ever had that problem


----------



## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

jimsteelejr said:


> Your bee vac looked to be a lot stronger that the one we use. We always worry that too much suction would damage the bees. Have you ever had that problem


 That's a great question.

In my opinion, my vac doesn't have quite enough suction, lol. But for the most part it's very effective.

The kill-rate is extremely low. In fact, I rarely see any dead bees after I'm done. 

I also spray sugar water on them through the screening to cool them down and keep them calm and happy.


----------



## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

Must have been a late swarm. That nice new pretty white comb.


----------



## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

That couldn't have been there more than two weeks before you removed them. Good job.


----------



## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

Thanks, Mr Beeman.

I inspected them again yesterday and confirmed that the new queen I installed was there.

Their population is on the small side, so I'm hoping this new queen is getting busy enough to pull them through.


----------



## marshmasterpat (Jun 26, 2013)

PatBeek - Good job but mainly love the great ideas I saw that are not mentioned. 

How about the plastic barrel as a hive body. That looked to be a 55 gal barrel, just split and using the bung as a reducer. LOL - I would have never thought of something like that. Can be fairly cheap in some locations that have access to clean food grade barrels. 

Also, looked like 1/2 inch or larger hardware cloth used to hold comb in place to the top bar. Am I correct? And if so, how to you remove it later or do you just not worry about it. 

Thanks for sharing


----------



## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

marshmasterpat said:


> PatBeek - Good job but mainly love the great ideas I saw that are not mentioned.
> 
> How about the plastic barrel as a hive body. That looked to be a 55 gal barrel, just split and using the bung as a reducer. LOL - I would have never thought of something like that. Can be fairly cheap in some locations that have access to clean food grade barrels.


First off, thanks so much for the kind words. Doing cut-outs ain't easy. Even a beginner like me has to lots of studying and grow a set of you-know-what to even begin thinking about doing these. It can get real ugly real quick depending on the situation.

Regarding the barrel hive, it's the first time I've installed any bees in my barrel hives, and I've built three of them so far.

Here are some photos. And no. the idea isn't mine. There have been several threads about the hives previously.
















































marshmasterpat said:


> Also, looked like 1/2 inch or larger hardware cloth used to hold comb in place to the top bar. Am I correct? And if so, how to you remove it later or do you just not worry about it.
> 
> Thanks for sharing


Yes, that is half-inch hardware cloth. It works wonderfully in the context of a top-bar hive, but I'm not gonna lie, if I ever ramp-up my operation of doing cut-outs, I will definitely consider Lang nucs and Lang mediums. It would make life so much easier to get the bees in, get the comb in, seal-up the hive to bring them home, etc and so-forth. Besides, rubber bands are a lot cheaper than hardware cloth, and easier to install.

After watching most all of JP The Beeman videos, I just can't see doing what he does with top-bar hive equipment....at least for removals. I still love top-bar hives otherwise.

Here's JP's youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/JPthebeeman/videos?shelf_index=0&view=0&sort=dd

But I do not worry about removing the hardware cloth unless it's just obnoxiously reaching out to the far sides of the comb. I've since learned to make the hardware cloth attachments much smaller and still be effective. But they have their inherent flaws also. But probably the best answer for top-bar hive removals.

.


----------

