Our Backyard Bee Journey!💗🐝

[drstratton]

Hi everyone!
I thought I'd chronicle our new journey. Beekeeping! We have had our bees since April it will take awhile for me to get everything posted.

We talked about keeping bees for the past 20-25 years. We finally decided to quit talking and I'm so glad we did. They are such amazing, resourceful little creatures. They definitely put my work ethic to shame.

We were at North 40 and they were selling bee packages, so we jumped in feet first and ordered a package. That would give us a couple of months to gather our equipment and start studying and studying and studying...lol There is so much to learn. One of the first things we learned is that it would be better to buy a nucleus hive, so we ordered one of those too. It's also a good idea to have at least two hives. Still had a couple of months until we could pick up our bees.

So, this will have a lot of pictures of what we've done & experienced so far. I love to answer questions and help others, sometimes I don't have an answer and that makes me research to find the answer and I learn something new too.

The first thing we had to do was decide where to place our bees. We chose the NE corner of our yard. We could then face our hives to the SE, so they would get the morning sun and start their day bright and early.

We get a lot of wind so decided to build a fence.

My husband designing and welding our new stands.

Trying to decide how to set them.

We decided to put in pavers to set them on.

By this time we had our new hives. My husband built screened bottom boards for them.

That's all I have time for right now. I'll post more later, as I can. Thanks for looking!

 

[Chicken_Obsesser]

Wow, what an awesome project! Great job!

 

[cavemanrich]

drstratton​

Nice to see you back in posting.
Sorry to hear some of your hardships you went thru
A really nice member,,, @Sally PB ,, also keeps bees.
I don't know much about bees,, but a neighbors bees do come visit my flowers. I do get honey from him.
No refrigeration needed.

 

[N F C]

This is terrific Rene, I'm following along to see how your beekeeping journey goes!

 

[rural mouse]

1 suggestion from 1st hand experience. Turn the hives so the entrances face the fence. This way, anyone approaching the hives isn't walking toward the entrance. Being right in front of the entrance can make you viewed as a threat to the hive, causing the hive to attack.

My 3 year old brother took his friend out to see the bee hives....and stood in front of the entrance in spite of the orientation of the bees' entrance. He was lucky they only stung him 3 times. And the garage had a back door he could go through to get out front, breaking their pursuit off.

The honey is worth it. The wax is also worth making candles with. Enjoy.

 

[Sally PB]

@cavemanrich, thanks for the tag.

@drstratton, congratulations! Bees are/have been many things to us. Interesting, exciting, fascinating, aggravating, frustrating, and most of all, humbling. You learn pretty quickly: Bees gonna do what bees gonna do.

In no particular order, here are some things we've learned.

Nucs definitely are easier than packages, and worth the extra cost.

Two hives is a GREAT idea. You have another hive under the exact same circumstances/set up to compare to.

The hive catching the morning light is a good idea, especially in the cooler weather of spring and fall. Blocking cold winds of winter is also a good idea.

When you inspect the hive, stand to the side of it as much as you can. As someone told me, "You're coming home from the grocery store, you have your arms full of groceries. Or you need to get out and go to work. But there's a giant standing in front of the door. Yeah, you might get pissed."

Read up on varroa mites. They are the main pest you will have to deal with. They are one of the main reasons hives fail.

If there is someone who keeps bees near you, offer to help with whatever bee task they have on hand. Just being another pair of hands can be a help. If there is a beekeepers club near you, join.

If you join a club and there are 10 members, you will get 10 different opinions on how to deal with whatever issue is brought up. What works for one person, in their particular set up, might not work as well for someone else. Different experiences, different opinions. Listen, take notes, and see what might work for you.

There is a phrase that didn't make sense when we first heard it, but absolutely makes sense now:
The queen is the queen, but comb is king.
If you have bare frames, the bees need to draw out comb before they do anything. Comb takes a lot of work, a lot of resources, from the bees. If there isn't anything in bloom (called a "dearth"), you need to supply them with sugar syrup. Look for information on when you should feed your bees, as this is another big topic.

Here are two beekeeping threads here on BYC. There are some very knowledgeable members on them. I really am a bee novice.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/the-wally-gee-bee-journey-🐝.1575400/

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/the-honey-factory.1358454/

 

[drstratton]

drstratton​

Nice to see you back in posting.
Sorry to hear some of your hardships you went thru
A really nice member,,, @Sally PB ,, also keeps bees.
I don't know much about bees,, but a neighbors bees do come visit my flowers. I do get honey from him.
No refrigeration needed.

Hello my friend! It's so good to hear from you. I can't wait to catch up with everyone.
We're extracting our honey today.

 

[drstratton]

Wow, what an awesome project! Great job!

Thank you!

 

[drstratton]

This is terrific Rene, I'm following along to see how your beekeeping journey goes!

Hi Debbie! It's been a fun journey so far! So glad you'll be on it with me.

 

[drstratton]

1 suggestion from 1st hand experience. Turn the hives so the entrances face the fence. This way, anyone approaching the hives isn't walking toward the entrance. Being right in front of the entrance can make you viewed as a threat to the hive, causing the hive to attack.

My 3 year old brother took his friend out to see the bee hives....and stood in front of the entrance in spite of the orientation of the bees' entrance. He was lucky they only stung him 3 times. And the garage had a back door he could go through to get out front, breaking their pursuit off.

The honey is worth it. The wax is also worth making candles with. Enjoy.

Hi and thank you for the information. That must have been so scary for him, poor little guy.
My hives are well established now, so I probably won't be able to turn them. My posts will slowly catch up to where we are right now, which is honey extraction, today in fact.