Hive Equipment Descriptive Transcript Summary: David Stotesbury, research and apiary assistant, shows and describes the different equipment involved in building a hive. 0:07 - 00:28 [The video opens with footage of someone holding a piece of hive equipment. The text “Hive Equipment” fades in. The screen cuts to a montage of seven shots showcasing honey bees and different elements of the research centre, ending with footage of a bee taking off from a yellow flower as the logo for the Honey Bee Research Centre fades in.] 00:30 - 00:40 [Medium shot of David standing in the apiary surrounded by hives.] David Stotesbury: So, hi there. So today we are going to be talking about hive equipment in general and just a few sort of specialty type items that you might see and are a little more common in our hives. 00:41 - 00:43 David: But anyways so starting from the ground up the first thing that you generally start with is something called a hive stand. [Camera zooms out to show the wooden hive stand on the ground in front of David.] 00:46 - 01:04 David: So this is what we use here, [David references the hive stand.] it is basically anything that will get your hive up off the ground, allows some ventilation from underneath there so moisture isn't a big thing with rotting the wood of the hive and also in the winter a big thing is just so it doesn't freeze solidly to the ground. 01:04 - 01:30 David: So this here is actually made out of pressure treated wood. It can be made out of any sort of chemical treated wood. This is something that is basically just the hive is sitting on, the bees aren't actually in direct contact with it, so the chemical and the treatment won't be an issue with the bees. Some other people use cinder blocks, metal, again material doesn't matter it's just anything to get that hive up off the ground. So that's called a hive stand. 01:30 - 01:48 David: The next piece of equipment is what's called a bottom board, [David brings out wooden bottom board and places it on top of the hive stand.] so basically just a three-sided board, which allows the one side without a rim on it to become the entrance of a hive. As you can see if we were to put our brood chamber on that becomes the entrance of the hive. 01:49 - 02:19 David: The next piece is a bit of a bit of a specialty piece. [David brings screen bottom board, a screen with three wooden sides, into view.] So this here is what's called a screen bottom board and this is for monitoring varroa mites and you can see how we do that in our varroa mite film, but this when you use this thing for sticky papers it actually ends up replacing the entrance of the bottom board with its own entrance from the screen bottom board, so you have to flip around the regular bottom board, [David turns the bottom board so the side without a rim faces him.] put on your screen bottom board and now this [the side furthest from David] becomes the entrance into the colony. 02:19 - 02:38 David: Just because debris and stuff will be falling down there anything metal or any other material sort of tray can be slid in the back [David slides slim piece of wood into the bottom board.] basically to collect debris so we can later on take that out [David removes piece of wood.] and clean it up is something you'll need with that screen bottom board system. So that's the screen bottom board. 02:38 - 03:03 David: On top of that we will have our brood chamber. So this is what's called a deep brood chamber. [David places brood chamber on top of the screen bottom board.] It has ten frames inside of it and this is about the minimum requirement for bees to get through the winter in this sort of environment, so that's what we use. So we just typically use one of these brood chambers. 03:03 - 03:27 David: On top of that a bit of equipment we use is called a queen excluder [David brings a several queen excluders, rectangular metal grids, into view.] and they come in a variety of sorts, so there's just the metal bound queen excluder and then we have the wood bound queen excluder, so again it's metal in the middle but has a wood binding, and then thirdly we have a plastic queen excluder so this queen excluder is solely made out of plastic. 03:27 - 03:36 David: So we here use the metal queen excluder, so we'll just set that on there. [David places queen excluder on top of brood chamber.] 03:36 - 04:04 David: And to further build up our colony the next thing to put on is what's called a honey super, [David places honey super on top of queen excluder.] a honey box and it's called a super because it goes above that queen excluder, so we just brought one out for demonstration purposes, but throughout the year we'll have multiple of these on top of the colony. So just unfortunately jumping back to that hive stand when you are putting that hive stand down it's very important to get that level because these colonies will grow throughout the year. 04:04 - 04:40 David: But that is called a honey super, on top of that you'll need an inner cover. [David brings an inner cover into view.] So basically most bee keepers use these wooden inner covers which have a notch [David refers to a notch in the top of the frame] that form the job of an upper entrance, but that basically allows the bees to stick that down so we can pry it off without sticking down the lid, which is next because we won't be able to pry off anything with these sorts of lips. So we have our inner cover and then our outer cover or our lid, but it is just something that sits on top and sheds the weather from the colony. 04:41 - 05:18 David: There are two little bits of equipment that we have is firstly this is called an entrance reducer, so it is a little beveled piece of wood that slides into the entrance of the colony and does exactly what it says; [Cut to close up of hive as David places entrance reducer in entrance under the brood chamber.] it reduces that entrance down for reasons such as the cold in the winter and also another term it might go by is a mouse guard because when put in in the fall it basically is also put in there to keep mice out as they are seeking a warm spot when the cooler temperature comes. 05:18 - 05:45 [Camera pans back up to a medium shot of David holding a piece of wood.] David: The last little piece when we are talking about that screen bottom board, again this is just a little beveled block of wood, if you were to use this screen bottom board that also is a wide open hole and the cooler temperatures of the early spring and late fall and winter, so this basically just plugs up that back hole where the tray goes in during those sorts of months as well. [David places wood piece in back of hive.] And that should just fit right on in there. 05:45 - 05:49 [Camera zooms out to wide shot of David.] David: So that's our basic hive equipment. There's lots of other specialty bits of equipment things out there but this is about the bare bones for what you'll need to start your hive.