Welcome to the World of Beekeeping

Welcome to the world of beekeeping!

I am a first year beekeeper and cannot wait to document this journey and share it with all of you. 

First off, to give you a little background, I am a pet sitter and absolutely love my job. One of my clients keeps bees in his backyard and I was always intrigued by the hives. I finally got up the courage to ask him if he would teach me or mentor me on the ways of beekeeping. He was more than happy to, then invited me to his home to check out his hives. I was beyond thrilled. 

So, let's get started!

The first thing he did was teach me a few things with some basic tools. This is a smoker and it's used to calm the bees before opening the hive. Some say that the smoke masks the alarm pheromone that bees give off if they feel threatened. Others say it mimics an actual fire and sends the bees into the hive to eat some food in case they need to abandon the hive to safety. The joke is if you ask 5 beekeepers a question you'll get 10 answers. Everyone has their way of doing things and that's the way it should be. But the number one rule is to always be protected from stings. I'm wearing a vented bee jacket so it has breathability versus the cotton jackets that are extremely hot. The veil, or hood, is zippered to the jacket so there is no access for the bees to get to your face. You do NOT want to get stung in your face. If they get in there, you've either not zipped properly or your suit has been breached! Find the hole!

We smoked the hive and pulled out a frame from the hive box. Hive boxes come in three sizes - A Deep which is pictured here and is the largest. It's mostly used for brood boxes but those who are strong will use these boxes for honey also. They can get up to 90 pounds if full of honey. A Medium which is the middle size is also used for both brood and honey. A full Medium with honey will be about 50-60 pounds. A Shallow which is the smallest and mostly used for honey (they also call them honey supers) can weigh around 40 pounds when full of honey.

He showed me the different cells that contained either honey, pollen, nectar or brood (baby bees). Pollen can be any color of the rainbow, it's gorgeous! It will also determine the color of your honey. 

I know, right?! Bees are so cool!

This frame didn't have too many bees on it. Sometimes they are completely covered and you can't see any part of the cells, just wall to wall bees. They tend to build comb (that dark stuff on the bottom) if they have extra space. It's sometimes referred to as burr or brace comb which is basically wax comb where there shouldn't be anything. You can easily clean it up (shave it off) with a hive tool.

The hive tool is sharp so bee careful! It can also have a hook at one end, like this one, that helps pull frames out of the hive while you are inspecting. You must be careful not to squish any bees while inspecting. They will get very upset and you really don't want to disturb them any more than you already are. Keep inspections quick time wise, but don't make quick movements as they may take it as a threatening move. Make sure to pull frames out slowly as well. You don't want to lose your queen!

This is a honey super. It contains only frames of honey. Hives can have either 8 or 10 frames in a box. All of these hives are 10 frame boxes. We are using an 8 frame hive unlike my mentor who uses 10 frame hives. The boxes will be much lighter for us to lift. You can paint them any color you want too if you're feeling creative. The brown stuff in the middle is called propolis or bee glue. If bees feel like there are holes in places they don't want them, they will seal it with propolis. It's incredibly sticky and thick as it's created by tree buds or sap. It gives crazy glue serious competition! It also has many health benefits and people will eat it daily. Crazy, right?

This is one frame of delicious honey. You need to take care and only hold the corners of the frame or you will squish the honey comb. Tim puts all of the frames in a rubbermaid container so other bees or wasps won't be attracted to it and rob it. He then takes the container to a place with an extractor and a centrifuge to get the honey off the frames and into bottles. Unfortunately, I didn't go with him to do all of that so I have no photos to show. I just know that when he gave me a bottle of the honey, it was so delicious. Store honey can't hold a candle to local honey. Buy local if you can get it!

It was a fantastic day and since that moment I was hooked. I wanted to learn everything I could about honeybees before I got my own colony. It would've been irresponsible in my opinion to bring them home and not know how to care for them.

I did nothing but read for nearly 10 months! This was one of my favorite books. It was detailed and had step by step instructions on things. I would highly recommend it to new beekeepers.

This is another favorite.

However, this is the mother of all books if you want history, biology and so much more. All I can tell you is read, read, read and read some more before you venture into beekeeping. You can also check out YouTube for a gazillion hours of beekeeping videos and webinars. There is SO much to learn! Join a local bee club as well and find a mentor. There are tons of backyard beekeepers out there with a wealth of knowledge just waiting to share it with someone who wants to learn.

I hope you enjoyed this first entry. I will be posting pics and stories of my own preparation, hive building, and bringing home my first colony of bees. Stay tuned!