Type One Beekeeping Decision-making

I have been reading and listening to podcasts about beekeeping now for several weeks.  The podcast I have found most useful was Craig's the Organically Managed Beekeeping Podcast and Forums.  This post summarizes some of what I have learned, and explains why I am heading in the direction of natural beekeeping.  Please bear in mind that I am a total novice with no beekeeping experience whatsoever. Take these thoughts from one just sticking his toe in the beekeeping water.

The Type of Hive

From my research, I have learned that there are several dramatically different styles of hives.  Which style you choose determines the mechanics of taking care of the bees.  Depending on your choice, many beekeeping skills and practices are dissimilar.

The Langstroth Hive is the the predominant type in the United States.  Commercial beekeeping practices in the past 100 years gravitated to Langstroff Hives.   Those hives are designed to maximize honey production.  With the use of mechanical extractors, the honey harvest can be streamlined and made more efficient.  Langs use frames so that bees do not need to build their own comb.  The theory is that the bees can go right to work inside the Lang frames and that will increase production.

One advantage of Langs is that you have standardization.  Most beekeepers in America use Langs so the hive equipment is readily available.  Also, you have more mentors about with experience.  If you join a local beekeeping club, you will meet mostly people working Langstroth hives.

On the other hand, an older style of beekeeping is the more-natural style, top bar hives.  This top bar beekeeping practice forces the bees to build their own comb.  The bees build comb down from the top bars.  With the top bar style, extractors are not generally used to harvest honey.  The general consensus is that the honey harvest using top bar beekeeping is smaller.

One advantage of the top bar style of beekeeping is that the costs to build a hive are lower.  Primarily, this is because you do not need the expense of frames (which last only two or three years).  Also, mechanical extractors, which are expensive, are not used to harvest.  Instead, top bar beekeepers use a technique called crush and strain.

There are several types of top bar beehives.  The most common types are the Kenyan and Tanzanian top bar hives. Both of these type hives (which are shaped differently) are horizontal top bar hives.  The bees create comb in half the top bar hive. As the hive grows, the beekeeper removes some wood to open up the other parts of the hive.

A disadvantage with horizontal top bar hives arises when the beekeeper is not diligent in checking on the bees.  Remember the bees build their own comb.  If the beekeeper is not diligent in directing the build, you can get something called crazy comb.  This makes harvesting honey quite problematic.

Another top bar hive is the Warre' Hive.  This is a vertical top bar hive.  It was conceived by a French researcher named Abbe' Warre' who in 1948 wrote a 12th edition of Beekeeping for All.  In this book, which is full of research about bees in general, Warre' describes in detail how to build The People's Hive, which is what he called the vertical top bar hive.

The Warre' Hive has an advantage over other top bar hives in that there is less management needed from the beekeeper.  Additionally, the building of comb vertically is more naturally akin to what bees would do in the wild.  Thus, the top bar hive seeks to manipulate the bees to encourage horizontal development of comb.  This manipulation is not unlike the Langstroth effort to force bees to build hives using the uniform, pre-made frames.

The Style of Beekeeping

A second consideration with regard to beekeeping is how the beekeeper intends to protect the bees from pests.

There are many critters that can attack a hive and cause it damage.  These include mites, beetles, and mice.  Many American beekeepers now use chemicals to combat these pests.  They have been told by the chemical companies that these chemicals are effective and perfectly safe.

However, you have to make up your own mind about whether you believe the research, including research of government.  I personally consider it mostly propaganda.

Therefore, my style gravitates to natural beekeeping. There are a minority of beekeepers who do not treat their hives with chemicals.  They use genetics to breed bees strong enough to naturally defeat the preditors.  Some use essential oils to help the bees.  Some do not.

The selective breeding and use of natural selection has allowed some natural beekeepers to breed a smaller bee.  This bee is called the "small cell" bee.  In theory, a small cell bee is better able to defeat some of the mites.

The small cell bee is also the more historically natural bee.  About 100 years ago, people began selectively breeding a larger bee.  The small cell bee is a bee that is decreasing in size, rebounding to the size of its historical ancestror.

Conclusion

I am making Type 1 decisions here.  They are consistent with sustainable practices.  They are consistent with principles of permaculture.  

Earthworks Design and Water Conservation Drawing

The drawing above shows our planning for installing three cisterns, and building earthworks, two rain gardens, and a pond.  The drawing also indicates the location of water slowing devices located along a ditch forming down the south side of our gravel driveway.  The contour runs generally southward.  The house is located at the top of the hill.

According to the Technical Guidance: Stormwater Treatment Credit for Rainwater Harvesting, we will need cisterns about the house capable of handling 3,000 gallons of 24-hour water flow (1 year).  This is based on government's 1 Year 24 Hour Storm Rainfall in Tryon, 3.93 inches. (See National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States Dept. of Commerce, National Weather Service, NOAA ATLAS 14 POINT PRECIPITATION FREQUENCY ESTIMATES: (Tryon, North Carolina, US (31-8744)).

My calculations are located at this link.

Art Ludwig on Water Storage

Started the book Water Storage, Tanks, Cisterns, Auqifers, and Ponds, Art Ludwig (Oasis Design May 30, 2005).  

The book discusses general design principles for construction and use water systems on your land.  I haven't finished reading the book yet, but it is full of detailed drawings and suggestions for avoiding common mistakes.  It has a good analysis of how to choose the best system for your homestead, helping to decide the kinds of storage to use, be it tanks, groundwater, or ponds.

Rough pre-spring garden plan

Working on a rough annual garden plan for next spring.

The image to the left shows my general plan.  It includes three trellis systems for growing tomatoes.   There might be some other vegitables mixed there.  Maybe cucumber and basil growing in those same beds.

My garlic was planted in the fall.  Still have to figure out what herbs or vegitables will  go into the beds.  The beds will go roughly in the area of the green. The yellow area represents pathways.

Emergency Power: Planning Battery Backup System

Here you are reading a blog post by a person who is a total novice when it comes to electricity.  To create a battery backup system for our homestead there is a certain level of learning that has to take place before it can happen.

The first thing I did before I began even planning the project was to buy Steven Harris's Battery Bank Videos.  You can find these at the link here in this paragraph, and below with the engineering details.

After watching Steven's first video, I am leaning toward buying the submerged, lead-acid, golf cart batter for my bank.  However, I still need to figure out how many I am going to need.  So I will need to watch video two (how to make one) before proceeding further.

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Just finished video two.  Very good practical information in that video for DIY.

I am still leaning toward the golf cart style battery backup system.  I downloaded both videos to my hard drive.  In case of power failure, if I can get the computer running with my generator, I will be able to review them.  Of course, the idea is to get set up first so things are less chaotic in the time of stress.

Research

1. http://batteryuniversity.com
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_(electricity)
3. http://www.battery1234.com
4. http://www.solar1234.com/

Garden Journal

Experienced gardeners tell you that you should keep a garden journal. They say that you can go back and figure out mistakes or patterns when stuff happens in the garden . . . good and bad. That helps you keep a better garden.

Following that advice, I started a garden journal online one a few months ago.  Really, its been a stumbling effort.  I've already made some key omissions.  Like when I failed to record the first frost dates of the season last month.  The journal so far is only organized by chronological post date.  That makes it hard to see patterns.  This problem may be mitigated by using Labels or keywords so one can use to sort the blog posts.   

Here are some of the concepts that ought to be included in an effective garden journal.  

• Weather, including the frost and heat dates.  

Valuable and necessary information for any less cold tolerant plants.  Not only should you write about historical information that actually happens, but you ought to be thinking about the first and last frost dates, and the heat stretches, as they approach so you can watch and observe their affects.  Record rainfall, wind, and temperature patterns.  Analyze the affects of the energies in your climate.  Write about what happens to plants in the peak heat of summer?

• To Do lists.

Back in the Navy we called it stayinig ahead of the airplane.  Give yourself some to do lists ahead of time so you are not caught with your pants down. Pay attention to dates.  Incorporate your calendar into your planning so you are reminding yourself of the deadlines.  Gardening seems much about managing deadlines and time lines.  

Figure out when your plants need to be pruned, divided, or moved. 

• Seeds and performance.

What kind of performance do the best in your soil and climate?  Which plant can tolerate bugs and heat, etc.  Figure out which of the tomato plants thrive. Then, save those seeds and plant those varieties.

• Plant Types

Hone in on each of the plants and study them in detail--dates of germination, appearance of blooms, and fruit, harvest dates.   How do plants do around other varieties.  Use labels and keywords for each plant so you can sort posts.  Incorprate the information into your plans.

• Supplements

Record the kind of amendments to the soil were made.  Composted horse manure in one area.  Worm castings or tea in another.   Chicken manure compost's affect here.  

• Bed Structure

Raised beds, woody beds, trellised beds, etc.

• Lighting and shadows and boggy places

Watch the energy flows on your place.  Measure how the sunlight and shadows impact your plants, and how plant growth in a season changes.  This data helps you figure out where to plant certain species or where to place your trellis systems, etc.

• Maps and plans

Record the location of the plants.  Bulbs are underground and you can forget them.  Draw up a plan and keep revising as you learn about your gardens.  Figure out timing for when to plant stuff for a useful harvest. You don't want your brocolli harvest all at the same time because you cannot eat it all.

• Costs

What kind of money and inputs are going into your gardens for soil amendments, seeds and plants.  

• Plant Wish List

What do you want to harvest?  More importantly, what do you like to eat?  Which herbs are you using for your livestock, etc.  Which give beauty?   Those are the plants that should be the most abundant in your gardens. 

• Pest and disease observations

How do they affect your plants and what are the signs?  How do you treat for pests and disease?  Are their any plants resistant?

• Mistakes and Victories (summary)

Summarize mistakes and victories so they can be eliminated or repeated next season.

Terroir Seeds has a good published garden journal here.  This has a lot of useful looking formating.  I will try to incorporate some of this data into my online journal.  

Garage Shed Roofing Project Finished

Added the facia boards to the north and east ends of the garage shed-roof project.  This work completes this carpentry project with the exception of some bells and whistles.

In the second picture, you can see where we added some storage connections for our rakes and sundry outdoor tools.

The shed makes a nice parking spot for my little tractor and the motorcycle.  This freed up a lot of space inside the garage where we plant to establish livestock feed and dairy areas.