Bee's go bump in the night

Woke the morning after the winds to find one of my hives had blown over. Whoever said top bars are more stable obviously needs to re think (that would be me then). To be fair the one that went was my small hive thats up on the bank and subject to the full blast of the wind. The full size hives survived without problem.

Not the view you want to see out the bedroom window.

So quickly on with the bee suit to see what the damage was.

Luckily the hive had fallen and ended up partially on its bottom with the lid still on some way, which helped to keep the rain out(very lucky it didn't roll down the bank) . After untangling the stand and removing the lid it didn't look to bad.

Very cautious look inside half expecting total carnage

Having picked the hive up and onto a level surface I could then better see what had gone on. All in all it had survived quite well. The end few bars had become dislodged and broken the comb, but all of this was empty.The main sections still had the bars intact and looking in through the window I could see they were still attached at the side, also the bees were still in situ.

Final assessment and close up. As can be seen a fair bit of damaged comb. 

 The only thing left was to re-assemble and put back on the stand. All thats left is to see if they survive, the major worry is they became over chilled but only time will tell. 

So what to do for the future, well this winter I'm building a stronger base for the location and plan to run a Warre style hive as an experiment this will give me the option to strap it all down so hopefully the problem should not arise again.

Have fun at the Christmas meal catch up next year.

David

December meeting

Instead of our usual meet the first Wednesday of the month in the Harrington (which would normally be tonight), we are having a pre-Christmas meal next Monday 9th December - meet at 7-7.30pm in the Shakespeare, Shardlow - either eating there or go across the road to the Indian, whatever the consensus. All welcome!