Judah Things

Category: Apiary

  • Sit With The Bees In Nature

    Hello internet traveler. Take a moment to relax. The bees will keep you company. The world will still be there in a few minutes.

    Sitting with the bees in nature for a few minutes.

  • Spring Bees Update

    We have had the bees for a few weeks now but I have not had the chance to post an update on how they are doing. Let’s use this blog post to catch everyone up.

    The NUC I ordered arrived on May 4th and was installed without incident. Upon subsequent inspections I didn’t find a queen or eggs, but the hive was raising some emergency queen cells so I figured I’d let nature take its course. The worst case scenario is they swarm, but they might do that anyways so no harm in letting them take care of themselves.

    The bee hive set up, there are bees guarding the entrance.

    We had a really nasty storm blow through a few days ago and the bees were mere feet from being squished. Literal feet from disaster, but the universe said “have a little treat” and they are safe.

    Two big limbs of a nearby tree crushing the fence of the apiary area. You can see leaning trees in the background.

    I gave them a look a few days after the storm to make sure they were OK. They were doing fine. They had packed their box full of nectar, and I mean full. Even the bridge comb they made to hold the lid on was packed full of sticky, syrupy nectar. Since they had filled out maybe 6-1/2 of their 8 frames I added an empty super.

    The next week (Yesterday relative to this blog post) I went to check on them. They seemed to be doing well, good numbers, saw young larvae and some brood. They had scraped the plastic foundation in the new super completely clean and used the wax in their bottom box. I’ll need to come back out with re-waxed frames to encourage them to draw the upper frames out.

    The last thing I noticed is their nectar stores had lessened over the week so I put up their feeder.

    The beehive with two supers and an entrance feeder installed.

    This morning I was curious how much was left in their feeder after one day and it was completely empty and dry. They wasted no time drinking it down, so I refilled it.

    I’ll have to melt down the bridge comb I pulled out of their hive and use it to re-coat some extra frames to hopefully encourage them to draw the foundation out. That could be its own blog post though!

  • Fishing For Bees

    The next step in the apiary journey is to have a home for the bee hives to live.

    The wooded area of the property seems a great fit, but the land is nearly impassable with the overgrowth in the summer months. To help keep a working area clear we fenced off an area, laid down a cardboard layer, used some reclaimed wood around the edges, then covered the whole thing in mulch.

    For the stand I spanned some wood between cinder blocks. I think it should do the trick!

    An image of the wooded area of our property. There are trees in the background. The foreground has a fenced area where the ground is covered in a brown mulch. There is a stand made of reclaimed wood and cinder blocks in the fenced area.

    Once done I set the swarm trap. I am using an “Interceptor Pro” I got off Amazon, and dabbled some “Swarm Commander” in it. Now we wait…

    Strapped to the stand in the fenced area sits the swarm trap.

  • Bee Box!

    You can’t have bees without having a home for them.

    After lots and lots of research I settled on an 8-frame Langstroth hive. I wanted to try a top-bar hive but I was given some good advice from a seasoned beekeeper that I should learn with the Langstroth style first. I also read some books (shout-out Thomas D Seeley, I don’t know him but have read his books) and learned that “Bees like to be cozy” so I opted for the smaller 8-frame instead of a 10-frame.

    I also grabbed a swarm trap, but that came already assembled so that’s not half as fun to show off.

    Now to catch some bees?

  • The Bee-venture

    I have decided to take up beekeeping.

    I told a few family members and now I have some supplies. There’s no turning back now!

    I mean look at me, I look ridiculous, I love it.

    Judah in his bee suit being investigated by his two dogs.

    I recently finished Honeybee Democracy and highly recommend it. I also got a copy of The Beekeepers Bible. I have been attending local (online because winter) beekeeping meetups trying to get my legs under me.

    My plan is to try and catch a swarm this spring. Wish me luck.