Preparing for Honey Bees

We've been thinking about getting bees for a few years now...and Chris has seen me in his office more than once...but late winter I decided to go for it. I ordered my first batch of bees. I had initially been thinking of getting stingless native bees for the garden just to pollinate. But once I found out that it's not really wise to harvest any of their honey I decided on honey bees. You see, natives don't like to come out of the hive if there's a big drop in temperature, and they only produce about 1kg of honey a year, so if you take it from them, you are in fact starving them of a supply of food if you have a cold snap and they don't want to go out that day foraging for 'extra food'.

I'm a firm believer in being stocked up myself...If someone took my stockpile away from me, I wouldn't be too happy. With the endless possibilities with honey bees, natives just aren't for me.

Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that native bees are being used in gardens, they are becoming very popular for extra pollination. I recently learnt that a local organic school garden has introduced native bees to their garden. What an excellent opportunity for the students to learn.

Yep, they sting, (I haven't been stung yet, touch wood)  but they do much more than that. I'm already gathering honey recipes...and soap recipes and even cosmetic and candle recipes.... It's endless. Even hubby has his eye on some to experiment within his brewing shed.

Building the beehive - Stage 1
I sourced my beehive kit from Chris at Parker Beekeeper Supplies in Dunmore. Chris is a lovely gentleman, full of information and shares what he knows willingly. He's helped me out a few times even over the phone.

He also makes and sells plastic beehives on his property. They are interchangeable with the timber hives too. If you don't have time or don't want to go to the trouble of soaking it yourself you can always invest in the plastic version.  But for my first hive, I wanted to learn more, so I chose the timber kit.

Firstly you have to soak all the hive timber in a 1:4 solution of Coppernapthanate and Mineral Turpentine. This is a long soak of usually around 3 to 4 days.

Once soaked, then you need to drain and allow all your timbers to dry. Leave this timber layed out undercover for a good week depending on the weather.

After soaking and drying all the beehive timber you need to assemble the beehive. 

 

Flat packed beehive kit after soaking and drying

Screw every joint.

Assembling the base of the beehive

Assembling the lid of the beehive

Once you have the whole beehive put together, then you have to paint it. 

Use a good turps based paint, and white is the preferred colour.

Painting the beehive. I used two coats.

Building the beehive - Stage 2

All that soaking and drying takes some time...so if you like you can use this time to build your frames. There's plenty of YouTube videos online to help you along the way. 

First you need to build all the frames. I have chosen a ten frame hive, so I had ten frames to build. Glue and nails worked perfectly for putting the four outside pieces together. 

Once you have all the timbers made into frames, you then need to wire them up, using stainless steel wire, which is supplied in your kit. I found a great tutorial video on YouTube that saved me loads of time.

Once you have all your frames wired up, then you place a sheet of wax in each frame. Weaving the wax sheet into 2 or more wires helps keep them in place. This wax and wire should be part of your initial kit.

With a battery charger you can also melt (gently) the wax to the wire. This doesn't take much time at all, and be careful you don't melt all the way through the wax, as it will cut it.

Clip one terminal from the battery charger on one end of the wire and quickly but gently strike the other end. This creates the heat needed to embed the wax to the wire. There are electric embedders out there on the market, but they are very expensive.

Using a battery charger to embed the wax to the wire.

Once you have all your frames built, wired and waxed you can then put them in the hive.
I've found it handy to number each frame, as you have something to refer to when making notes each time you enter the hive.

Store your hive indoors or in the shed until you get your bees, this will prevent a wild swarm taking over your fresh new hive. It's unlikely that this will happen, but prevention is better than cure. 

Some people collect bees this way, even adding a queen pheromone to the 'bait hive' to attract a swarm. But 'collecting' bees in this manner doesn't guarantee you of a disease free hive of bees. It's far better to buy your bees from a reputable beekeeper like Chris. 

It's important to decide exactly where your bees are going to be in your yard. 

Because once you place them, it's very difficult to move them and can take months. 

I was told that East Facing is particularly important too.

It's handy to know that you may have trouble with a Varroa Mite that likes to hide up in your hive. Apparently the bees toss the mite out of the hive every chance they get, but the mite just climbs back up into the hive. Nasty chemicals are often used to stop this from happening.

If I ever get mite in my hives...I have employed my chickens to help with this problem. 

I moved the chookpen fence in, but left a step or shelf for the hive to sit on. It sounds very complicated so a picture helps heaps. You will see from this photo that my chickens have access to beneath the hive. 

You can see here the view from the front of the hive which is accessed by the bees via the chicken pen. If any mite get into my hive, then are kicked out..the cycle wont repeat itself. Win Win for the bees, Win Win for the chickens...and Win Win for me too. Happy bees make more honey!

This photo was taken the morning I picked up my bees. (stay tuned)

Here you can see that I have complete access to the hive without entering the chicken pen. Everybody wins! 

I've been sprinkling a little bit of food there to 'train' them to look for goodies beneath the hive. If I ever get the hive beetle, and the bees toss them out, the chickens will gobble them up in a heartbeat. Ingenious! 

Say hello to Daffy scratching around near the hive. (the photo WAS taken after I introduced the bees)

It's all very exciting!....
Stay tuned for my next post .... Bringing Home the Bees!