Adventures in Beekeeping Part I

I started writing this last night, and though I haven't completed the tale, I feel as though I should at least get started with it. So...


Well, Becca's Hard Knocks School of Beekeeping is now in session. After hours of research and reading, reams of plans, and a bit of day dreaming it has begun. I wish I could express to you just HOW MUCH of our lives the last few weeks have revolved around the arrival of the bees. My husband has taken time off from work to build hives. In fact, he's spent ALL of his free time on the project for weeks. The kids have missed him. I too have spent every second of free-time I could (or couldn't) scrounge to make this whole show go off today (Yesterday). Smoochy and I have been bouncing ideas off one another on how to make each little detail work... and there have been a surprising number of details to tweak. Hive ventilation, top bar guides, hive covers, screen bottom boards, bee feeding apparatus... It's enough to make your head swim.

Then there was the day of the bees' arrival. A grey cold day. Steady constant rain. North west winds averaging 35 miles per hour and a chilly 33 degree low... NOT the best day to introduce the girls to their new home. Here's the thing with bees. Packages of bees are typically raised in nice warm places like California or South Carolina where winter is something friends from the North mention, but really remains abstract. Once the bees are caged and trucked to their final destination they have been confined for several days...3... 4... more? And it is time to get them into their new home as quickly as possible. Every extra day they stay in their box is another day of stress and diminishing food supply. I don't know exactly how long my bees were caged up, but I know the can of sugar syrup they had to snack on was almost empty... and they were pissed off about it.


The day they lived in my basement waiting for the rain to stop was a day of anticipation and joy for me. Strike that. It was not joyful... I was totally stressed that I couldn't hive the bees immediately. I kept hoping against all hope that the clouds would magically part. Why it had never occurred to me that there could be bad weather in the beginning of April that might complicate our beekeeping plans surprises me now. Regardless, the kids and I would go down into the basement and listen to the buzz the bees made in the dark compared to the super-sonic buzz they made when we flipped on the lights. The change in tone would have shocked you. Each time we visited them (every four hours) we sprayed them down with sugar syrup to give them a little snack.  There were actually a couple of bees that clung on to the OUTSIDE of the packages. These poor girls wanted so bad to be inside with their sisters and the can of sugar syrup. At least one made it to the hives with the rest but the other found the plant starts under my grow-lights and died a sad lonely death.

Anyway, the day I was actually able to hive the bees dawned grey and WINDY. I was scared those poor girls would starve to death in my basement. So, just like a woman in early labor fiddling with her bags packed for the hospital I started dinking around with my bee-gear. Oh the bee gear! There has been no shortage of things for me to over-think with this project. It might have been different if I had decided to go with a standard Langstroth hive, but I opted for top bar hives, which still leave a lot of room experiment and personalization.


I have belabored each and every point of construction, much to the chagrin of my accommodating husband who has changed mid-stream with me as I have flip-flopped with each new beekeeping source I've read.


Like top bars: Which guide to use? OK, bees will build their lovely comb without any real help from us people. But, to keep them going in nice straight lines (which makes it easier for the beekeeper to remove the comb) it helps to give them a guide to work with. I thought at first I would have Smoochy cut bars with grooves to be filled with beeswax to serve that purpose. So he did. Then we decided that it would be better if they had a wood guide to work from, so he cut those same bars again. All would have been fine except the wood piece had a groove left over form the first cutting, and I found myself obsessing over this at 6:30 this morning, and filling that groove with beeswax despite myself. This was totally at the expense of all other activities, like making breakfast of diapering the baby. Hmmm.

before

after

Then there was how to feed the bees. (When you first get them started in the hives you need to help them along to make up for the fact that there aren't enough nectar and pollen producing plants blooming just yet.) I decided on inverted mason jars placed inside the hive as feeders, which is great. But, which way to punch the holes? If I do it from outside-in the bees (supposedly) are in danger of having their proboscises (tongues) ripped off. If the holes are made form the inside-out then they have something to grip on to but their heads could get wounded on the sharp metal.... Oh my god!

In the end I made some holes going in each direction. Now I just have to count whether I see more bees with scratched heads or missing tongues. 

I've heard it said, "The only right  way is what works for you and your bees." Great. That's helpful. I've also heard if you ask 100 beekeepers how to do something you'll get 100 different answers.


Like which flavor of mini-marshmellow should I stop the hole in the queen cage with??? OK, I didn't really agonize over that one. Everyone knows the bees like the lemon ones best. (The queens come separately in their own cage with a little cork baring her escape. When you introduce her to the hive you replace the cork with with a mini-marshmallow to hold her in, so that by the time the bees have eaten her out they have had enough time to smell the pheromones she gives off and accept her as their rightful ruler.)

Well, as I spent the morning fiddling with molten wax and top bars, Smoochy was finishing up the hives.  After spending hours building lovely gabled roofs for the hives, I decided they needed an inner cover to protect against heat seeping between the bars and up into the roof. So, at the last minute he was back out in the garage measuring, sawing, and swearing. He really does love me. Two o' clock in the afternoon rolled around, the sun was shining even if the wind was a little too breezy, and the hives still weren't 100% ready to go. My poor husband still needed to lug them over an acer away from the garage and up a 45 degree hill to their final resting place on the far side of the pond.

Yikes! Luckily fate smiled on us and we found ourselves with three sleeping children. I was able to help him lug cinderblocks, clear brush, and even chop down one last tree just for good measure. Each minute that ticked by I became more and more excited and nervous. How was the whole thing going to go? Would the wind pick-up before we could get the hives set up? Was I going to get stung? (Yes.) Was I prepared enough? (Um... No.)

Well, I hate to leave you hanging, but I'll have to get back to that later. This will have to be a two part series. I've already spent two days working on this and now it is bath time. See ya' soon!