New Bee Stand

Our bees have been fending off the invasion of the "Crazy Ant" in our area for some time now. The ants were so numerous and relentless that I decided to give the bees a break. Through some inspiration I came up with the design for bee stand to keep out ants. This design is based on the fact that ants are poor swimmers. I say poor because some ants bunch together and cross water if you can call that swimming. So this design is not full proof but very effective. Basically this is done by surrounding the four legs of the stand with water.

I started with cutting up some very thick sections of pipe for the legs. Next I welded on some sections of angle iron to mount the wood beams. These mounts were sprayed with paint to keep them from rusting. I also added some mounts at the top in case I want to add some shade next summer.

To surround the legs with water I needed some way to attach a container to them and seal it to hold water. This is accomplished by adding a larger section of pipe in the same hole as the legs. By pushing these larger sections of pipe into the same concrete that hold up the bee stand you have just created a moat around each leg. This is the most simple way to create a water tight moat around each leg.

Up Close View of Moats

The wood beams were next. I used 2"X10"X12' so it could hold up as many fully loaded be hives as possible. These were temporarily attached while I set the concrete to help hold up the legs. After the concrete set up I attached the beams with carriage bolts. I added a 2"X4" on the top inside of the beams to make the surface wider where the bee hives will sit.

Moving the hives was the difficult part. First we put a ratcheting strap around each hive to keep them together. After I sealed the front entrance we moved the hives to their new location. We did this work at night when all the bees were home in the hives. This is important because in order to move the hive the 10 feet from their original position I needed to trap them inside for 24 hours. When they are released the bees must be forced to reorient themselves or reset their homing device. This is accomplished by putting some branches with leaves over the entrance before opening it. If this is not done the bees will try to return to their original position.

New Bee Stand with Moats