Michael Cox wrote:I too was going to ask what value you see in making it skidable, as opposed to a static structure. The old adage in beekeeping is you either move the hive 3ft or 3 miles. Anything in between and the bees can get lost, the fly off foraging and return to the old site rather than the new.
I would think you could get the same benefits (animal protection, security in winter, multiple sites for bee fodder) by moving the hives themselves through a series of structures - moving that huge structure, even on skids looks like a mammoth task, especially if there is any slope involved! That said, I'd love to be proved wrong when you do come to move it. Make sure you get good videos!
I do see the logic in the heavy duty critter protection where you are - I'm quite glad we don't have to contend with bears over here in the UK.
Moving beehives more than 2 feet and less than 2 miles
This is a subject apparently full of controversy. There is an old saying that you move a hive 2 feet or two miles. I often need to move them 100 yards more or less. I've never seen that it was a problem. I move hives as seldom as I need to because anytime you move a hive even two feet, it disrupts the hive for a day. But if I need to, I move them. I didn't invent all of the concepts here, but some of them I refined for my uses. Here is my technique.
It occurs to me that a lot of detail that is intuitively obvious to me may not be to a newbie. So here is a detailed description of how I usually move hives single handedly. This is assuming the hive is too heavy to move in one piece or I lack the help to do so. But it works so well, I don't even think about using other methods. But if you have help and can lift it, you can block the entrance and move it all at once at night and put a branch in front. I know every time I tell any version of this method, someone quotes the "2 feet or 2 miles" rule and says you can't do it and you can only move them two feet or you'll lose all your bees. I've done this many times with no noticeable loss of workforce and no bees clustering at the old location by the next night.
Cj Verde wrote:Three questions:
3: It could be an illusion but it looks like a wind could whip up and catch under the roof and flip it. Is it not really that way or will it be tied/anchored down?
Ben Morris wrote:Will there be anything on hook knives or trying to sharpen similar curvature?