Monday, May 2, 2011

Setting up the Bee hive

Post: Bernie: April 23, 2011
Note: To follow our Bee Keeping adventure from beginning to end, choose Setting up the hive from the index at right.

I always wanted to have Bees and what better way than to have someone else keeping them. Eric Zinke is the Bee Keeper (he'll be the one with the Bee Keeping gear on) and owner of this hive (and has the swollen hand from stings to prove it), but I'm sure he will agree the the word "owner" is a relative term when it comes to Bees.

To get the Bees warm and therefore out working early in the day Eric and I sited (Joey thought it was far enough away) the Bee Hive under the Apple tree in the northeast corner of the yard.


The Bee hive out in our yard.
There it is sitting out there under apple tree oriented to the morning sun. Soon there will be plenty of Apple blossoms, Buckthorne berries, Tall Daisy flowers, Day Lilies and all manner on leaves and grasses in the yard and in nearby fields hopefully to keep the Bees that are coming tomorrow working, and satisfied. The objective is to build a strong hive that will produce enough honey for all us Pooh Bears and for the Bees so they can make it through winter.

This is a eight frame hive. Frames are where all the action is.
Here is a very informative "Starting a Bee Hive" video.

Adding box layers to the hive that perform various functions.
The layers consist of a Bottom Board which in our case is a screened version. This also acts as the landing zone and the exit/entry point to the hive. It also has a slide in board where that can be used to check for mites.

The next up from the Bottom Board is the Brooding Chamber where all the frames are located and where all the action will be happening.

That empty box is where the new hive will be placed. It will be removed once the Bees made the Brooding box their own.

The gray box is a spacer that the roof of the hive sits on.

We propped it up on cement blocks (salvaged from my cleaning spree) I used to use for weighting down painting panels as I glued them to supporting frames.


They do have a pretty good view.

Bees love early morning sunlight to get them up and out.
 
The angled Bottom Board front is a Bees and air current entry point.








All ready for the Bees!

Next: The Bees arrive [READ]


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