5/18/09 – Bee Keeping 101
I’ve loved honey for as long as I can recall and I have always thought bees were incredible. Bugs with a purpose: how can you go wrong? For years, I’ve debated starting up a bee hive. The thought alone seemed so scary and distant. But with the bee colony disorder scare, the need to self-sustain, and my overall love for the bees and their honey made up my mind for me. It is not an inexpensive venture at all so I saved up for a year, there is alot more to bee keeping then I had anticipated. The first thing I did was buy a book on beekeeping, The Backyard Beekeeper, by Kim Flottum. It’s a great book, easy to read, and I learned a lot; I’m actually on my second time through it, and there’s a lot of info to retain, so twice always works best for me. Then you will need to figure out where to gather your supplies, I went to a local bee apiary, http://www.draperbee.com. They are so helpful, walking me through the process step by step, they sell everything from bee’s, queens, complete assembled hives to do it yourself hives. Details of the hive are important to know beforehand; here is a breakdown. I am a beginner so this is all new to me, my knowledge is book read right now, the best advice comes from a seasoned bee keeper.
First, I need a stand or base for the hive to sit on. I’ve decided to use cinder blocks and cut 2×4’s, I layed the 2×4’s on top of the cinder blocks with enough room sticking out so I had somewhere to put tools on instead of the grass. I also set the blocks on a tarp.
Next is the floor, which is a board between the stand and hive, that also serves as the bee’s entrance, There are a lot of options for this: mouse guards, etc.
The brood box is next. It sits on the “floor” and is also called a brood chamber or brood body. This box has a series of vertical hanging frames for the queen to lay her eggs. I plan on having at least two brood boxes.
Queen excluder, this sits on top of the brood boxes its made from wire mesh and the holes are big enough for the workers to get through but not the queen, this stops her from going into the supers and laying her eggs.
On top of the queen excluder sits the super. It has vertically hanging frames but are shallower than those of the brood box. Worker bees make and store most of the honey in these supers, you can stack several of them on top of the brood boxes. On top of the supers is a crown board, which acts as an insulator and can store supplemental feeders when needed. Finally, a roof is placed over top of the crown board, it has ventilated sides and a water proof top. You may need a sugar syrup feeder to place in the entrance to help the bees when they are first introduced to the hive in spring when not many flowers or pollens are available.
A bee suit, smoker, and hive tool are all necessary in beekeeping. They even sell children’s suits. I am ordering one for my son as soon as I can. How fun, right?
That is the basic hive setup; next, you will need to fill it with bees. Now it gets exciting!!!
There are different breeds of bee, which I never knew before; I thought all honey bees were the same, which is not the case. Italian bees are what I have, theres other options, you can find them on the site I bought mine from. I’m not going to go into all that, its also in that book I mentioned earlier. You’ll want to consider hive location also, I didn’t want mine to close to the house or to far either, they need to be near some kind of water source etc.. There are variables to location. I put mine between my lilac bushes near a spring-fed swamp. I haven’t fenced around it yet but I need to get moving on that, I’m looking into solar electric fencing. Everything I have read tells me that if a bear wants your hive, he will get your hive, but the fencing will detour them, especially when baited to bite or sniff the actual wire. I want to protect this investment, but at the same time, the fencing is a big investment, It costs a lot more than I imagined, but in the long run, it will all be so worth it!!! I don’t think I could place a price tag on the experience.
There is still alot more too bee keeping but this is a great start, I hope I have sparked someones interest!