An Indoor Beehive in My Bedroom Wall | Hacker News Reader

An Indoor Beehive in My Bedroom Wall

keepingbackyardbees.com

182 pointsgscott97 comments

I think this is great. Just the other day I saw this thread about a kid who 3D printed a hive for his bedroom:

https://www.threads.com/@bryanmarktaylor/post/DLXdzZzgcRr

It seems to be based on this design:

https://www.beeamond.com/

How did the ancients come to view beehives as a sign of prosperity? Did they actually understand that bees play a necessary role in plant reproduction cycles?

Honey is yummy, and very sweet. Not something that's easily come by in the days of yore. Maybe that's enough to give it a special status, a golden extremely tasty goop that's protected by a bunch of spicy yellow flies.

Indeed! As zombo.com says, honey bees can do anything. Anything at all!

https://zombo.com

You’re mixing them up with Zombee Inc. An excellent group of biochemists filled with nothing but the best inventions.

Intentions. I meant intentions.

Honey.

Yes. The ancient egyptians kept a lot of bees and moved the hives up and down the Nile with the seasons to help pollenate crops.

Video detailing a technique to grow bees in bottles (easy indoor installation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ItlOFLTUAs by Advoko MAKES

This article is a great introduction to the topic of indoor (or rather in-wall) beehives, which I was curious about after seeing a father-son duo construct an impressive setup with hexagonal 3D printed enclosures. The authors voice is very enjoyable. Give it a read if you have a few mins

This year I put a beehive in my backyard. I can sit for hours (not really, minutes more likely) just staring at them working, going in and out of the hive. Maybe in a year or two I'll actually get honey.

I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.

— Jerome K. Jerome

The saying goes: “your first jar of honey costs $1,000.” Good luck in your first season!

When I was growing up, I was always fascinated by a very similar installation at the Educational Center at the Five Rivers [1] park in Upstate NY.

The whole point of the place is to walk trails and watch the wildlife in different natural NY environments in the area, concentrated in one park.

The bees were always the first and last thing for me.

[1] https://dec.ny.gov/places/five-rivers-center

My grandmother had a swarm of bees living in the outer wall of her porch. It never occurred to my young mind that she might have done it on purpose!

There was a very large bee colony in the walls of a neighboring house that was in disrepair, and it would emit swarms on a regular basis - which prompted me to capture one and get it in a hive so I could join in the beekeeping adventure.

It was a failure and a lesson learned: bees like sunny locations that can help keep their hive warm, and a shaded yard will not hold them long -- they will abscond.

If the idea of inside /obervation bee hives interests you, you might enjoy the Youtube channel run by Frederick Dunn. He has an observation hive built into the wall of his recording studio.

It's quite a relaxing channel to watch.

https://youtube.com/@FrederickDunn

A tech writer I worked with many years ago said that once during his adolescence he heard a humming from the exterior wall of his bedroom. This proved to be a beehive between the siding and the installation. He found that a bit creepy.

Well, at least it's not hornets.

We had hornets for a summer in a tree in front of the house once. They mostly kept for themself and absolutely no wasps in that year.

The comb doesn't look like it's on frames. The vast majority of states require comb to be on a frame or top bar to be capable of being inspected. There are plans online for in-wall mounted observation hives that would be much better than this.

Wait, what? Inspected by whom? How often? Who requires this??

In my state, routine inspections are required by a State Apiarist:

> All honeybee colonies must be registered and inspected for diseases, mites, and Africanized bees. Surveys are conducted for Africanized bees along Delaware’s coastal anchorages and in the Ports of Wilmington and Delaware City. By law, the State Apiarist and state bee inspectors may enter any public or private premises and have access to and from all apiaries or places where bees and bee equipment are kept to inspect them for pests and diseases. The State Apiarist may also declare a quarantine and order the destruction or treatment of hives for serious pest or disease situations.

https://agriculture.delaware.gov/plant-industries/honeybees/

My brain is so rotted from the news that I can’t read this and not think it’s some sort of bee racism. Is this related to averting nationwide colony collapse? Seems like government overreach to my uninformed self.

There are bee diseases that are so serious (American foulbrood) that if your hive gets it then the dept of agriculture will come out and not leave until you burn the affected hives. It is super infectious and can cause massive commercial damage if allowed to spread.

> and not leave until you burn the affected hives

I've got visions of bee inspectors standing there, insisting that this woman burn her house down.

Where I live, AFB is a reportable infection, requiring burn and bury. Bees are considered livestock and subject to state regulations.

It's state control for the sake of control.

Beekeepers have varroa under control. But the state loves to be able to declare medical emergencies for animals (cull all the chickens!!), including beehives.

It's not control for the sake of control, it's control for the sake of agricultural economy.

Orange production in florida is on the way out, thanks to citrus greening from an introduced pest.

It is control for control's sake. Honeybees are doing fine except for the ones that are driven around to provide fertilization services -- those bees are exposed to very high pesticide doses and -surprise!- have high loss rates. (The same is true for non-mobile beehives in areas that have high pesticide loads.)

Most problems with beehives are down to old brood comb not getting managed out. Feral bees don't have that problem because they swarm and build a new hive when their old one gets small, and they'll leave altogether (not just split) when the brood comb gets old.

It's all bad management, but God forbid you have a beekeeping hobby, no, you must get inspected and the state apiarist gets to come on your property w/o a warrant and they can burn your hives.

The main reason for inspection laws is to control American Foul Brood. It's very destructive and since bees travel miles, it can spread similar to a public health outbreak. Africanized bees are only a concern in some area, but can be a threat to human life. The fact that Delaware wants to inspect for them does seem to be overreach as their range seems to be stalled much further west for unknown reasons. The inclusion of mite inspections seems like overreach as there are no therapies to completely eliminate them and they are already in every hive.

I am learning so many new things today.

Which is sort of dumb because it turns out Africanized bees have better resistance to varroa mites. They’ve cross bred with the locals as they’ve come north and the majority of them have mellowed out considerably.

In Texas if you want to use bees for ag exemptions (property tax breaks), you need to show that you have active beehives, but no inspections take place. In other rather stupid states you have to have your hives inspected because oh-no-it's-varroa!

This is incorrect. TX has an aviary inspector whose purpose is to check for infectious diseases. As in most states, varroa is not considered a concern since it can't be fully eliminated.

But they don't get to come into your property, unannounced, without a warrant, to do an inspection. In fact, they can only inspect your hives if you ask them to. See Texas Agriculture Code § 131.044.

Since others are sharing negative stories about state inspectors, thought I'd share a positive one.

In MA, state bee inspections are optional, but you can request one for free once per year. As a new beekeeper, I found it helpful, as the inspectors were highly knowledgeable and friendly.

I ended up deciding to stop keeping bees after two years. My colony died over the winter, so when I sold my equipment, it was helpful to have an official inspection report saying that my equipment was checked and had no signs of disease except for varroa.

Philips Corporation had a concept for this a decade ago.

https://newatlas.com/philips-beehive-concept/20412/

Neat, reminds me of when I all I wanted was a interior antfarm wall after playing too much sim ants. Cursory research and bummed antfarms aren't nearly as cool in real life.

Obligatory Onion reference, one of my all time favorites:

https://theonion.com/ant-farm-teaches-children-about-toil-de...

Ouch. Thank you!

Sim ant also made me get an ant farm. That's hilarious.

I went out and dug up a big black and nest to find the queen and put her and some workers in my farm. Apparently that caused some kind of peasant revolt, because they killed her the first day. 0/10 experience for young me.

Luckily Sim Copter didn't have the same effect on me.

I did some playground digging as well! Bailed after getting nasty pinky bite and realized housing an army of them in an elmer glue ant farm crafted by 10 year old me was bad idea.

> Cursory research and bummed antfarms aren't nearly as cool in real life.

For the uninitiated, what is a "bummed antfarm"?

Bummed meaning disappointed. They’re disappointed that ant forms aren’t nearly as cool etc.

Aha! Thank you.

I took it to mean it was borrowed/a hand me down/ otherwise scrounged.

This was a cool read. Thanks for sharing.reminds me of the first time I saw a beehive as a city boy. It was a indoor wall hive at the West River UM summer camp near DC.

This gets a solid "nope" from me, and probably everyone else who has a memory of a very painful sting in their past.

Yeah, I have no particular animus towards bees but they terrify me. Without a doubt the thing I'm most afraid of on this earth. I would be a nervous wreck if I had this in my home.

You might secretly be an elephant.

You should check out some creatures living deep in the ocean. I cannot remember the name, but Lord, they terrify me. It looks like a centipede (ugh), and the way it catches fish is wild. I do not think I am referring to deep-sea amphipod though, but that is wild, too. The ocean is full of terrifying creatures. Bees are lovely in comparison.

Thoughts on centipedes though?

I've been stung a number of times by bees and wasps, but I still find them fascinating, and I would love to have one of these in my wall.

Honeybees aren’t very aggressive with stings. Yellowjackets in the other hand are vicious if you’re disturbing their nests in any way. Any that establish themselves near my house will be dispatched with as soon as I notice them.

> Honeybees aren’t very aggressive with stings.

Depends on the bees! I was always pretty relaxed about bees, until a hive at my house turned mean. They would sting us just for daring to be near them, and by 'near' I don't mean we were approaching the hive -- just walking past it, or doing some gardening several metres away.

Australian natives sting is very minor, maybe even stingless. I've had to move them out of my water main box, thing, in the thousands without getting bitten once and only using latex gloves.

Africanized bees can be extremely aggressive.

I have bees and it gets a nope from me for the inconvenience and potential damage factor. If it were better constructed, maybe. Bees can potentially bend the plexiglass or chew holes in the wood to escape. There are better designs out there.

I would classify a bee sting as more of an irritating pain, like a stubbed toe.

You must not be allergic, then, because it lasts a lot longer than a stubbed toe, and much more painful than simply “irritating”.

I’d rather stub my toe 10 times than get stung by a bee — well, maybe not the same toe. :)

One bee sting's effects will last about five days, give or take.

A dozen bee stings' effects will last about two weeks, give or take a few days.

A hundred bee stings is life-threatening.

All that w/o allergies.

When I was a kid and used to hay the fields on our farm in the summers, I would get stung quite a bit from the ground wasps being kicked up by the hay bailing machines. I got so used to it that it would literally be like a mosquito bite. Annoying for less than 30 seconds. That was years ago, and my tolerance for stings isn't that high any longer. But even today a sting will be bothersome for maybe ten minutes, and within an hour the reaction will be gone completely.

Bees sting with a lot more poison than wasps. That's because their stingers are barbed and if they pierce far enough into your skin the stinger and its poison bag and poison pumping muscle will not leave your skin unless you pull it. The bee will fly away, but in doing so it will rip its guts out and later die. The stinger will then pump way more poison into you than a wasp would -- the wasp's stinger is not barbed.

One, yes. Many, no.

Jesus, I clicked expecting a big post about carpenter bees and found something far, far worse.

I would love one of these in my bedroom. I adore the sounds of bees. It's very relaxing.

I don't hate bees. At all. But the aggregated buzzing sound of a lot of tiny buzzy insects means one thing to me as homeowner: wasps found ingress and a nest was built somewhere in your house. It is a sound I do not want to hear anywhere near my house, because you can't let them be, and getting rid of them is a damn stupid chore which more often than not involves dismantling part of the house to even get at them. I did this once, and that was enough (didn't get stung though).

And you can't just poison them either. It leaves a wall full of honey that the cockroaches will find and feast for months or years. The whole hive has to be completely physically removed.

As I've helped my beekeeping grandpa over the years I disagree. I've been stung twice (around thousands of bees) and both times they flew into my hair and could not get out.

I still do not like honey - unless I use it for cooking.

How do you keep them safe from other insects and pests? How does this affect pest control within the home?

A leaf cutter ant colony would also be nice. Not easy to get a queen into the US for hobbyist use though.

I just looked this up out of curiosity. These ants cut pieces of leaves off, store them and use them to grow fungus. They then eat the fungus. This is very cool

It gets better.

When the tree has had enough of getting eaten alive by ants, it starts producing a compound that will now damage the fungus instead of help it grow, in order to convince the ants to leave it alone.

hmm. bee's can easily cause a lot of damage inside your walls. not sure how this is avoided.

If the space is sealed, how would they get into the walls?

Carpenter bees tunnel into wood.

An interior space like this could easily be lined with a more durable material. They also would be easily observed, and wouldn't occupy the space if a queen has taken residence, even if it did it would be quickly crowded out.

Carpenter bees wouldn’t be hanging out with honey bees.

Technically the bees don't cause much damage. They will do things like remove insulation. Fermented honey, moisture, ants, wax moths, etc are all more damaging but technically a result of the bees. At least in an observation hive you can see what's happening before it spreads.

I learned some really interesting things from the author's replies in the comments at TFA.

Just makes me wonder what Erika Thompson's take on this project would be

> For now, it feels good to know that behind me stand centuries of bee-lovers who have had the joy of listening to the hymns of bees far into the night and smelled the intoxicating aroma of honey and propolis waft out across the room before the dawn light begins.

I wonder what that's like. Is it just another nice smell, like coffee brewing while sunlight hits your face?

My grandpa had one of these (the traditional they talk about), and the smell fades away. I guess it smells like honey to everyone visiting, but for you isn't there.

It's an indescribably wonderful smell. I love the smell of my beekeeping outfit, which also includes smoke from my smoker (the beehives themselves don't smell of smoke though). You can buy propolis products and get a very slight idea.

You might want to take a class in beekeeping, one where they take you to do some actual hive inspections. You'll need a beekeeper's suit.

Could Stonehenge be a beekeeping prospect?

Explain?

> they sing me to sleep

I read this at first as “sting” and was briefly horrified.

But bees singing is still, to me, quite horrifying, and would not at all help me fall asleep.

Made me realize for the first time Bees are the only insect that most people don't find disgusting. I mean we literally eat what they create: Honey. It would be fascinating to watch them build their hives.

I think there must be others. Butterflys? Fireflies? Ladybugs?

I stand corrected. You found 3 more. :)

And I like Praying Mantises because I think they're probably secretly alien robots. I wonder if biologists have ever taken one apart to see if they're truly biological or a machine. I've seen one take down a humming bird, so it's gotta be some kinda machine bro.

Dragonflies are kinda cool too, and mantis.

While they are admittedly not insects, I feel jumping-spiders deserve an honorable mention.

Jumping spiders are adorable.

I would think that was mostly because of the relation bees have to honey and all the wonderful imagery and thoughts people have about honey. But there is also a lot of general cultural tradition in bee keeping going back atleast 5,000 years.

wow. I didn't know it went back that far, but it makes sense mankind discovered hives are basically a free sugar factory that long ago!!

There is some evidence of it going farther back to 9,000 years, essentially trying to harvest wild bee honey without killing the bees themselves, however 5,000 years is generally considered the time period when honey bees first became domesticated and we were actively managing and colonizing multiple artificial hives.

I mean it was probably easier 250,000 years ago for primates to steal some honey, because we still had our long body hair back then I think, so that's more protection from bee stings.

> the only insect that most people don't find disgusting

That reminds me of a bit of fiction where a bioengineered commercial species is being critiqued:

> Miles leaned forward again, to peer in revolted fascination. "It looks like a cross between a cockroach, a termite, and a... and a... and a pustule. [...] Nobody will want to eat food that comes out of something that looks like that. Hell, they won't want to eat anything it touches."

> "People eat honey," argued Mark. "And that comes out of bugs."

> "Honeybees are... sort of cute. They're furry, and they have those classy striped uniforms. And they're armed with their stings, just like little swords, which makes people respect them." [...]

> Enrique said, in a bewildered tone, "So do you think if I put stings on my butter bugs, Barrayarans would like them better?"

> "No!" said Miles and Mark together.

> Enrique sat back, looking rather hurt.

--A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold Enrique sat back, looking rather hurt.

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