Apiary on wheels: features of mobile beekeeping and how to make a mobile structure

The goal of both a beginner and an experienced beekeeper is a good honey collection of a high-quality sweet product. To provide insects with a sufficient number of melliferous plants, many beekeepers use an apiary on wheels. The advantage of the design is the simple do-it-yourself assembly principle. An important plus is the ability to reuse the structure.

Features and reasons for creating a mobile apiary

During the season, beekeepers often switch to "nomadic mode", transporting bee colonies to various fields planted with agricultural honey plants.Of course, such nomadic activity is somewhat troublesome, but it pays for itself, as it helps to increase the seasonal honey harvest.

When planning the transportation of bees, you need to take into account a certain nuance: this type of beekeeping is appropriate in the steppe and forest areas, where roaming is the only way to get a good honey flow. In areas where meadow plant crops-melliferous plants bloom in turn throughout the season, it is most practical to maintain stationary apiaries.

Pros and cons

Apiary mobile is gaining more and more fans. This type of beekeeping has the following advantages:

• the best option for collecting monofloral honey (bees collect nectar from one honey plant). The most popular are linden, buckwheat, sunflower products, which are distinguished by unique medicinal and gustatory qualities;
• The apiary on wheels is easy to move, so it is not difficult to periodically transport structures to areas with flowering crops. At the same time, the honey yield increases, and the harvesting period is reduced.

During the rainy season, you can transport the hives to areas with favorable weather conditions. But at the same time, it is necessary to take into account the possibility of a close location of other apiaries (it is desirable to exclude such a neighborhood).

How to DIY

To travel with insects, the easiest way is to use a bee pavilion mounted on a car trailer or on a truck. Such designs are easy to make and assemble yourself.

Tools and materials

To equip a nomadic apiary, you will need a suitable trailer and the following set of materials:

• wooden boards for the frame, polystyrene foam sheets with a thickness of at least 3 cm;
• metal corners;
• wooden beam parameters 6x7 cm;
• self-tapping screws;
• liquid nails or glue;
• for the design of the pallet, a sheet of galvanized iron is suitable.

To extend the life of the structure, use quality materials. Lumber is selected from soft wood species (cedar, larch, poplar, cedar, non-resinous pine, fir, spruce, linden). All wooden elements must be smoothly planed, without roughness and chips.

To assemble the structure, you will need the following tools: level, knife, saw, tape measure or ruler, pencil, sandpaper.

Drawings and dimensions

According to the common scheme, it is allowed to install up to 30 beehives on a trailer to a passenger car. There are two options for placing the beekeeper's workplace on the platform: in the center or in the front.

The rest of the elements of the mobile apiary can be arranged in the following sequence: honey extractor, cutting table, seat, tool cabinet/compartment, modules with beehives. Moreover, the houses are installed in one tier or in 2 tiers, taking into account the fact that the weight of one hive is approximately 1.5 kg.

Assembly

The structure assembly procedure can be divided into several stages. Sequence of work:

• on sheets of expanded polystyrene and boards / fiberboard, mark the location of the elements of the house and cut blanks with a sharp knife / saw;
• perform grinding elements of fiberboard and polystyrene foam;
• the walls of the hives are carefully sanded with sandpaper;
• assemble a frame of wooden beams (1.1 cm wide, 2 cm deep) and install on the back wall of the house;
• structural elements are glued together with liquid nails;
• support for frames is made of strips of plywood.

It is recommended to paint the outer sides of the structures with acrylic paint to prolong the service life and protect from moisture. A pallet of the desired size is formed from a sheet of iron.

Trailer loading regulations

When placing hive houses on a structure, it is important to follow certain requirements. Initially, a frame is built from boards, taking into account the size of the platform and the number of hives. Shelves for installing beehives are fixed in the frame at the corners.

Depending on the design of the trailer (onboard or booth), holes are cut out in the walls / sides, respectively, for the entrances of the hives. The final stage is the arrangement of the houses on the shelves and their reliable fixation so that the elements do not move when the vehicle moves.

When equipping mobile hives, one-tier constructions deserve preference.But sometimes beekeepers use bunk structures in order to save space. But it is not recommended to install bulky structures, since insects develop better in separate houses, and not in multi-tiered structures.

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