If you missed the May meeting Monday night, you missed an excellent presentation on observation hives by Barry Richards of Red River Bees in Cross Plains, TN. Mr. Richards maintains the observation hives for The Nashville Zoo, The Adventure Science Museum in Nashville, and the forthcoming observation hive at the Discovery Center Science Museum in Murfreesboro.
In addition to outlining the Pros and Cons of the various types of observation hive installations, Mr. Richards shared some of the difficulties faced in maintaining permanent or long-term installations. He also shared plans for a couple different do-it-yourself observation hives, one of which was developed by Dr. James Tew. Another set of simple plans he found on beesource.com, an online beekeeping forum. A link to those plans is included below, and here are the plans for James Tew’s very simple, do-it-yourself observation hive made from 2″x4″ lumber and plexi-glass. This file is also available on the Resources page of our website.
- beesource.com – build-it-yourself – 3-frame-observation-hive (external link)
If you would like to correspond with Barry Richards, or perhaps book him for a presentation to your beekeeping club, you can reach him by email at swarmcatcher@gmail.com on Twitter at @swarmcatcher on Facebook at Red River Bees or by visiting his website: redriverbees.com
Wilson County Beekeepers 