I’ve been having a great time the last week or so, harvesting and processing oat and barley straw for weaving bee skeps (bee hives).
Luckily, I have gathered quite a bit for this season, as the farmer is about ready to cut and combine all the grain.
You want to wait to harvest until just a day or two before the farmer will be cutting it down. At that time, it’s almost totally dry and is as tall as it will get for the season.
Just about any kind of straw will work for these decorative coiled bee skeps since they are not being used to actually house bees.
If you were going to actually use them for keeping bees in, you would need to remove all the leaves and the top seed pod.
Either way, you do want to remove the seeds, since they will be attracting mice and other types of varmits if you don’t.
I removed most of the seed heads before putting the straw into my car but waited until later to remove the leaves from the shafts.
Many times I would just leave most of the leaves, giving the bee skeps a more rustic look and it’s less time-consuming than removing all of them.
I use a #4 wide binding cane for the weavers but you could also substitute flat-oval rattan reed, blackberry vines or even plastic cane if you wish.
If you are using your bee skeps inside, you can still cut an entrance hole for looks. But if you are going to use it outside, don’t cut an entrance hole for the bees.
It’s always much better to use the box hives where you can keep track of their health and remove the honey combs easily. Neither of these is possible with a skep. However, using skeps to catch a swarming hive does come in handy.
I have taught bee skep making a few times and may teach again sometime in the future but nothing is scheduled at this time. And will be selling the pattern on my site, sometime soon, too.
Have you ever made a rustic, straw coiled bee skep? Are you interested in learning more about weaving them? Hit me up in the comment section.
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Happy Weaving, until next time!
