Beekeeping

BEES!

Last year I decided against logic and reason to adopt a colony of bees! "What would possess you to keep bees?" people often ask me why I would go to the trouble to become an apiarist ( a Beekeeper)
well, one night I was talking with a friend of mine, it came up in conversation that he did quite a lot of urban farming, organic compost, greenhouse, rabbit hutches, chickens, fruit trees, and flourishing garden, and of coarse... Bees wow I thought, I am just a recent graduate of Utah State University (an agricultural school in northern Utah, where I had seen some cool stuff, but this guy was the real deal he was a farmer for fun. For whatever reason, this appealed to me, they grow their own food, and enough plants to sell to the neighborhood, they are very talented people who rely very little, on the "grid" for what they need. my first reaction to this type of lifestyle is that there is no way, I could ever hope to achieve any semblance of success. I am too busy I told myself, I have a regular job, and a new family, what can i achieve in comparison to this family, by the way I found out they have six kids and this friend of mine has a busy medical practice, they are not "hippies" who live down by the river, but are in fact the real deal! Remarkable, but just like me, have lives, school, and many responsibilities. So, I decided that if they can do it, then so can I!

I Started last year by putting in a sprinkling system in my new house, and planting lots of flowers, and getting things cleaned up, (our house had been vacant for 2 years before we bought it, so there was a lot of work to do to prepare,  at first I thought chickens might be a good idea, as stated my neighbor has chickens, I raised chickens as a young boy at my home in sandy, why not raise chickens?... then I began to remember how terrible it was to raise chickens, it was fun at first, but they eat everything, we have quite a few cats in our neighborhood, and other, animals, as we are a rural community, and raising chickens is something I had already done in the past. Why not try my hand at something new?

I remember with keen interest, our conversation about bees, he mentioned that there was interest in beekeeping in the neighborhood, and that he was going to teach a few people how to do it, so I decided to jump in with both feet. We Got together and decided that we could save some money by building our own beehives, and then buying bees from our local supplier. One of our group was a professional carpenter/cabinet maker and looked at the price for starter beehive kits and decided that we could produce a quality product for about a fourth the price of what we were finding online, so we bought some beautiful cedar wood, and got to work.

We decided that we were going to build a modified "ware" type hive this included the base, four boxes or "supers" with eight "frames" per box for the bees to build honeycomb on also a canopy "inner cover" which we filled with sawdust  (to absorb moisture) and a roof. we cut and planed all the wood to size formed an assembly line with stations for assembly nailing, screwing cutting other parts and pieces and by the time 4 hours had passed we had created 25 complete hives! at a cost of about $60 per hive.

Image Source; honeybeesandme.files.wordpress.com    My adapted "whare" beehive with 2 "supers" 

We ordered our bees and waited for April 13th for our bees to "arrive" while I waited, I read several books, watched youtube videos about installing bees, beekeeping, common problems with hives, bought a beekeepers for dummies book, prepared a homemade beekeeping suit and dreamed about bees.

The day came and my bees arrived! my neighbor went and picked them up, (as he was going to get more bees and supplies from their anyway) and he took them to his house, they usually come in container like this one;

  

 Unloading the bees was easier than I thought, all you do is spray them with sugar water, so they are distracted then carefully remove the lid/can feeder then brush off the bees, and place something over the top, so you don't have bees escape, then you carefully slide the queen cage out take the cork out of the queen cage, mark the queen and clip her wing and place her carefully back in the cage, then instead of putting the cork back in, you place a marshmallow in the opening. then you secure the cage to one of your frames using a paperclip. after the queen is set you open the box of bees, (with full bee suit on of coarse)tip it upside down and give it a good thump! all the bees pour out like pouring warm rice crispy treats into a pan, then you take your lid an place it on the hive.you leave the open container on its side next to the door of the hive. As some bees are still trapped this gives them an opportunity to get out of the cage and they will listen to the "fanning" of the other bees and it will lead them to the other bees. Easy right?

then comes the hard part, you have to leave them alone for a week without checking on them. during this time the bees have chewed through the marshmallow and release the queen into the hive, at which point they have acclimated to her and she becomes their queen.

        

Here I am checking the progress of the bees, as you can see after several weeks of drawing out comb, the queen has been laying eggs, and the colony is getting stronger, they cap the eggs differently and depending on which method it creates more drones, more workers, or new queen bees. the brood, are usually closer the bottom, and they store honey up near the top of the bars or closer to the top of the hive.

 

               

 

   

The Queen can be seen here she is darker and center and is marked with pink.

here are some photos of us inspecting the hive and the bees progress. Unfortunately, due to placement of my hive It was raided by ants, and yellow jackets in mid summer, we had 21 days of 100 degree heat all things combined, to the ultimate demise of my queen and hive. I feel really bad, and tried every solution I could think of to save them, I will be starting over this year, I will choose a different location, and hopefully meet with success this year. neighbors of mine have harvested honey from their hives, and we are just starting to see the bees emerge from their winter in the hives. We will be building more hives this year, and I have already ordered my new bees! I hope I can keep them alive this year. stay tuned for more info!