I installed the first hive in my rooftop apiary. Just the one medium super, a feeder box, and the cover looks minuscule on the large, flat roof. It consists of a base board, Varroa screen, 8-frame medium super, top feeder, inner cover, and top cover. These rest on a pallet that sits on top of a stress mat (to protect the rubber roof). As soon as the nuc I purchased is ready, there'll be a second, slightly larger hive close by. Still, I wish I had bought supplies enough for a third or fourth hive. Is that too ambitious?
Tomorrow, I pick up a package of bees from Lee Miller in Freedom, PA. My original seller, Kopar Honey Farm, fell through on most of their package orders. I recruited a friend for the trip. How am I supposed to hold the bees in the one hour car ride? Can I put them in the trunk? Probably?
The rooftop is located in beautiful Upper Lawrenceville, little further than 10 blocks from Arsenal Cider House. I'm told city bees do better than country bees for a variety of reasons. For one, there's a lack of industrial pesticides... despite Bayer's insistence that the prevailing studies were poorly performed. Second, cities house a density of bio-diverse nectar-producing plants in the form of local gardens and local invasive species such as Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica, Polygonum cuspidatum, Reynoutria japonica). Third, water sources abound-- puddles, bird feeders, and rubber roofs dot the city and provide nearby resource fountains for the colony.
Rooftops usually receive a fair bit of wind, especially right on the Allegheny River. In addition to my base setup, I secured the hive to the wooden pallet with a ratcheting tie-down. As an obsessive-compulsive measure, I placed a large brick on top of it all. Barring lightning, I think I'm good.
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