The start of the weave is always the most challenging part!
I’m stepping into a new adventure in beekeeping this year: I’m switching most of my hives over to skeps—straw hives for bees.
Skeps have been used for hundreds of years in the keeping of bees. In other countries, they are still in use. In the United States, virtually no one uses this method. Why? Skeps are not easy hives to manage. There are no wooden frames you can simply pull out and inspect. In a step, you invert the hive and peer in from the bottom, gently sorting the combs and seeing what you can see.
In many states, skeps are no longer legal because the traditional step style does not have removable combs for inspection. I guess inspectors don’t relish turning over a hive and peeking through the bees and comb.
Skeps are traditionally small hives. Mine hold about 32 liters—an ideal size from the bees’ perspective. They encourage swarming, which a lot of beekeepers don’t like. You can’t leave them out in the rain, or the whole hive will melt. There are no viewing windows.
To collect honey from the hive without destroying the bees, they must be “drummed” into a fresh hive, which is no small undertaking.
So why, do you ask, would I become so enamored of these ancient, folksy hives? Let me try to explain. Each of us must determine what kind of a beekeeper we want to be, and after keeping hives for five years now, I haven’t been at all happy with the hive styles I’ve been using (Warres and Top Bars). I find all of our wooden hives to be essentially flimsy and utterly without insulation, which is a problem here in our wet, dark Northwest winters and sometimes equally wet summers.
Bees’ preferred “Best Hive” would be a tree cavity, which has enormous thermal insulation value. Bees do best in hives where the outside temperatures penetrate little or not at all into the internal colony. Trees provide this benefit. Next down on the best insulated hive list is—you guessed it—skeps.
With their superior breathability, insulation in summer and winter, round shape that accommodates the preferred inner “form” of the colony, and light weight, these small ancient hives just spoke to me deeply.
The main problem for me with these hives, so far, has been trying to acquire them. Here in the States, you can’t. I have not found a single place that sells them. So I had to teach myself to make them.
In the past year, I attended a Sun Hive making workshop where I wove my first straw hive. For the rest of the summer, I read everything I could put my hands on about making and using skeps. In autumn, I fortuitously stumbled upon a local source of good weaving grass, which I gathered, dried, and cleaned.
Gathering and cleaning the straw.
Winter found me busy in my “weaving room,” traditionally known as our guest room, which is now full of straw, weaving forms, and flat bamboo binding reed coils. By the end of the season, using every bit of straw I had collected, I’d crafted three woven hives. Each was a slightly different size and shape. None are works of art, but all are thick and so sturdy I can literally jump up and down on the tops of them.
This spring, I have bees in two out of my four skeps. Now, my energy is focused on observation of the bees in these hives. I hope to catch two swarms this season to fill the last two.
To prepare the hives for bees, I sprayed the interiors of the hives with propolis extract. I also placed what are called “spleets”—wooden rods inserted cross-ways into the hives to provide support for the free-style comb.
Weaving like mad–Each coil takes me a full two hours to weave. Granted, I am slow, but weaving a skep takes patience.
Most of my skeps have an opening in the top for a feeder jar. Each hive sits on a hive stand made from an old Warre hive body onto which I’ve screwed a top and cut in a hinged little door. Into this stand box, I put dried wood chipping and compost to create an “eco floor” for beneficial hive organisms. as much as possible, I want my skeps to mimic a tree cavity, from the snug interior, to the fallaway detritus at the bottom of the hive.
My beekeeping this year has been deeply informed and transformed by a recent article by Dr. Thomas Seeley called “Darwinian Beekeeping.” In this article, Seeley talks about all the things that honeybees need, and that conventional beekeeping does not offer them. At the end of the piece, he lists ten steps that beekeepers can take now to manage varroa, and encourage healthy hives.
With my skeps, I am undertaking his ten-step program one step at a time. The first steps—keep bees in smaller hives, and insulate the hives summer and winter—I’ve achieved simply by the hive style I’ve chosen.
As I continue on this skep journey that I’ll be sharing with you, I’ll talk about implementing the eight other steps Seeley recommends. Come along with me as I learn!
31 Comments
Very interesting
Thank you for sharing
Very interesting. I love the hands on idea of the straw hive.
country cottage primitives has skeps! online
Thank you for your comments. I forgot to mention that another reason I’m doing this is that the skeps are basically free for the making. Swarm bees in skeps means no financial outlay to do bees!
I’ve read that removable frames are required in ALL 50 states … which although I doubt the “bee police” will be knocking down doors, it definitely is a consideration for a newbie beekeeper already concerned about compliance. It’s misleading to tell them otherwise.
Hmmm, I thought I explained all that up front quite well. And skeps can be made with removable frames, as well.
OK, this is awesome and I will be following your tale! My husband and I were considering bee keeping and I pondered on the idea of old-fashion hives but everyone tells me you kill all the bees… then I read a blurb in an old homestead book about inverting the skep with an empty one over it and this was you only loose the existing brood… I am anxious to see how you do! How are you building the hives/getting that long straw??? Hope that is in a future post!
Hi Kristy, I’ll be sharing the process as I go along. Mostly any long grass will work: rye, wheat, horse pasture, canary reed grass. And no, I don’t intend to kill my bees to get honey. Yes, you can drum them into a fresh hive if you want, but I practice a very “hands-off” kind of beekeeping. I never do “regular” inspections—just check inside a few times a year. I trust that they know better than I do and can care for themselves just fine most of the time.
Curious as to how your bees are progressing? Absolutely and completely inspiring
Thank you
Jamie, I have four colonies in skeps this winter. I had a height of eight hives in the summer (new swarms…). I lost hives to queen failures, and went into winter with the four skeps remaining. We’ve had a fairly mild winter so far, with just about a week of really freezing temps and snow over the holidays. Two of the colonies are going into their second winter, and the other two are new swarms from my own bees.
I can peer into the entrance of each skep, and am happy to see that none have gone into cluster. All the bees continue gentle milling around. In Autumn, I sealed any of the bottom cracks, checked to see they were all well fed, and bid them Goodnight. I’m so pleased with this method of keeping bees that I’ll be getting rid of my remaining top bar hives this year, and at that point, all my bees will be in skeps or log hives.
How do you harvest honey? An idea came to my mind is cutting off chunks of honey from the bottom and leaving the rest to the bees (if honey is actually stored in the bottom)
I really only collect honey from hives that fail. But, to collect from a skep, you can cut slabs of comb from the sides (which is usually where they store their honey). This year, I’m going to be putting a pint mason jar on the top of my sun hive, and see if they fill it!
How do you harvest honey? An idea came to my mind is cutting off chunks of honey from the bottom and leaving the rest to the bees (if honey is actually stored in the bottom).
Sides? I didn’t really understand what you meant. Do you actually harvest any honey from any your of your hives?
To harvest honey from the inside of skep, you would tip the skep on its side. As you look at the mass of bees and comb inside, you will find the honey combs on the sides, rather than in the middle of the colony. You can take a knife, and lop of a wedge of honeycomb.
Very interesting. I’m interested in helping the bees so perhaps bee skeps are a great addition to the garden. Thanks for the information
I was fascinated by this article as I, after only one year of beekeeping, am becoming less enamored with the way bees are traditionally kept and have started looking for alternatives, particularly as I got into this “for the bees” and not the honey. When I told my husband I wanted to make skeps, he immediately googled them and found them for sale on line. Just thought you should know, in case you’re exhausted by your project.
Interesting! Where on google did he find them? I’m curious!
Hello Susan, I was so excited that I found your skep making and can’t wait for more information….I live in South Africa ( (Durban).on a tiny farm.
it’s actually illegal to keep bees in skeps in many countries, including the US. Apparently, in order to harvest the honey the bees produce in a skep, you almost always have to destroy the bees. Not very nice. Most of the skeps you see now are purely for looks.
“In many states, skeps are no longer legal because the traditional step style does not have removable combs for inspection. I guess inspectors don’t relish turning over a hive and peeking through the bees and comb.”
Having to peek through the bees and comb isn’t the reason Skeps are not legal. The reason is that, without removing the comb from the skep, it’s not really possible to fully inspect for brood diseases that can be fatal to a colony over time, and can be highly contagious to hives in the area (either because drones are travelling from hive to hive, or because the failing/failed colony is robbed out by other hives, or because bees drift to other hives when the colony fails).
There are other reasons besides inspection that skeps are no longer used:
* The bees have to fully replace the comb that is removed when harvesting honeycomb from a skep, they need to consume extra honey to produce the replacement comb, resulting in reduced honey production.
* Swarming can become more of a problem with skeps, where the hive cannot easily be “extended” as by adding more hive bodies with Langstroth hives, to provide additional room.
I just wanted to leave a bit of an update about my skeps, and address the comments below: I AM NOT A HONEY COLLECTOR. That is not why I keep bees. Commercial and conventional folks have a totally different view of bees and their keeping. Skep keeping–with a small number of backyard hives simply is nothing like keeping Langs. My bees swarm very often (which I like), I intervene little in the hives. My historic and current reading about skep keeping tells me that there are simply not epidemic outbreaks of ghastly diseases in small skep apiaries. Bees in these small hives, not enslaved to constant honey production and chemical toxins in the hive, become different bees. They are a bit crankier, as they are allowed to remain quite wild. Yet I need no gear to work them. I think that conventional keepers toss out this line about disease and how bees need to be inspected so they don’t kill off neighboring bees with their terrible illnesses. In truth, how many people do YOU know who have had foulbrood outbreaks in their backyards? And if they have, what kind of hive style are they using?d Mites are everywhere, so no need to inspect for them. They will travel on drones, on foragers, and onto robbers. I’m certain some of your bees have come by and left mites with mine. So what? Beens need to be able to manage the mite issue on their own, as chemical responses have been dismal to date.
So, conventional folk, there is nothing you can say to me that will have any influence as to how I keep my lovely bees. This is because THIS METHOD WORKS IN MY YARD, WITH MY BEES. Why should I consider a different route just to be able to inspect my hives? I live in a different reality than most conventional keepers. Their issues are not mine. I have no need to “get” anything from my bees other than joy. Folks who are new to all this: I only ask you to be aware of the fact that conventional and alternative methods of beekeeping are simply not compatible with each other. There is no dialogue to be had. You either have faith in one method, or another. I am pleased with natural beekeeping, and am not trying to get anyone on board with me. I only say, “there are many, many ways to bee.”
Thank you for sharing the information you’ve gathered, Susan. I think it’s fortuitous that I found your post today and I will be beekeeping in this manner. I don’t need much honey at all and I haven’t liked any other method I’ve ever read about. Taking the bees honey, feeding them sugar, not allowing them to swarm, using chemicals and plastic, all go against the natural ways of bees. It’s no wonder they suffer so much in our modern world. I am also planting acres of clover and sainfoin. Is there any chance of having you share some current photos of your setup? Thank you
Fabulous. I went on a skep weaving workshop a few years ago with Chris Park here in England – I managed about 2 coils in the entire day. He has a skep apiary in Britain, see http://www.acorneducation.com though he isn’t the fastest person at answering emails. I recall him saying the test of a good skep was whether you can stand on it 8) He uses shelters to help weatherpoof his skeps.
Re: eco floors, I have seen varying reports about whether tree cavities have grunge at the bottom or proplised floors. Eventually I had a chance to meet Tom Seeley and asked him, and another beek who has opened many such trees which were about to be felled to rescue the bees. They both said that the floors are covered in debris etc until the comb reaches 1 t 2 inches from the floor, whereupon the bees clean and propolise it.
I have read some Victorian bee books. They sometimes discuss skeps and one issue they didn’t like about them was they harboured pests like spiders, which is one reason they were so keen on “scientifically designed” wooden hives.
To address a couple of comments from others:
Michael – no you do not need to destroy the bees in skeps to harvest the honey. You drum them out. By the way is it true there are bees in northern American states who simply kill their bees each winter as it is cheaper to buy new ones than try to get them through a really cold winter? I have read this a few times but I am not sure if it is true.
In “The Bee master of Warrilow” by Tickner Edwardes, written around 1920, an old beekeeper (who has switched to wooden hives) recalls how he did indeed sulfur his skep bees as a lad, and reflects that he has no idea why they did this as it was straightforward to just drum them out – it was just what he’d been taught to do. Analogous to people pouring miticides into hives now because they don’t question what they’re taught. From this and other reading I think about 50% of skep users did this and 50% did not. Bear in mind that swarms and forage was so plentiful then that people didn’t thikof bees as something you needed to conserve, they were an expendible resource.
Beth, I bought a skep online. It was not really fit for purpose, sides were about half an inch thick, basically like a laundry basket. A good skep has walls well over an inch thick, so beware.
Robert, skeps CAN be extended. You can weave them with holes in the top and then they stack. I am not sure why you view swarms as a problem, or why you think an untreated hive where the bees CAN EXPRESS THEIR NATURAL DISEASE /PEST CONTROL BEHAVIOUR would be more diseased than one where humans meddle all the time. Certainly the wild colonies in my village in England would disagree – there are at least 6, ranging from 2 to 18 years continuous occupation. (No one’s quite sure about the ones in one house’s roof, they could be up to 30 year old colonies.)
Wow- good for you! This is amazing. With your knowledge, hard work and understanding you make Skep keeping safe for those precious life-giving pollenators! Thank you for being responsible and careful. Your learning how to weave skeps is very impressive.
I wish you life’s best. Thank you for saving the bees – we are in a world of hurt with populations so down. Yes….one person CAN make a difference. Wishing you joy, good health and happiness tenfold.
Hi Susan . I also make skeps for my bees. I wondered about your binding material as the rattan lapping cane favoured in the uk has few suppliers and is increasingly expensive.
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Thank you for sharing your experience. I love the look of skeps. I will continue to learn about them.
I just bought a skep at a flea market it has loop on top and latch in middle and a floor. Are they meant for hanging? I I just put in my garden will I do more damage that good to the bees ?. It would go under eave so somewhat protected from rain. Should it be in sun or shade
Nice article! I am setting out to have bees mainly for pollination and to give bees homes. Do you still make skeps? Do you sell them?
Thank you.
Diana Auerhammer