First-Year Swarm Box Kit Special!
This offer ends on March. 31st, so act now! When you purchase one of our swarm boxes, you can also come to one of our swarm classes that we hold on Saturday's 1:00PM, starting in April. The swarm box kit is $189.00, $94.50 for the second kit, and $75 per person for the class. See more details about the box and class on the First-Year Swarm Box page.
Thriving Hive Box, First-Year Swarm Box & Nucleus Colony of Bees
There are currently only 10 of this package available! You get the Thriving Hive box, and the First-Year Swarm Box (assembled) along with a Nucleus Colony of bees from our overwintered bee stock (Our Nuc's are 3 double deep frames, which is 6 deep frames). Price is $900, and you put down a deposit of $450, and pay the balance when you pick up. You can also add the Swarm Class for 1/2 price--$75.00 per person.
Imagine if we lost power for 5 years...how you would be keeping bees at that point would only be in a sustainable way. You wouldn't have the internet to order things to "treat" you hive with, nor would you be able to have bees shipped to you from far away places. Everything you did with your bees would be done in a way that would be balanced much more in alignment with nature, and in a way that would not be detrimental to the ecology of the hive.
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First-Year/Swarm Box
Bees don't just randomly choose where they are going to move in to, that's done as a colony! If you want to catch more swarms, you need to offer the bees a better option than anything else out there, and if you want them to have a fighting chance their first year, you need to offer them a box that they can live in for a year, because after all, that was their intention all along when they moved in! The First-Year/Swarm Box was designed to allow your bees to build how they need to to get ready for winter, and to stay in that box until the next Spring when they are ready for real growth and a bigger box to grow in.
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The Thriving Hive Bee Box
We put Nature in a box! The Thriving Hive Box is an intuitive design that put the bees first, but didn't forget about the beekeeper! Designed to be much like a tree hollow, this box lets bees live as nature intended! The roof shades the box in the summer heat, and the insulated roof and walls help keep the bees cooler in the summer, and warmer in the winter. Inspecting your hives is quick, easy, and can be done with minimal intrusion. Simply put, this box was made so your bees can Thrive!
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What to Expect
The Thriving Hive Box System was designed for sustainable beekeeping, in an Eco-Based way to catch your bees, keep your bees, and sustain your colony for years to come. The First-Year/Swarm Box can't be beat for catching swarms, but the size and design are to keep your bees in the box over winter should you choose, and to be used with your Thriving Hive Box when splitting bees, so you will have a back up colony always on hand.
The Thriving Hive Box is designed so you can adapt the bee space to fit your colony, and if done right you will never see your bees swarm again! In the Spring you move your bees to one side of the box, and when ready, split the hive internally, moving the queen and some bees to the other side of the box. This now lets you run with 2 hives at the same time, but gives you a brood break on your main hive to control mites! In the summer, you can do many different techniques, but most popular would be to remove the older queen with some brood, and place her in the First-Year/Swarm Box, allowing for another new queen to be made--as July queens do best over winter. Come Fall you will have a much larger colony when you merge the bees, and a back up colony just in case! FAQ's
How do you extract the honey? The frames for this box are standard deep frames, where the bottom frame has the "ears" cut off, and the two are zip-tied together. To extract honey you simply snip the zip-ties and the frames easily separate. How do you keep the queen out of the honey? This is a question asked only by people that have used Langstroth boxes. In a natural hive the bees keep the brood in one area--it would be impractical to spread it out--so the brood stays in one place, and all surplus honey goes to the sides of the brood area. What people need to understand about the Langstroth system is that it's unnatural for bees to keep building on top of their hive, and it is their natural programing to raise the brood on the top of the hive until fall when they start to push the brood area downward, and store honey in its place for winter. How do you ventilate the box? Ventilation is important in Langstroth boxes for 2 reasons. One is that the roof is a piece of wood with some tin on it, that offeres little protection from heat in the summer, and in the winter the condensation from the bees respiration freezes, which when the sun comes out and thaws, rains on the bees. In an insulated box, the only concern would be for fresh air to breath, and essentially the front door is open, so they never have to worry about that! How do you treat your bees? Most people here are refering to varroa mites. In this sort of box, you are going to do a few brood breaks in a season, which wipes out varroa much better than chemicals, and without poisoning your bees. This is outlined in our E-Book on Horizontal hives. How do you prep for winter? For winter you move the bees and the appropriate number of frames to the center of the box, insert the insulation boards, and close the lid. Yep...it's really just that easy! |