[madchickenlady]

Watching the TV program Tudor Monastery Farm there was a bit about bee keeping using upturned baskets. Has anyone had a go at this and is it as easy as they made it look (excuse my scepticism) I wouldn't mind giving it ago but not sure where to start. Regular bee keeping is far to costly for myself which is a shame as our garden is very popular with bees due to large amounts of clover - no lawn mind you, just lots of clover!

[spandit]

Sorry, just edited the subject title as it said "bakets". I think they're called skeps but bound to be many folk on here who know the details

[madchickenlady]

Thank you, typing fingers faster than brain again!

[darkbrowneggs]

There are some fascinating little films here


Heathland Beekeeping - 1 - Spring Work in a Heather Skep Apiary

[HesterF]

They were mentioned on my beekeeping course and quickly passed over as being tricky and unreliable. If you just want to provide a home for bees, it might work. If you're wanting to more proactively manage them - so you try and manage swarming and ensure you maximise honey etc. - you need to be able to inspect them easily. Which is what you can't really do easily with skeps, from my understanding. Of course, one big upside of bees is the pollination so if you're happy to take that benefit and collect some honey from time to time, give it a go. I'd try and find a course to go on - and somebody open minded enough to consider that way of keeping bees rather than the more structured hives approach. You also need to think about how you're going to get hold of bees....

H

[ZacB]

Interesting thread on skep's here
http://www.biobees.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4799
My concern with this style of beekeeping is monitoring for disease. If your bee's were to get American Foulbrood (which does exist in Norfolk / Suffolk) and then swarm, you could be spreading this problem - not good 
If you are interested in Bee's / Beekeeping then contact Stowmarket or West Suffolk Beekeepers, attend a few meeting to learn a little. Yes initial costs are a little steep but same as a lot of things, not what you know but who...

[Dogwalker]

Look up about top bar hives if you need to start on a budget and as Zac says jpin the local group to make contacts possibly for second hand equipment and certainly for a swarm to start you off.

I've managed to only spend on a few new bits so far.  It is possible to do beekeeping on a budget I think it's frame of mind/attitude as with alot of things as to how expensive things need to be.

[HesterF]

It also helps to be handy. If you're good with wood (or know somebody who is) you can save a lot! I'm not & it was expensive to kick off with.

[madchickenlady]

Thanks all for your advice. 

[Olly398]

Your skep-ticism is justified, lol 

[cloddopper]

Keeping bees in Skeps is a remarkably cheap way of getting going with just a few sheaves of long straw & plenty of used binder band .

My beekeeping pal & mentor Alvin who had 19 yrs. of commercial keeping under his belt used to have several skeps that he'd made himself but they were not like those in the picture displayed .
 His base skep was about 30 inches across the external diameter, the base and 18to 20  inches high , the height of each coil was a good two inches high and 1& 1/2 or more inches thick  in the middle of the top he had a stitched /formed hole with a wooden plug in it.
The bees came and went by a fixed side entrance which was four inches long x 2 inch dia of apple branch bored through with an inch and a quarter hole.
 The swarm of bees were put in the bare skep in late evening then it was pugged up for 24 hrs  let them scent / travel the skep & start drawing wild comb .

 Once the bees had been in the brood chamber for a five to seven days he took the top bung out and placed a slightly smaller skep on the top . In the hole made by taking the bung out he put another bit of bored out apple wood plug that had fishing line wrapped round pins driven into the edge so that over the hole in the bung there was a grid of line that wouldn't allow the queen passage ( His queen excluder ).
The original plug was put in the top of the new upper skep.

 Most of his skeps had four sections as the upper sections filled with comb and honey the height of the skep would drop due to the weight of it all .  Once they dropped to a certain height he'd usually take off the top three sections and replace them with newly made ones  . If he got it right and the weather was good  in mid august when he did it , he'd fed the base skep a couple of times to bring them up to over wintering store levels ..

If things were a little late he'd shake the bees out at night on to a white sheet  laid over & into  a large cardboard box putting a nylon net over the bottom of the skep to stop the comb dropping out  and then  unite two or three skeps in a brand new unused skep then he'd cut the wild comb out and burn the old skeps  . His next task was to plug the entrance with a different apple wood  plug with a single be space hole in it  & feed the newly combined skeps for several days  with 50/ 50 syrup through the top hole .

 They usually had enough late nectar and pollen available to draw new comb and see the surviving queen get laying the replacement bees.

 I don't think Alvin ever killed off a skep with live sulphur fumes to get all the wild comb without any bees ..he was much too good a bee keeper for that sort of bee keeping.

 We used to do talks at various WI group meetings , after one such event we spent several weekends  making skeps  so several of the  ladies could try their hand at skep keeping .