Archive | August, 2008

Wax Moths: Truly Revolting Opportunists

7 Aug

Nature’s a cruel hussy.

Less than 2 weeks ago, my hive lost 95% of its inhabitants to what I now believe was a neighbor’s innocent application of Behr deck sealer. The deck sealer, when you call Behr, contains “anything that might keep insects from biting the wood.” Um, insecticides anyone? Sprayed less then 20 feet from my hive too. Four days later, the girls were piled in heaps outside the hive.

But that wasn’t nature.

Neighborhood ants and wax moths moved in nearly immediately. With sticky tape, the ants were easy to control but the wax moths? My girls have succumbed.

Top Bar TJ’s Mad-Mad Honey Harvesting Method

4 Aug

TJ's honey filtration system for a top bar hive

Albuquerque bee-man TJ Carr is endlessly engineering new tools and methods to ease the plight of top-bar beekeepers like myself. His latest nugget of beekeeping wisdom is a gravity-filtration system for honey harvesting from top bar hives.

This weekend, I tried it for myself. With a filtration system dependent totally on gravity and 24 lazy hours, let’s just say it fit right into my schedule.

Gravity Honey Filtering

Gravity Honey Filtering

Wanna try it for yourself? Here are some more details to get you started.
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