If you need Layens frames but want to save some money and don’t mind doing your own assembly and wiring, I’m now offering unassembled frames and individual frame parts in the Sodbuster Shop. You can find these listed at: https://suburbansodbuster.com/product/layens-frame-separate-parts/.
It’s almost time for the Ozarks Homesteading Expo, which will be on September 6-7, 2024 at the Webster County Fairgrounds in Marshfield, MO. This will be a fantastic event for anyone wanting to learn to live a more independent, sustainable life. There are many great speakers scheduled, demonstrations of traditional skills such as animal processing, wood milling, blacksmithing, etc., and over 150 vendors with goods to equip your sustainable life.
Visit ozarkshomesteading.com for more information and to buy tickets to the Expo.
I’ll have a booth at the Expo, where I’ll have books, Layens hives and swarm traps available, along with a new hive stand available for the first time. I’ll also be speaking at 2:00 pm on Saturday on the topic: “Keeping Bees Doesn’t Have to be Hard”. I hope you’ll come by to say hi!
The new hive stand, described in the video below, has been developed by Kris Hopkins of hopkinshomesteadstore.com, where the Hopkins family sells high quality steel raised garden beds. Visit their website and use code “SODBUSTER” for a 5% discount.
The conventional wisdom among beekeepers is that hives need top ventilation for summer heat or winter moisture. I don’t agree with that advice and explain why in this video.
I recently had two opportunities to remove bees from hollow trees. But the efforts were not both as successful as hoped.
When the overwhelming majority of beekeepers in the US use Langstroth hives, why would anyone choose, instead, to use a hive design that has less availability and fewer resources to help new keepers? In this video I compare the Langstroth and Layens hives and share why I prefer to use the latter.
When you might be short on extra hives to house bees, but need to split a colony, it’s possible to use multiple entrances of a horizontal hive to facilitate a split, housing both resulting colonies in the same hive. In these videos I prepare for the split by moving the colony to use the central hive entrance, then split it into two colonies, each residing in one end of the hive.
On March 20 I inspected the hives for the second time this year, specifically looking for brood. If the colonies aren’t starting to build up brood by now they will have trouble surviving into spring. The videos of these inspections, including some mishaps and surprises, are below:
There is a series of videos on my YouTube channel about a nucleus colony of bees that I have migrated from Langstroth frames to Layens frames, in a hive that I built to be able to hang both frame sizes parallel to each other. Some had asked about plans for this hive. Although I don’t have documented plans, I did make this video to document and describe the construction of the hive:
