Hotham Family Apiary

For the past two weeks, I have been working on a small shack for keeping my beehives in. It has been an interesting and tiring project. When all is said and done, it will be well worth it. Having a shack, or bee house, has several advantages: hives are protected from the weather, theft, and vandalism; the beekeeper can store all his equipment next to the hives; inspections during bad/unfavorable weather is possible. One major disadvantage however is the lack of lighting. The only source of light are the large windows placed at the front of the house. Since my hives are not in my own backyard, but in my in-laws' mini-fruit orchard, having a bee house is convenient. We built it large enough to house 6 hives, which is sufficient for me. I want to enjoy this hobby and not have it turn into another "job". On Sunday, I will pick up 3 nucs, and the Wednesday thereafter I will move the bees from the nuc boxes into the hives. I can't wait! I will also try to post more photos...

Yesterday evening I prepared eighty-eight frames with wax foundation. Of those eighty-eight, two inadvertently became drone frames as the wires became too hot and melted completely through the foundation. In total, I made six drone frames. I also had to break out my box making skills, as I needed something to store the frames in. A note about wax foundation: there are significant differences between American foundations and German foundations. The American foundations can often be ordered "pre-wired", meaning the wire has already been placed in the wax. The German foundations are not wired and need to be "soldered" into the wired frame. The process of wiring the foundation in Germany is pretty easy. You just lay a piece of wax foundation over the wires of the frame, and using electrical terminals, the wires are warmed causing the wax to melt around the wires. In a matter of seconds, the foundation is on the frame! Not too difficult, but if you warm the wires too l...

I've been stung twice now. The first time was two weeks ago. My beekeeping mentor was working with a colony that has a tendency to be a bit agressive. Well, one of the girls decided to sting me right above the left eyebrow. Thankfully, it didn't swell up, but it hurt nonetheless. The second time, was today. My mentor told me to go ahead and open up one of the hives so that we could check for swarm cells. I smoked the colony down a bit, removed the queen excluder and first frame, everything was going fine. The bees weren't even flying around me much, they were just doing their thing in the hive. I took out the second frame, found and removed a couple of play cups, and placed the frame gently back into the hive. Everything going well, slow, but well. Then, on the third frame, I accidently squeezed a bee with my index finger as I was grasping the frame. She didn't approve, and promptly stung me right on the tip of my right index finger. Yowser! I flicked her off, finished ...

What would possess anybody, 39 years of age, with no prior connection to beekeeping whatsoever to just decide one day, "Hey, I want to try out beekeeping!"? Well, that is a justifiable question; but the answer is not as straightforward as some may want to have it. For me, I guess the main trigger was after I viewed a very insightful documentary film entitled " More Than Honey ". It is a film that received rave reviews and for good reason. The film opened my eyes to the dire situation that honey bees (Apis mellifera) are facing and that their demise would be certain doom for humankind. Well, I suppose I just asked myself, "Why can't I take a closer look into this whole backyard beekeeping business?"So that is what I did. I began by looking up videos online. YouTube has a lot of videos showing how to start out with your own bees. Unfortunately, not all of these videos are particularly helpful when it comes down to learning the basics about bees. I th...