The Birds for the Bees

I finally built, painted and set up my new beehive.  Now all I need is bees.  They are due to arrive later this week - so I'm all set - and feeling hopeful and optimistic that this will be a GREAT year.

This is the beginning of my third year of beekeeping.  In my case, I'm not really sure I should say bee"keeping" - as I have yet to make it through a northeastern winter with the same colony.  Perhaps a better description of my bee yard is a bee hostel.  I give them a home and food (as needed) and, ideally, they share their honey with me. 

Because, in the past, I have only had used equipment - I felt the need to start fresh this year.  Perhaps it will bring me success.  Thankfully, I had some honey to sell to friends - so I was able to invest in some new hive boxes and frames.  I will be starting with two colonies this year - one in the newer of my two used hives and the other in my brand spanking new hive.  Both hives will have all new frames.

I am rather handy - but by no any means a woodworker - so I purchased my hives unassembled from Forest Hill Woodworking in Paradise, PA.  Not only was it a beautiful drive, but I must also say, Forest Hill Woodworking was a pleasure to deal with!   http://foresthillbeesupply.com/ 

Here is a little show and tell of my building and painting process.  I love creating things with my hands (even though I had lots of help with this one).  The process only made me more excited and determined to be successful with my new Italian honeybees.  I like to add a little something to each hive to make it special for me - and I'm pretty happy with my finished product.  I hope the bees like it as much as I do!

The hive kit I purchased included a hive stand, bottom board, entrance reducer, 2 deep boxes, 2 medium supers, an inner cover, and an outer cover - plus frames for each box.

The kit even included the nails.

The "puzzle" pieces waiting to be assembled.

Each corner was glued and nailed together.

1 down, 3 to go!

Assembled and ready to paint!

Painted with Glidden's Forsythia Bloom exterior paint.

Finished off with a beautiful blue bird stencil... hence the birds for the bees!

The Bees Knees

I believe that I mentioned in a past post that I am a beekeeper.  I still consider myself a novice despite the fact that 2016 is the beginning of my third year. I must admit that I am only now beginning to feel a little bit confident in my knowledge and skills.

I began with used equipment, a bunch of books, one beekeeping course, and dreams of all the honey I would harvest from my little army of bees (that would also work wonders in my garden).  I freely admit to being afraid of being stung; which, of course I have been.  It's really not that bad at all - nothing compared to a wasp. That is for certain!  In all honesty, the times I have been stung have been my own fault - by not being fully suited thinking I would be fine just taking a quick peek.  They showed me!

Beekeeping today is not for quitters.  With all the talk of colony collapse disorder, I am fairly certain that most people are aware of how difficult it is to get a colony of bees through the winter in the northern US - and truly, all over the world.  Sadly, I lost both of my colonies this winter.  I actually felt somewhat confident in the fall and early winter that at least one of my two hives would make it - especially in December when I saw them taking cleansing flights on unseasonably mild days.  I had left them plenty of honey and they appeared to be pest free.  Sadly I was wrong.  Two weeks ago, I opened both hives and found a bee ghost town.  There were virtually no signs of the tens of thousands of healthy bees that were there just a few short months ago.

Unfortunately, I am not the only one.  In fact, all of the other local beekeepers I have spoken to (many of whom have been keeping bees for decades) have also had huge losses.  It is becoming a regular process to start fresh every spring.

Despite the heartache of losing my bees, I am not ready to give up beekeeping.  On the contrary, it makes me more determined to succeed.  I truly think beekeeping is THE BEES KNEES.  Just about everything about beekeeping is magical to me.

Thankfully, I was left with close to 50 pounds of glorious honey that will enable me to start over.  I am investing in some brand new equipment and two new packages of bees.  If I didn't have this honey, I'd probably be done - as my husband isn't thrilled with spending a few hundred dollars every year to start over!

Here are some photos of my harvesting and bottling process.  I plan to share assembling, painting, and setting up my new hives in future posts, so keep watching!

Super frame filled with capped honey.

removing the wax capping

uncapped frames in the honey extractor

honey being spun out of the frames in my manual extractor

honey collecting in the bottom of the extractor

flowing from the extractor into the bucket with strainer to remove large pieces of wax

bottling into hive shaped jars

filling muth jars

The finished product: yummy raw and unfiltered honey!