First beehive ready for Spring!

Finally the first beehive is completed and ready to be placed on a piece of land nearby. It is also official the honey bees will be picked up the third week of April. We will drive to Stillwater and get our 2 packages of bees and two queens (3 pounds each), put them in the car and drive back home. This is going to be interesting, hearing the buzzing sounds for one hour! Actually the bees are raised in California and then loaded on long bed trucks before being delivered to their destination. It is a long way for them, and also stressful. However, when the honey bees will arrive in Minnesota, it will be Spring.

There are many type of honey bees available for purchase in the U.S, different races and hybrids . I chose the Italians (Apis mellifera ligustica). These a golden in color with very distinctive dark bands. Before arriving with the first colonists by ship to the New World, they came from the Appenine Peninsula in Italy. They are known to produce large brood which help boost the colony growth rapidly. They are also good comb producers, and very gentle. They maintain a big colony in the winter, as a result I will need to leave them with a lot of honey if I want them to survive our harsh winter. These honey bees are moderately resistant to diseases compared to the Russian race but I like their gentleness . The queens will be a strain developed here at the University of Minnesota, called Minnesota Hygienic (more on that topic later). In addition, Italian honey bees is the race I handled during my last entomology class at the University of Minnesota, and it is also a favorite one chosen by my fellow beekeepers. Everyone seems to have had good success, so I shall see. I am very happy that Spring is on its way!

Painting, painting, and painting some more!

This has been a busy week. Ben built one more hive...and close to 80 more frames. This is a lot of nails, actually more than a thousand. But of course it looks beautiful, and perfect too! I applied the second coat of paint on our first hive. It is a cool light green. Light colors are usually chosen because during the hot summers, the sun's rays are reflected making the bee house cooler. The first hive should be done this week, and I'll start painting the second one. I also ordered my bees and queens. They come in a package of 3 pounds each. One pound is about 4,500 bees. We will pick them up in late April.

After a Rough Start

Even if the holes for the nails were made, it was hard to pound those 2 1/2" galvanized nails into the wood panels. After experimenting with the hammer and smashing our fingers too many times while trying to build our first body hive, Nicolas and I decided to give it a rest for few days. I think we were too excited to get going. Ben, my husband-engineer came to the rescue. He decided to drill each hole with his electric drill to enable the nails to get in smoothly. "smart!" Then he took a look at our first box. Strengthening it, reinforcing the sides, and fixing the gaps!

Strengthening and fixing the mistakes!

Now we were back in business. Ben, and I glued and hammered along while Nicolas helped us after school.

Nicolas hammering the frames together, and placing them in the medium-super.

After 5 hours, and about 800 nails later we had build our first beehive! We assembled everything, from hive body, supers, telescoping cover and frames. Did you know a frame is held by 8 nails? We build 40 frames! We were proud and happy!!!

Now I will have to paint it with 2 or 3 coats of exterior latex paint...can't wait!

"White Gold"

While I was doing my grocery this morning, I remembered that I would need to feed my honey bees this spring before the nectar flow starts. This early feeding helps to stimulate the activity in the hive increasing its population, making the colony more productive and giving the honey bees a good start for the new season. In nature bees need proteins (amino acids), carbohydrates ( sugars), lipids (fatty acids & sterols), vitamins, minerals (salts) and water.

Once a luxury for the affluent people, white gold was kept in blocks and was heavily taxed thus not accessible to the commoners!

White sugar (refined sugar) is essentially 99% pure sucrose, a simple carbohydrate. This sweet comes from plants; most commonly from canes or beets. Sugars from any of these two plants are adequate substitutes for honey in the natural diet of the honey bees. However it has to be supplied as a liquid, a syrup of water mixed with granulated sugar.

Sources: www.sucrose.com

Honey Bee Nutrition Supplemental Feeding by L.N. Standifier

PS We are still working on building our first hive!

First Things First!

I just received 3 heavy boxes containing a complete beehive...disassembled! This is a lot of wooden parts, different nails sizes and a few instruction sheets. It will be a great weekend to build a "bee house", with my husband and son.