Straps, weights and a stand that does not move

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The stand is half the job

A strap holds a hive together. It does not hold it down. Fasten the boxes to each other and leave the stand out of it, and the whole tidy bundle travels into the hedge as one object.

The National Bee Unit puts the stand in the instruction. It strongly recommends that hives are safely fastened, and names hive straps, nylon straps and ratchet straps for securing hives to hive stands. 1 To the stands. That is the part people drop.

So the order of work is ground, stand, hive, roof.

• Firm, well-drained ground. The fact sheet asks for good access in all weather, firm well-drained ground, sun, shelter from heavy wind and no frost pocket. 1 A stand rocking on soft autumn ground will be flat by December.
• Legs on something solid. Paving slabs, not turf. Ours are levelled onto slabs.
• Nothing tall within falling distance. That includes your own kit. A spare super stack blowing over does what a branch does.
• Room to work. A hive jammed against a fence is one you will not strap properly.

Choosing the site in the first place is a bigger job than this page. Setting up an apiary covers it.

One strap, under the floor and round the stand

Run the strap under the floor, up over the roof, and round the stand rail on the way past. One loop then does both jobs. It ties the stack into a single object, and it pins that object to the stand.

The fact sheet prints a photograph of exactly this: two hives ratcheted to their stands, with the entrances left clear. 1 That is the picture to copy.

The rest of this section is house practice, from our own hives.

• Under the floor, not round the boxes. A strap that starts at the brood box leaves the floor free to skid out from under it.
• Tight enough that no box lifts on its own. Then stop cranking.
• Ratchet on the side. Not over the entrance, and not on the roof where it sits in a puddle.
• Check the webbing. Straps left out for three winters go brittle and let go without warning. Ours are replaced when the stitching frays, not when they fail.
• Two straps, crossed, on an exposed site.

Some stands give you nothing to strap to. A single scaffold bar or a pair of breeze blocks has no rail to pass a strap under. Drive a stake at each end and strap to that, or bolt a rail across. A ground anchor does the same job.

Hive straps with a cam buckle are kinder to the woodwork and easier to undo with cold hands. They are harder to pull tight on a heavy stack.

The roof is what actually goes

Most of the wind damage we see is a roof, not a hive. A flat metal-covered roof is a wing. The National Bee Unit gives the same reason for fastening a hive down: to stop roofs being blown off in windy weather. 1

Take the strap over the roof and the roof is dealt with. If you would rather not strap, weight it instead. A paving slab, a concrete block, a heavy stone.

There is no published figure for how much weight is enough, and anyone quoting one is guessing. Our rule of thumb is something you would rather not carry across the apiary twice.

Two things to avoid. A weight that can slide off onto the entrance, and a weight small enough to become a missile. A brick is often both.

Check the roof itself while you are there. The fact sheet asks you to check hives, and roofs especially, so that rain cannot leak in. 1 A roof sitting proud on a frame lug has a gap for the wind as well as for the water.

Polystyrene: firm, and then stop

Poly hives need the strap more than wooden ones do, and tolerate it less. They are lighter, and the roofs are shallower.

The fact sheet is direct about the risk. It warns that overtightening a ratchet can damage a polystyrene hive. 1 A ratchet handle gives you far more force than the box can take, and the damage is done in one more pull.

Pull it by hand until the stack feels like one piece, then leave the handle alone. A cam buckle makes that easier to judge. On our poly hives we strap and weight the roof both.

Our own observation rather than the fact sheet: an old soft cedar brood box will crush as well, just later than poly does.

Which warning is the one to act on

Act on the warning rather than the forecast headline. The Met Office issues warnings through the National Severe Weather Warning Service up to seven days ahead, covering wind, rain, thunderstorms, snow, lightning, ice, extreme heat and fog. 2

There are three colours: yellow, amber and red. The colour is not a wind speed. It is a combination of the impact the weather may have and how likely those impacts are. 2

That is why a yellow warning needs reading rather than dismissing. Some yellow warnings mean low-level disruption that is likely. Others mean much more severe impacts that are a good deal less certain. 2 Both arrive as the same colour on the map.

A named storm is the top of that range, not the entry point. A storm gets a name when it could cause disruption or damage severe enough for an amber or red warning. 3 So the ordinary yellow wind warning, with no name attached, is the one that catches people out.

Names are set jointly by the Met Office, Met Eireann and KNMI, and the list runs from early September to late August. 3 September is when the list opens. It is also when the straps should go on.

Before the wind, and after it

A wind warning of any colour is reason enough to walk the apiary. It takes ten minutes.

• Check every strap by hand. One tightened in September loosens as the wood dries.
• Clear the loose kit. Empty boxes, spare roofs, buckets, the wheelbarrow.
• Check the roofs are seated square, with nothing propping them open.
• Check the entrance is clear of the ratchet and its loose tail. 1

Afterwards, go and look. Do not open anything in the wet and the wind.

• Clear the entrance. Blown leaves or a slumped box can seal a colony in.
• Put a shifted roof or a box knocked off square right, before the next front arrives.
• Stand a fallen hive up, strap it, and then leave it alone.

That last one is worth doing even when you fear the worst. Colonies survive a fall more often than you would expect. Opening one in bad weather to find out does more harm than the fall did.

Save the inspection for a mild sunny day when some bees are flying, and keep it short. The National Bee Unit asks for a winter look of around twenty seconds, with the cluster left undisturbed. 1 The last look before winter is the fuller list.

When the simple rule breaks down

• An exposed site with open mesh floors. The usual autumn advice is to pull the inspection tray out. The fact sheet makes an exception where the site is vulnerable to windy conditions, and there the insert stays in. 1 That is the one place this page overrides the winter checklist.
• Nucs. Small, light and easily rolled. Strap them, then put them against something solid or group them together.
• Out apiaries you visit fortnightly. Nobody will notice a problem for two weeks. Over-secure accordingly.
• Stands with nothing to strap to. Stake it, or fit a rail. A strap round the boxes alone is not a hold-down.
• Livestock in the field. Ratchets to the stands help where sheep or badgers can get into the apiary. 1 Cattle are a fence problem, and no strap solves it.
• Roof-mounted feeders. A rapid feeder under a strapped roof is fine. A feeder that stops the roof seating is not.

The short version

• Fasten the hive to the stand, not only to itself. That is the National Bee Unit’s own instruction. 1
• One strap, under the floor, over the roof and round the stand rail. Entrance left clear. 1
• Go easy on polystyrene. Overtightening a ratchet damages it. 1
• Weight the roof if the strap does not go over it. Nothing that can slide onto the entrance.
• Replace brittle webbing before the winter rather than after a failure. That one is ours.
• Walk the apiary on any Met Office wind warning. The colour is impact against likelihood, not wind speed. 2
• A named storm means amber or red was expected, so a name is the upper end. Most damaging wind carries none. 3
• On a site exposed to wind, the open mesh floor insert stays in over winter. 1
• Stand a fallen hive up, strap it, and inspect on a calm mild day. 1